P. S. The chamber-maid on our corridor wears blue checked gingham
aprons. I am going to get her some brown ones instead, and sink the
blue ones in the bottom of the lake. I have a reminiscent chill
every time I look at them.
November 17th.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
Such a blight has fallen over my literary career. I don’t know
whether to tell you or not, but I would like some sympathy--silent
sympathy, please; don’t reopen the wound by referring to it in your
next letter.
I’ve been writing a book, all last winter in the evenings, and all
summer when I wasn’t teaching Latin to my two stupid children.
I just finished it before college opened and sent it to a publisher.
He kept it two months, and I was certain he was going to take it;
but yesterday morning an express parcel came (thirty cents due) and
there it was back again with a letter from the publisher, a very
nice, fatherly letter--but frank! He said he saw from the address
that I was still in college, and if I would accept some advice, he
would suggest that I put all of my energy into my lessons and wait
until I graduated before beginning to write. He enclosed his
reader’s opinion. Here it is:
“Plot highly improbable. Characterization exaggerated. Conversation
unnatural. A good deal of humor but not always in the best of taste.
Tell her to keep on trying, and in time she may produce a real
book.”
Not on the whole flattering, is it, Daddy? And I thought I was
making a notable addition to American literature, I did truly. I was
planning to surprise you by writing a great novel before I
graduated. I collected the material for it while I was at Julia’s
last Christmas. But I dare say the editor is right. Probably two
weeks was not enough in which to observe the manners and customs of
a great city.
I took it walking with me yesterday afternoon, and when I came to
the gas house, I went in and asked the engineer if I might borrow
his furnace. He politely opened the door, and with my own hands I
chucked it in. I felt as though I had cremated my only child!
I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never
going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your money
for nothing. But what do you think? I woke up this morning with a
beautiful new plot in my head, and I’ve been going about all day
planning my characters, just as happy as I could be. No one can ever
accuse me of being a pessimist! If I had a husband and twelve
children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I’d bob up smilingly
the next morning and commence to look for another set.
Affectionately,