y and deliberately you prefer an
exotic, useless, purposeless, parasitic existence to the normal,
wholesome life we happily planned. But you are obsessed,
intoxicated--I can't put it any better--and nothing but a shock will
sober you. If I'm wrong, if love and Bill's companionship can't lure
you away from these other things--why, I suppose you will consider it
an ended chapter. In that case you will not suffer. The situation as
it stands will be a relief to you. If, on the other hand, it's merely
a stubborn streak, that won't let you admit that you've carried your
proud little head on an over-stiff neck, do you think it's worth the
price? I don't. I'm not scolding, little person. I'm sick and sore
at the pass we've come to. No damn-fool pride can close my eyes to the
fact or keep me from admitting freely that I love you just as much and
want you as longingly as I did the day I put you aboard the _Stanley
D._ at Bella Coola. I thought you were stepping gladly out of my life
then. And I let you go freely and without anything but a dumb protest
against fate, because it was your wish. I can step out of your life
again--if it is your wish. But I can't imprison myself in your cities.
I can't pretend, even for your sake, to play the game they call
business. I'm neither an idler nor can I become a legalized buccaneer.
I have nothing but contempt for those who are. Mind you, this is not
so sweeping a statement as it sounds. No one has a keener appreciation
of what civilization means than I. Out of it has arisen culture and
knowledge, much of what should make the world a better place for us
all. But somehow this doesn't apply to the mass, and particularly not
to the circles we invaded in Granville. With here and there a solitary
exception that class is hopeless in its smug self-satisfaction--its
narrowness of outlook, and unblushing exploitation of the less
fortunate, repels me.

And to dabble my hands in their muck, to settle down and live my life
according to their bourgeois standards, to have grossness of soft flesh
replace able sinews, to submerge mentality in favor of a specious
craftiness of mind which passes in the "city" for brains--well, I'm on
the road. And, oh, girl, girl, I wish you were with me.

I must explain this mining deal--that phase of it which sent me on the
rampage in Granville. I should have done so before, should have
insisted on making it clear to you. But a fellow doesn't always do