4. 1923:
Rapid City, Man. April 9,
1923
Dear Mr. Phelps,
My visit to Winnipeg has profoundly unsettled me. Instead of
setting my mind back on the work in hand of teaching my school,
it (the mind) runs almost imperatively on the big novel now.
I cannot yet quite recover from the impression that there must
be a mistake somewhere, I mean, in the valuation put upon my
poor little efforts as a writer. I had, of course, again to go
back to the Drives. But I did not have any better success than
before. I have reread part of the summer-showers, that part which
has been worked over anew. And it seems to me that it is much
better than anything I can find in the Drives. However, I am
at sea.
I should like to say a word about the "Pioneers". This is the
plan. A recent immigrant of quite a different kind from Phil
Brandon (In "The Search for America") settles in the country
of the Drives. There the life of no less than 27 settlers with
their families unfolds itself to him and to the reader: every
available type of pioneer-settler. All these have their individual
lives; and the book is to flow like a broad stream. That is the
first part (entitled "The Settlement"). It ends with the breaking-up
of a strangely unreal, exceedingly delicate love-affair between
the hero and a Swedish girl.
Then follows the second part "The White Range Line House". This
is the story of the hero in his aberration: the hero in the tangle
into which lust has thrown him. The story narrows down to this
one individual destiny. It ends with a murder; and the hero goes
to jail, for ten years.
The Third part which I call so far "Male and Female" takes up
the thread of all those many lives that were submerged in part
two; and it brings the hero to haven by re-knitting that first
bond of love.
Each part will when finished be at least 150000 words, probably
more; and there is nothing to it, I cannot cut down.
Now this is what is troubling me at present. Mrs. Grove who
is familiar with the plan and also, from frequent partial unfoldings,
with the characters involved, urges me to stop teaching. She
wants to assume the responsibility for the daily bread. She feels
that that novel should be finished: which will take another one
to two years. I begin to feel sure that, if I can make out of
it what I dream of it, then it will be one of the great books.
But shall I be able to do so? And if I should be able to do it,
should I be able to publish? I suppose it is all nonsense to
bother you. I must say, the whole thing is so alive in me now
that I fear I am casting aside a revelation if I refuse to listen
to the tempter. A work of the bulk of "War and Peace": and I
seem to hold it in the hollow of my hand. I see every detail;
and to leave a single one out seems sacrilege. But there it lies
in the draft: nothing finished, nothing in the final shape. That
vast crowd of the pioneer settlements which nobody really knows.
The slums of the open country. I do not know what to do.
And now there is another push coming: the town here is in financial
difficulties. It is likely that they will close the High School
down. That means moving. Shall we move to the country? Am I justified
in accepting my wife's offer? I don't know. Is there anything
in me? I could almost wish I had never written a line.
Don't think that I want you to solve my difficulties for me.
But I have to talk about them. It is largely you who has brought
them on, so I tell you about them. Others, however, have done
their share. I am completely bewildered. I wish I had not gone
to Winnipeg. I led such a quiet life. Now I am in a maelstrom
of doubts. One moment I think I must again take up my cross and
bring forth this novel with which all my thoughts seem pregnant.
The other things, the Nature-things, The Search for America,
are mere trifles as compared with this. And again, there is that
multitude crying to me: lift us out of the abyss in which we
are perishing: give us a tongue so that we may speak. Open the
eyes of others so that they see us. And the next moment I feel
afraid of tackling the task. In those few days this book has,
for me, taken on the dimensions of the Ant-book. I don't mean
the dimensions of measurement; for it will be much bigger if
it ever is finished. But it stands on the same plane of importance.
I thought I was through inventing; I thought all that was left
for me to do was to bring out what I have written. But this thing
grips me; it grips me again as the Ant-book gripped me when I
had my first revelation of its bearing and aim. I cannot sleep
any longer; I am planning and thinking all the time. And to think
that I might give a year or two years to it and then it would
stand there; it is almost too much to bear.
Mrs. Grove is reading Winesburg, so I keep it a few days longer.
I find much in it that I have dreamt of. It is a better book
than I thought it was when I spoke to you last. But it seems
to me, it has not reached the point of development which would
make it one of the lasting books. It is new for America; but
it is not new for the world.
As for your poems, I have not looked into the booklet. I am
too much upset just now.
Yours,
F.P. Grove
