All right--I only wanted you to be _sure_ about those names of stars;
it would never do to be less than sure.
After all our talk (made by me) I guess that stanza would better stand
as first written. "Clime"--climate--connotes temperature, weather, and
so forth, in ordinary speech, but a poet may make his own definitions,
I suppose, and compel the reader to study them out and accept them.
Your misgiving regarding your inability to reach so high a plane again
as in this poem is amusing, but has an element of the pathetic. It
certainly is a misfortune for a writer to do his _best_ work early;
but I fancy you'd better trust your genius and do its bidding whenever
the monkey chooses to bite. "The Lord will provide." Of course you
have read Stockton's story "His Wife's Deceased Sister." But Stockton
gets on very well, despite "The Lady or the Tiger." I've a notion that
you'll find other tragedies among the stars if earth doesn't supply
you with high enough themes.
Will I write a preface for the book? Why, yes, if you think me
competent. Emerson commands us to "hitch our wagon to a star?" and,
egad! here's a whole constellation--a universe--of stars to draw mine!
It makes me blink to think of it.