I have heard them all, and of the three elemental voices, that of ocean is the most awesome, beautiful, and varied. …The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. And now I would very much love to spend some time on Cape Cod. I loved learning more about the life of Henry Beston. Unfortunately, although his little house withstood many storms and an everchanging coastline (it was moved inland twice to preserve it), the severe winter storms of 1978 washed it out to sea.

His book was instrumental in, or inspired, the establishment of Cape Cod as a National Seashore in 1961. I slowed myself down from the busy-ness of the holidays so that I could read it word by word and enjoy the beauty of those words chosen so eloquently to bring to life a sense of place. As I read it I could hear the waves, I could picture the shore birds, I could feel the wind and the storms. The Outermost House is a memoir of that year of solitude and his observations and descriptions of that “elemental” area that bring it to life for the reader. Those few weeks turned into a year of solitude and writing. When it was finished, he went out to stay for a few weeks. He called it “the fo’castle.” It was built near Eastham, on the outermost spit of land against the Atlantic Ocean. He spent a great deal of time on Cape Cod, and in 1925, he drew up the design for a small getaway cottage for writing. After the war, he began a writing career. Henry Beston served as an ambulance driver during World War I.

After forty-five years, I just reread it and found it even more beautifully written than I remembered. admired him and his beautiful little book, The Outermost House. Then I had to track down his book, read it, and finally understand more fully why A.M.L.

I took a trip to the library to find out who he was and what he wrote. In those days there was no Google to instantly look him up. In my reading notebook from long ago, on a page with notes I took while reading a book by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, there’s a sentence I wrote down that says, “Who is Henry Beston?” I love discovering new-to-me authors by finding references to them from other authors.

The outermost house book