11.
1923:
Matlock, Man. July 17,
1923
Dear Mr. Phelps,
I'm going here to put you up against the task which constitutes
my daily labor: reading my pencil writing. For that is the
only work I do at present: every morning I read some 5 or
6 pages of a penciled ms., sitting either in the car or in
a folding chair, reclining like Mr. Lund.
As for your suggestions: I have no ms. of the turn of the
year here so I cannot judge of the "Small Stuff" - but quite
likely I'll adapt all that. Also, I shall strike out that
first page of personifications, in fact, I should have done
so before this: you may remember that with the original ms.
that page formed part of the thaw-up. Then I eliminated it.
Bu the only person who, apart from publishers, had read the
new ms. cried out and protested. So I hit upon the expedient
of putting it in front as a kind of motto . With regard to
the Storm in July , I don't know: that is my oldest piece
of "nature" writing - (1909). I hate to touch it, but I'll
see when the proofs come along.
The Pioneers . I'm most awfully glad you react to that.
I am rather "taken" with it myself. The original plan, of
course, is all upset by my endeavors to cut down. However,
even as it seems to shape now, there will be three short
volumes of 50 pages each. I have just finished remodeling
for the typewriter part 2 of volume 1, and I estimate it
at 115 typed (not printed) pages - which have been 600 to
700 pgs. Yet, I begin to think that what it loses in bulk,
it gains in directness.
As it is, the most fundamental change in plan consists of
this, that the "settlement" part extends evenly through the
three volumes. The cutting down is chiefly at the cost of
Niels' inner life: much more is purely adumbrated than elaborated;
and in order to restore the balance, the treatment of the
settlement is extended in time instead of in space. That
is, as the Lunds, Sigurdson, and others disappear, new settlers
take their places as their successors. For, after all, it
is the settlement, not Niels Lindstedt that is the hero of
the whole.
As for the Search - I wonder. The thing is infinitely far
away from my present interests.
What did you think of the 3 "Vignettes"? Pages nearly literally
lifted out of the old ms. of the Pioneers. To me that whole
book - The Turn of the Year - has become an incongruity - a laux
satura - I don't know what. But I do like Vignette no
3 . I can't but feel a little amused.
Those things, The Prairie Trails, and the new book impress
me at the youthful sins of a budding writer to be looked
at with a great deal of benevolence . Please: for the sake
of what may follow, show them that benevolence. If the publishers
don't make on them, they'll never bring the Pioneers; and
my ant book will remain ineditum .
As for my health, it is none for good. For a week I have
been unable to move about without assistance. I have repeatedly
been wishing for my crutches. However, I was in the water
to-day, but I was unable to run the car to town for our mail,
so Mrs. Grove walked in - an heroic feat in this sweltering
heat - to fetch your letter. We're about 3 miles South of
Matlock.
There is no typewriter to be had here in camp: we live in
tents, you know. So further installments of the Pioneers
will not be in typed before September. I told you before
I sent you that beginning it could be an unsatisfactory business
reading it. But somehow, being myself rather taken with it - in
reading it, I often, "melt by my own cards" - and being continually
assailed by doubts, I had to have somebody else's opinion
on it before I could proceed.
Well, but enough of this prattle of an "invalid old man" who
sits by himself on the beach all day and thereby gets to
be talkative.
Yours,
F.P.G.
