In November came a letter from Mr. Stedman:
137 West 78th St.,
New York.
My dearest Friend beyond Seas,
For this in truth you now are. An older poet and comrade than you once held that place in my thoughts, but Time and Work have somehow laid the sword between us—and neither of us is to blame. I never so well obeyed Emerson’s advice to recruit our friendship (as we grow older) as when I won, I scarcely know how or why, your unswerving and ever increasing affection. In truth, again, it has been of the greatest service to me, during the most trying portion of my life—the period in which you have given me so much warmth and air—and never has it been of more worth than now you might well think otherwise.
My birthday began for me with the “Sharp Number” of The Chapbook. I don’t know what fact of it gave me the more pleasure (it came at a time when I had a-plenty to worry me)—the beautiful autographic tribute to myself or the honour justly paid to my dear Esquire-at-arms, whose superb portrait is the envy of our less fortunate Yankee-torydons. The last five years have placed you so well to the front, on both sides of the Atlantic, that I can receive no more satisfying tributes than those which you have given me before the world. I feel, too, that it is only during these years that you have come to your full literary strength, there is nothing which the author of your “Ballads” and of “Vistas” cannot do.
It is a noteworthy fact which you will be glad to hear, that your letter lay by my plate, when I came down to breakfast on the morning of October the eight! The stars in their courses must be in league with you....
Mrs. Stedman sends her love, and says that your portrait is that of a man grown handsomer, and, she trusts, more discreet and ascetic! The month and this letter are now ending with midnight.
Ever affectionately yours
Edmund C. Stedman.