Free Steinbeck by John Steinbeck

which are simply matters of opinion and tore up some of the nicest writing I have ever done. Such things reassure one in the matter of believing critics.
    I wish you could see Aqua and Vita. They are very very charming. Read 25 by Beverly Nichols last night and am still a little sick.
    Sincerely
John

To George Albee
    Pacific Grove
(1931)
    Dear George:
    It has rained a great deal. Now it is Monday morning, and, after a Sunday of dissipation I am faced with work. It’s a gray morning. There is only the key story to do. Here is a nice and appropriate thing. The ducks were mallard—green irridescent heads, russet of breast—pale blue wings and orange feet, beautiful birds. But they muddied the pond and pulled up lobelias. Also I was flat broke and had no way of finishing my ms. So I sold the ducks to buy paper for the stories. I wish the stories were as beautiful as the ducks.
    Yesterday we indulged in the only luxury in months. We bought and charged a chess board and pieces. Two dollars. It will eat up the winter evenings.
    One thing I am sorry for. These stories will go out without any expert reading. I wanted Miss McIntosh to read them, but I can’t get to Palo Alto and she can’t come here yet and I can’t wait. I have too many stories to write. Queer about this rush—isn’t it? It’s as though I knew my days are limited.
    There—it’s raining again. Our garden is most charming in the rain. To get back to ms. Sometimes I think these stories are very fine. There’s material for ten novels in these stories. That was the method, you remember. In the last story of thirty pages I covered three generations. You can see how packed they must be. I should send them to you and to Duke if I had time. I’m fairly convinced that I can’t get a publisher for them. They make too much use of the reader and readers don’t like to be used.
    I guess I’ll go back to the Unknown God. That title will have to be changed. Because the story will be cut to pieces and the pieces refitted and changed. It won’t be much the same story.
    There is no companionship of any kind here. Carol and I are marooned. This is probably a good thing. I throw myself into work. How are monies? Our poverty is tiresome, but I can see no change in it. Only work. I must cut down two trees for fire wood and that will take some time.
    Sincerely
John

To Amasa Miller
    [Pacific Grove]
[December 1931]
    Dear Ted:
    After the silence of ages, I have three letters from you all on the same day: To you I say Merry Christmas and Happy 1932. I found several things in your letters which were very amusing. The first is the complete belief of M. and O. that I conceal masterpieces. I have written to them denying this. In the south I have a friend who harbors an immense admiration for my work in spite of the fact that he has seen very little of it [George Albee]. He wrote to them telling them about my bales of mss. and they demanded it. I sent them all I had which they, with great dispatch, sent back to me. I am concealing nothing except a few little things too dirty to print and some stories written for Toby Street’s kids. You see I took two years to write the Cup, a year and a half to write the Unknown God. In the last year and a half I have written the Dissonant Symphony, the detective story, six short stories, part of a novel that is too huge for me just now and The Pastures of Heaven. About a hundred and seventy-five thousand finished words since the end of the Unknown God. Where then are the masterpieces? Before the Cup, the stories are so feeble and childish that I destroyed them all as a matter of course. If you should see them again please tell them that the things they are seeing are really the best I can do. If there’s nothing in them then there’s nothing in me and they’d better give me up as a “writer”.
    The Pastures of Heaven I sent off last Saturday. It should be there by the time