144.
1930:
Ottawa, Ont. April 27,
1930
Still in bed, but somewhat
less full of pains.
My dear A.L.P.,
There are still a few points untouched on. I've been thinking
since I've been in bed.
(1) I don't think you can get $2500 for the cottage; but
there is no harm in trying. I think you can get $2000.
(2) "Hell, I have neither a mission nor an ego," you say.
Don't talk nonsense. Because you stand side by side with
Kirk, you feel overshadowed.
Now listen here: there's a little world full of facts which
is explorable and K. has explored an amazing fraction of
it. But .
This plane world of facts is surrounded by a whole sphere
of obscure and chaotic significances of which he knows nothing.
I've tested him. He has never comprehended that there is
an essential difference, let me say, between Baudelaire and
Verlaine, beyond the differences in subject matter, technique,
etc. etc. He is a most valuable chap; but he has very narrow
limitations. That's why it's so easy for him to keep his
world in order. But a world in order is necessarily an incomplete
world.
Now yours is a wider world - a world which embraces chars. - an
uncharted sea in which order will never prevail outside of
an artificial creation - a work of art which consciously
excludes perception of whole, vast, seething nebulas. You
find it difficult to map out your share of the world of undefined
significances. If you did not, it would argue your limitations.
"Why you should publish anything?" I'll tell you: because
it is just now, more important that a consciousness of unexplored
caverns be even hinted at than that a known world be mapped
ever so accurately - you may deny that you can do that. I
know that you can't help doing it whether you want to or
not: provided you speak at all: for you, there is only one
sin: to keep silent. Whether K. and I write a book more or
less matters little; but it matters much, in this Canada,
that, so far, you have no utterance in print.
Now will you be good? This is my carefully considered opinion:
cleanse yourself of sin!
P.
