40.
1925:
Rapid City, Man. Febuary 17, 1925
Dear Phelps,
In looking over the MS. of the "Pioneers" which I found
here waiting for me and comparing the notes which I took
with you last Tuesday afternoon, I found that all but 2 of
your objections had already been anticipated in the last
version.
The more I think about the Unheroic North, the more I am
inclined to expect great things from its author if he is
a young man . If these are the mere cotyledons of a plant,
its foliage leaves may be very beautiful. But he must get
rid of the note of protest which is in all four plays, but
especially strong in the first, Brother-in Arms. I could
wish to see all literary allusions deleted. It might, then,
be pure farce.
I have little to say in favor of "Cattle": it is brutal,
chaotic; the chief character is incomprehensible as it stands.
We are asked to accept a monstrosity on the author's say-so.
Can't be done. We decline the thing. It is distinctively
not literature. + Nettie's action after the rape is psychologically
impossible. No girl, broken by violence, would submit that
way. She would leave the ranch at once; go anywhere; she
could tell Cyril all and throw herself on his mercy. The
solution depends on mere silly chance. No, I regret the book.
So, by the way, does Mrs. Grove. Mrs. Grove has just finished
to book. She says, "There is nothing done in it. And wherever
a problem presented itself, it is evaded." That is gutting
it more sharply than I had done.
As for Penguin Island , I am reveling in its quaintness.
I have not yet read far into it. I know only 2 books in which
any kind of a conception of God as a personality is bearable:
Goethe's Faust and his book with its delicate self-persiflage.
Having finished it now, I am astonished to find that it
is really a history of France , down to such trifles as the
Dreyfus - affair (Pyrot). It is marvelously well done.
I am all right after my trip. But I have "the blues" with
regard to the new novel (or the old one which I am trying
to revise).
Yours,
F.P.G.
I am returning both books.
