Dear Marian, Dear Hugh: The Maclennan-Engel Correspondence

Pages 31-62

Correspondence 31 April 16, 19561 My dear Miss Passmore: Reading exam papers is a chore I detest, as regulations forbid me to give marks on my halfofEng. 341 until Mr. Dudelc2 has his results. I have been reading papers at the rate of about 1 % per week through the winter. I have just finished yours. Do, therefore, keep it to yourself if I thank you for it. It is not only wise, but intelligent & superbly written. You have feeling, understanding & command of words. Sincerefy, Hugh MacLennan Thursday' Dear Miss Passmore: Re your writing: I mentioned that the day before I went over your piece with you I myself had written an essay which the next morning had seemed flat and confused. I also mentioned that I had re-written it and made it good. But when I got home that night and re-read it, I found out that not only was it not good, it was considerably worse than it had been before. Now I'm doing it all over again. And that, Miss Passmore, is what a writer's life is like. So don't concern yourself with passing disappointments if what you have felt was good turns out to be less so on a re-reading. To some extent you 1. Italics here and elsewhere indicate a handwritten, as opposed to typed, letter. 2. Louis Dudek, fellow writer and instructor at McGill. Dudek's selected poems Infinite Worlds: The Poetry of Louis Dudek was published by Vehicule Press in 1988. 3. No date, but from same end of term. 32 Dear Marian, Dear Hugh are the victim of a rapid mind which sees things from more sides than one. When one side dominated, you stress that—and leave out the countervailing force of the other. Ultimately the balance is achieved. One of the main reasons why Milton was an inferior prose writer to Walton was that Milton was an infinitely abler and more complex man.4 Walton was absolutely clear and at ease on one level, but it was the only level he knew. The more levels a writer possesses, the harder it is for him to write. The more complex the operations of a mind, the greater the strain on the writer'stechnical equipment . So don't worry. Whether you like it that wayor not, you're stuck with yourself. When you are at ease and flowing down the right channel, you write exceedingly well. Sincerely, Hugh MacLennan As from North Hatley, P.Q.5 June 19, 1956 Dear MarianPassmore: It was good to have your letter and the kind words about TWO SOLITUDES.6 Approximately at the time I received it, I was attending the Royal Society's7 1956 meetings and listened to three papers on Canadian 4. John Milton (1608-1674), British author of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Izaak Walton (1593-1683), known chiefly for The Compleat Angler (1653). 5. Because this, and some other letters, was written on McGill University letterhead. The MacLennan summer home was in North Hatley, located in Quebec's Eastern Townships , south of Montreal. 6. MacLennan tended to capitalize rather than underline titles in his letters to Engel. 7. The Royal Society of Canada, founded in 1882,was the first Canadian learned society to promote "Literature and Science within the Dominion," and the advancement of learning and research. At the time of its inception,the Society'sannual meetings and its publication, Transactions, which carried a selection of the most significant addresses of the meetings, became a vital forum for scholars to report their findings. Correspondence 33 literature, one after the other, by Pacey,8 Northrop Fry9 [sic] and Roy Daniells10 of B.C. Fry was good, Daniells careless, but Pacey's effort struck me as one of the most singular exercises in complacency and conceit I have listened to in some time. He simply doesn't know what he is talking about, but because he is a professor and has written the only over-all book on the subject," he is probably quoted more by other professors than anyone else in the land. Since you're contemplating work in the field, I suppose I should tell you his view. Roughly, it's this. He declares that Canadian literature had three brief, small peaks. The first was in 1893, the second in 1923 and the third in 1943. The reason for the third, if I remember rightly...