I've been too ill all the week to write you of your manuscripts, or
even read them understandingly.
I think "Honest Andrew's Prayer" far and away the best. _It_ is
witty--the others hardly more than earnest, and not, in my judgment,
altogether fair. But then you know you and I would hardly be likely
to agree on a point of that kind,--I refuse my sympathies in some
directions where I extend my sympathy--if that is intelligible. You, I
think, have broader sympathies than mine--are not only sorry for the
Homestead strikers (for example) but approve them. I do not. But we
are one in detesting their oppressor, the smug-wump, Carnegie.
If you had not sent "Honest Andrew's Prayer" elsewhere I should try to
place it here. It is so good that I hope to see it in print. If it is
rejected please let me have it again if the incident is not then
ancient history.
I'm glad you like some things in my book. But you should not condemn
me for debasing my poetry with abuse; you should commend me for
elevating my abuse with a little poetry, here and there. I am not a
poet, but an abuser--that makes all the difference. It is "how you
look at it."
But I'm still too ill to write. With best regards to all your family,
I am sincerely yours,