154.
1931:
Cummings Bridge, Ont. February 15,
1931
My Dear,
I'm glad you like the book, on the whole. There it is, unchangeable
apart from the fact that I'll simply leave out the last chapter
and insert one sentence.
As for the end, it was a make-shift. The first 7 drafts
had a radically different ending which began to seem violent
to me. As it stands, this version differs from the last one
in being 40 000 words shorter - by the length of a short
novel shorter. The whole thing had to be recast and retyped
in 3 weeks - that explains the let-down of which nobody is
more conscious than I. I angled you were "brutal": it gives
me the courage to let the book go as what I consider a fragment.
If you object to this way out, please send me a wire, collect,
care Graphic.
You know I am a publisher's reader again, pure and simple.
That keeps me scrapping for daily bread. Incidentally, in
my spare leisure hours, I am toying and planning to work
up the material I have for a 2 nd vol. of the Search.
Spalding is going to be printed by myself; I shall send
copies to the various publishers if I can find such.
Did you read the 8-page review of The Yoke in the January
Dalhousie review? It's the first review of any book of mine
(by an outsider) which goes behind the story, reaching for
the intentions of the author and finding them. I was delighted
with it.
I wish I could get the reviewer's reaction to Spalding;
but there is no time. The shifting suggestions you make I
have all adopted except 2 where I don't agree with you. I
shall send you a copy of the last 2 versions before the final
one.
If the book ever amounts to anything, you may be glad to
have them.
Altogether, I feel homeless now, having put Spalding definitely
aside. Yesterday was my birthday, #59.
Gradually the conclusion is being forced on us that C.,
after all, will not be the same again, after the birth. For
a week we ha a nurse out. Now we have a maid again; but C.
feels fagged, always; and she complains about all sorts of
pains. She also had, for the first time in her life, to have
a great deal of dentistry done. We were afraid of a bill
of $150. But, Latin, the dentist heard me lecture - and charged
$25, asking C. how she liked poverty. Her answer was that
she had never minded it when it had to be borne for the sake
of an achievement. He laughed.
Well, that's that.
Thanks for the dispatch with which you acted.
Hope you all are well?
As ever,
F.P.G.
