I'm off to Broadway next week for a season of old-gentlemanly revelry.
Washington, D. C.,
May 2,
1911.
Dear George,
In packing (I'm going to New York) I find this "Tidal" typoscript, and fear that I was to have returned it. Pray God it was not my neglect to do so that kept it out of the book. But if not, what did keep it out? Maybe the fact that it requires in the reader an uncommon acquaintance with the Scriptures.
If Robertson publishes any more books for you don't let him use "silver" leaf on the cover. It is not silver, cannot be neatly put on, and will come off. The "Wine" book is incomparably better and more tasteful than either of the others. By the way, I stick to my liking for Scheff's little vignette on the "Wine."
In "Duandon" you—you, Poet of the Heavens!—come perilously near to qualifying yourself for "mention" in a certain essay of mine on the blunders of writers and artists in matters lunar. You must have observed that immediately after the full o' the moon the light of that orb takes on a redness, and when it rises after dark is hardly a "towering glory," nor a "frozen splendor." Its "web" is not "silver." In truth, the gibbous moon, rising, has something of menace in its suggestion. Even twenty-four (or rather twenty-five) hours "after the full" this change in the quality and quantity of its light is very marked. I don't know what causes the sudden alteration, but it has always impressed me.
I feel a little like signing this criticism "Gradgrind," but anyhow it may amuse you.
Do you mind squandering ten cents and a postage stamp on me? I want a copy of Town Talk—the one in which you are a "Varied Type."
I don't know much of some of your poets mentioned in that article, but could wish that you had said a word about Edith Thomas. Thank you for your too generous mention of me—who brought you so much vilification!