7. 1923:
Rapid City, Man. June 2, 1923
Dear Mr. Phelps,
The truth of the matter is that for many, many years I have
never had anybody with whom I could talk about my peculiar
problems and difficulties.
With regard to the Pioneers I am sometimes completely at sea.
If I had a complete Ms., I should ask you to read it. But
I haven’t. Still, you have been so good to me in many
ways, that I have almost a mind to send you anyway what I
have got typed out, that is, about two thirds of the first
part. I won’t get much more done before the holidays;
and those holidays I need, for my nerves are going to pieces
in the examination grind of my school.
Now, this is the situation, at present, with regard to the
pioneers. I do not see how I can cut that thing down to the
point where it will make a single volume of three hundred
pages or so. So I have half made up my mind to let it go as
if it consisted of three separate stories: it was planned
for three separate parts. The way I am remodeling it now,
each part would make a volume of three hundred pages. That
means that I am cutting the original plan down to about half.
I don’t know but that the whole is gaining in unity
and power. It is no longer éparpillé –
if you know what I mean. There is a straight line in it. Nevertheless,
it still swarms with figures, some of them elaborated, some
merely adumbrated.
What I am quite doubtful about, is whether these figures are
alive. Whether, as they are given, they shadow forth this
country. The third part takes in the years of the Great War:
seen from the pioneer country, of course, which it hardly
touches in realities.
I must also say that the present form is only the second modeling;
there is, in this, no attention paid as yet to style or expression.
Much is, in words, no doubt quite crude. Much also, in conception;
of the crudeness that I find in the Search. But the Search
has grown too far away from me. And all attempts at remodeling
it have resulted in roiling the stream. It, too, the way you
know it, has been cut down to about half its original volume.
I have typed that Ms. over at least half a dozen times; and
in the standpoint (with regard to time) from which things
are seen, it has resulted in a chaos which I feel unable to
straighten out. Now I do not want to have the same thing happen
to the Pioneers. But, of course, I shall make the traditional
three drafts; this is the second. In the third, I shall attend
to the writing part of it. So far, I am still concerned with
the psychology. I am afraid, it is an awful thing to do to
ask anybody to read what is in that shape. But you, as I said,
have been so kind to me in that respect, that I have almost
a mind to ask you to read that fragment which is typed. I
shall be in the Rockies during the summer holidays, and so
I can not even finish the typing of the first part this spring.
I have only two copies. Only in what for the moment I consider
the final form do I make more in getting a clean copy.
If you don’t think this is imposing on you, please let
me know, and I shall send you one of the copies. If then you
would give me your impression of it: I mean as to the alive-ness
of the characters, I should be able to plan this way or that
way accordingly. Possibly, if you disapprove, I might make
up my mind to lay the whole thing aside for the present, and
to take it up again a few years hence, provided I live.
Yours.
F.P.G.
