[CHAPTER XI]
The American background is America. If there is to be a new world Europe must not invade us. It is not a matter of changing the y to i as in Chile. They are bound.
The background of America is not Europe but America.
Eh bien mon vieux coco, this stuff that you have been writing today, do you mean that you are attempting to set down the American background? You will go mad. Why? Because you are trying to do nothing at all. The American background? It is Europe. It can be nothing else. Your very method proves what I say. You have no notion what you are going to write from one word to the other. It is madness. You call this the background of American life? Madness?
As far as I have gone it is accurate.
It is painting the wind.
Ah, that would be something.
Mais ça, are you a plain imbecile? That is a game for children. Why do you not do as so many of your good writers do? Your Edgar Lee Masters, your Winesburg, Ohio. Have you not seen the photographs of men and women on your walls? They are a type, as distinct as a Frenchman or a German. Study these men, know their lives. You have a real work to do, you have the talent, the opportunity even. This is your work in life. You Americans, you are wasteful, mad—
Our background.