18.
1923:
Rapid City, Man. October 17,
1923
Dear Mr. Phelps,
Your letter came. To answer the questions first: The Ms.
of the Search which you have is the "abridged version", cut
down to about half its original volume. I don't think I have
a complete Ms. left anywhere here. Some publisher has one
which was never returned to me. But who? I myself have the
tendency to burn manuscripts. I remember distinctly the Mrs.
Grove saved the one you have. In my present mood I cannot
help saying that I am sorry she did. As for the Pioneers,
I have a typescript now up to Chapter 1 of book II; that
is, about 100 pages beyond what I have sent you.
I don't know just what to say. I don't know whether to say
anything at all. I have been at a standstill for a month.
I am absolutely despondent. As far as I am a writer, I wish
I could commit suicide: by some such process as withdrawing
my previous work from the public. There are probably many
reasons for that, possibly one is my health. I simply dread
the coming out of the Turn of the Year.
As for the Pioneers I should not care to go on with it,
except for financial purposes, unless I could feel that not
to do so would be a loss for Canada . For a moment, after
reading your letter, I was inclined to say, It is unavoidable
that there should be flat areas in it: I have done so much
bridging, lifting whole "milieus" out bodily and replacing
them by some "darning", that it could not be otherwise. Parts
of what I eliminated would make another book if I cared to
write it. So as not to be tempted to do so I burned the greater
part of the original manuscript while I was in camp: where
Mrs. Grove would not interfere. The present manuscript as
you know it, is a first attempt to bring coherence into patchwork.
If I knew what the flat areas are, I could possibly bring
relief into them. I myself am floating at sea; I have no
survey over the thing. I have been trying to condense fifty
years of Canadian agricultural history into this book. I
have been trying to weave human destinies together into one
tissue of lives, fifty of them, of thereabouts. It has been
an unbroken labour of six years or so. For even when I was
not actually at work writing I have done nothing - of any
consequence - during that time beyond planning this book,
trying to build it into something real, something that would
stand for all times. Apparently I have failed. I can't get
the spirit back. When I wrote that Ellen chapter, or rather
when I rewrote it in its present form, there was nothing
that could have held me: I was bound to put that outside
of myself. I must say that I cannot now read that without
breaking down. Quite by chance I read parts of it this very
morning before going to the day's weary work. I sat in my
easy chair, nursing my rheumatism, and there was nothing
else within reach. So, to get rid of my depression I took
it up and read Ellen's refusal. Whenever I do, I go to pieces.
But perhaps others don't. And if they don't, then the book
is worthless. Then I read into it what I should have written
into it. As I am fully convinced, after having undergone
the oppressive, the depressing ordeal of reading the proofs
of the The Turn of the Year, I have all the time thought
there was in it what does not come out of it. In the case
of the Pioneers: if the thing is not self-explanatory: if
it does not run as the river runs: for us to look on and
to marvel at: not for us to question the why and the wherefore:
then I do not want any of it: I am tired of mere books. I
want life in a book: some corner of life, it is true; but
life is indivisible and integral. Niels in his old age says
somewhere, "Whoever is physically able and is not a farmer,
is not wholly a man; that's all there is to it." But perhaps
he is not fully human as he stands in the book. I have wanted
to depict MAN. Just as in Ellen, in spite of everything,
I have wanted to depict WOMAN. The two go together. They
don't want each other any longer. They've got to have each
other, or the book is a mere nothing. It is a mere book.
Of books we have enough, too many; more than is good for
us. As your Mr. Watson said, Over Prairie Trails was a book
. Don't laugh. My little girl, when four years old, was asked
by a caller, "What's your daddy doing? Is he at home?" - "Yes," she
said, "my daddy is writing chapters." The Turn of the Year
is "chapters"; it isn't even a book. And that's the M. & S.'s
fault.
As for the Search, do what you think fit. I won't touch
it again, that's final. But should I give up teaching, as
I likely shall have to, then I may make up my mind to have
another go at the Pioneers: provided I think it worthwhile,
as worth while as I thought it last spring.
But there's enough of my troubles. Pardon me for displaying
them at such length.
Yours,
F.P.G.
If Mrs. Phelps' eyes are very good, I might send you the
other copy - but only if she'll promise not to attempt to
read it by lamp-light.
