134.
1930:
Ottawa, Ont. March 1,
1930
[Graphic Publ. Stationery: note]:
President and Editor, Frederick Philip Grove - also office
boy, shipping clerk, producing manager, treasurer, secretary,
and general roustabout.
My dear A.L.P.,
Got your note a day or two ago, when Mrs. Evans was breaking
bread with us.
I heard golden reports of your lecture down here. It will
not be long before you will be asked to come east and to
address Ottawa , Toronto , etc. And I was told recently that
a lecturer making a success at Ottawa is considered to have "passed
with honors". I wish I could either hear you or read the
address, old boy.
Re the furniture, I believe we have made up our minds not
to bother you. I am being urged boldly to step forward and
petition the goat, for a pension, as Roberts is doing. But
I hesitate because I believe that step should be taken by
my eastern friends some of whom are supposed to be quite
powerful. If anything of the kind comes about, we'll build
us a little shack. If not we'll go west to teach again in
summer 1931 - till then it will be impossible to do so, for
reasons which time will reveal."See, in our sleep she glides
into our dream."
Meanwhile my day, from 9 a.m. till 11 p.m. is taken up with
trivial and inconsequential - and therefore distasteful detail.
I am fairly itching to write.
Was in Toronto recently and gave two addresses - one on "Fiction
Versus Non-Fiction". When I got through, a Prof. Underhill
rose and attacked me. Wallace and Dr. Grant ( Upper Canada
College ) defended me. Pelham Edgar shocked over the attack.
Prof. Auger tried to dose to meeting when Alexander rose
and spoke for ½ hr - beginning, "L. & G. - I don't
know whether you realize that we have just listened to a
tremendous lecture".etc. etc. I just receive a letter - at
this moment, I mean - from a man who signs himself Chauncey
Lacquer (?) - I don't know who he is - who calls that address
of mine "wonderful" - and I have had a dozen or so requests
for the text. But.I wrote it last spring, you know. Dr. Grant
says he has never heard so persistent discussion of any address.
Well, but..
We have Woods worth for supper tonight (I wish it were Wordsworth!)
What do you think of "Here Came a Mortal"?
I wish I could pack up here and leave the East.
No town I have ever been in, not even in Siberia , is as
frightfully ugly as this beastly place. I mean the town,
not its situation. What man made, not what god did.
And the way you are looked up and down - for diamonds and
sinister barbarities - when you do appear at some function - as
the other day when the Gentlemen Usher of the Black Rod boldly
professed himself "directed by the Senate" to invite us to
be present at the opening of Parliament. The most medieval
show I have seen in 38 years.
I have had only one cold - at least if there were more than
one, they have so merged into each other that they make the
impression of a single one, extending, so far, from Dec.
15, 1929 to Mar 1 st 1930. I cough and cough and cannot sleep. - Spoke
to Gerhard the other day: he made $400 in 4 weeks lecturing
in Canada , $14 000 in 4 weeks U.S.A.
Well, I don't know. Hope you are all well?
F.P.G.
