29. 1924:
Rapid City, Man. December 13, 1924
Dear Mr. Phelps,
Let me, first of all, congratulate you +
Mrs. Phelps on the arrival of that daughter. May her life
be light!
Now I am going to write you a long letter. For I am simply
starved for the opportunity to talk to somebody who is not
my wife.
Wife and daughter, by the way, are as well as ever. I am
beginning to feel my 53 years.
You say I have a public. Where is it? I do not notice the
fact in any royalty checks - the 2 volumes have not paid
for costs incurred: typewriter, paper, etc. Nor is it reflected
in the eagerness with which any publishers wish to read the
new Mss. M&S decline before they have seen them.
However, I'm one of the enduring ones, you say.
At any rate, so far I have felt that I have things to say
which should be said. But!...
The other day I counted my completed Mss. - those which
I could send out if I had a public or even a publisher: there
are 14 of them.
A word re: Pioneers. The work as originally planned and
written does no longer exist. Though, on looking through
the drawers that hold my Mss., I find an old typed copy of
part I which I shall send you with my compliments.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time
on recasting that book: it is now an 80,000 word novel (all
three parts in one) which I am fain to disown. An ingenious
publisher who loved the book but could not publish it suggested
the marvelous title 'Twixt Love and Passion'. There are only
2 Mss. in existence, one of them traveling in the U.S.A.
The other is in the hands of Associated Readers of Canada,
Ltd. Mrs. Grove, however, asserts that I have a typed copy
of the last but one draft of the whole thing. I have searched
for it but cannot locate it. If I succeed by Monday in finding
it, I'll send it to you. You must remember, of course, that
the copy is not final. I have always found it very hard to
condense. The first vol. which you know occupies about 80
pages in this recast. Every limb and branch has been lopped
off. And the same has been done with the other two parts.
That experiment was undertaken on the advice of the Macmillan's.
However, 5 publishers only have so far declined to publish
the condensed thing which certainly is not "slow" moving
any longer.
The "Weatherhead Fortunes", as you will speedily see, is
a study of décadence. Décadence - fin du siècle-ism - has,
so far, invariably been attacked by way of artistic temperament.
I have tried to put the thing on earth - the same as I tried,
in the Pioneers, to put the corrupt, sexually hypertrophied
woman of French upper-class novels on the soil . To what
extent I have succeeded I don't know.
I am now engaged in a new novel, in which I am trying to
put the "hero" - that legendary man of the middle ages - among
the things of reality. That novel will be my last, unless
I find a publisher by spring.
To have written more than a dozen books without finding
a publisher - not to say a public that will buy - is enough
even for me. If, as I expect, I shall next spring still be
where I am now, I go back to teaching, and that means that
I stop writing, probably for good.
By the way, to that new novel of mine, the one I'm engaged
on now, I am going to give the enticing sub-title "A story
of the Western Rebellion of 1990."
Well, that's that, as a friend of mine says.
By the way, magazines, too, seem to decline F.P.G.. I have
some 20 short stories circulating. Nobody wants them. They
tell the truth as I see it. They are, I am afraid, too raw
for this age.
Now, in conclusion, let me say, that if I did not think
myself that there is something of value in all these Mss.,
I shouldn't be writing any longer, for I have found it the
most discouraging thing on earth.
No, I have not seen Allison's page. We do not get any paper - for
economy's sake. But I did try to get this one here, locally,
without success. If you could lay your hands on a copy, I'd
appreciate it if you could send me one.
I might shortly be in Winnipeg . I don't know yet. I have
been wishing to go. But the cost has detained me. My current
income amounts to about $60 a year - and for that I've got
to wait till my publishers please to send it.
Now, with regard to the "Weatherhead Fortunes," my question
is the usual one: do those people live?
Thanks, of course, for volunteering.
With best regards,
F.P. Grove
