McCLURE'S
MAGAZINE,
44-60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET,
NEW YORK.
[Number 5 Bank
Street](000351)
New
York
February 23, 1913
Dear Aunt Franc:
It has been a long while since I got your good letter, but this has been a
busy fall and winter for me. I have just finished a new novel which will be published in the
fall, and I have been doing a great deal of magazine work. Besides these
things, I have had the care of getting settled in a new apartment in
New York. I did not move in to my new flat until the first of January, but I
came on in October from Pittsburgh
and leased the place and moved my furniture in. Then I went back to
Pittsburgh to work on my story in peace and quiet. At last I have an
apartment that is roomy, quiet, and that suits me perfectly. When I came
back in January the first month was given over to paperers and painters and
furniture dealers. I actually had to write an
article for the March number of McClures while the floors were being painted under my feet.
But I have taken a good deal of pleasure in fixing the place up, for it is
exactly the kind of apartment I have always wanted, and I had almost
despaired of ever being able to find one that would suit me for a reasonable
rental. I have the [competent colored
girl](002585) who has been my maid for four years, and she tyrannizes over
me—and makes me very comfortable. I have never before been so
happy and comfortable as I am this winter. Probably one reason is that, for
the first time in several years, I am perfectly well—well enough to
enjoy everything, work and play alike. My office work I have cut exactly in
half, and this gives me much more time to write—and to live, for that
matter. I wish you and Bessie and
Auntie Sister could see my new
flat. What do you think of two open fires, one in the dining room and one in
the sittingroom? McCLURE'S MAGAZINE,
44-60
EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET,
NEW YORK.I have a snug little study
off the sittingroom and a comfortable bedroom and bath, a large dining room
and a good kitchen. Plenty of sunlight in the two front front rooms. I now own four very beautiful Persian rugs, of
which I am very proud.
Yes, my dear Aunt, I know there was a sort of moral flimsiness about "Alexander." But writing is a queer
business. If one does anything that is sharp and keen enough to go over the
line, to get itself with the work that is taken seriously, one has to
have had either an unusual knowledge of or a peculiar sympathy with the
characters one handles. One can't write about what one most admires
always—you must,
be
by
some accident, have seen into your character very deeply, and it
is this accident of intense realization of him that gives your writing about
him tone and distinction, that lifts it above the commonplace, in other
words. Now there are three people, two men and one woman, whom I admire more than I do any other people, and
about whom I feel very strongly. More than once I have tried to put these
people, about whom I feel so keenly, into stories. I assure you, the result
was a blow to pride—the stories, when I had finished them, sounded as
if A. C. Hosmer might have written
them, they were that commonplace. They were just like hundreds of other
stories. Why, you ask? My dear Aunt, I don't
know. I only wish I did! But, to be worth anything, a story must have
a flavor entirely its own. And often one can't reach that point of
differentiation with the subjects one would most love to handle. Maybe
there's a weakness in me that makes me able to handle the weak people better
—I don't know. Alexander has already gone through [two editions](002588) in England, and [the
royalties](002589) are coming up to a nice little figure. The new novel is
twice as long as Alexander and is much, much better. I'm almost sure you
will like the [heroine](004742).
McCLURE'S
MAGAZINE,
44-60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET,
NEW YORK.
Bessie wrote me about G. P.'s hunting
trip. Please congratulate him for me. Elsie is so happy in her teaching. She loves the place and
the work and the people. I am so glad. You were well when Bessie last wrote,
and I hope you are now, my dear Aunt. Your niece would like to drop down for
a day with you before this short month is over. I found such satisfaction in
the time we had together last summer. One of the pleasures of getting
older is that one can get so much nearer to one's own people, and that the
dear ones of them become dearer all the time. I always used to be a little
afraid of my grown-up relatives as a child. I felt as if all of them, even
father, wanted to make me over,
and I didn't want to be made over—oh,
not a bit! It's worth nearing forty to have got rid of all those queer fears
and shynesses that I used to feel with my own people—less with you and
father, I think, than with any of the others,
but still I was always a little nervous. For the last five or six years it
has been such a pleasure to me to go back and find that all gone, to feel
not a bit afraid, and to feel sure that where you did not agree with me you
would give me the benefit of the doubt, and that people can be very fond of
each other even if they cannot always thing
think alike.
With a great, great deal of love to you,
Willie