A thousand cares have prevented my writing to you--and Scheff. And
this is to be a "busy day." But I want to say that I've not been
unmindful of your kindness in sending the book--which has hardly left
my pocket since I got it. And I've read nothing in it more than once,
excepting the "Testimony." _That_ I've studied, line by line--and
"precept by precept"--finding in it always "something rich and
strange." It is greater than I knew; it is the greatest "ever"!
I'm saying a few words about it in tomorrow's "American"--would that I
had a better place for what I say and more freedom of saying. But they
don't want, and won't have, "book reviews" from me; probably because I
will not undertake to assist their advertising publishers. So I have
to disguise my remarks and work up to them as parts of another topic.
In this case I have availed myself of my favorite "horrible example,"
Jim Riley, who ought to be proud to be mentioned on the same page with
you. After all, the remarks may not appear; I have the _littlest_
editor that ever blue-penciled whatever he thought particularly dear
to the writer. I'm here for only a few days, I hope.
* * * * *
I want to say that you seem to me greatest when you have the greatest
subject--not flowers, women and all that,--but something above the
flower-and-woman belt--something that you see from altitudes from
which _they_ are unseen and unsmelled. Your poetry is incomparable
with that of our other poets, but your thought, philosophy,--that is
greater yet. But I'm writing this at a desk in the reading room of a
hotel; when I get home I'll write you again.
I'm concerned about your health, of which I get bad reports. Can't you
go to the mesas of New Mexico and round up cattle for a year or
two--or do anything that will permit, or compel, you to sleep
out-of-doors under your favorite stars--something that will _not_
permit you to enter a house for even ten minutes? You say no. Well,
some day you'll _have_ to--when it is too late--like Peterson, my
friend Charley Kaufman and so many others, who might be living if they
had gone into that country in time and been willing to make the
sacrifice when it would have done good. You can go _now_ as well as
_then_; and if now you'll come back well, if then, you'll not only
sacrifice your salary, "prospects," and so forth, but lose your life
as well. I _know_ that kind of life would cure you. I've talked with
dozens of men whom it did cure.
You'll die of consumption if you don't. Twenty-odd years ago I was
writing articles on the out-of-doors treatment for consumption.
Now--only just now--the physicians are doing the same, and
establishing out-of-door sanitaria for consumption.
You'll say you haven't consumption. I don't say that you have. But you
will have if you listen to yourself saying: "I can't do it." * * *
Pardon me, my friend, for this rough advice as to your personal
affairs: I am greatly concerned about you. Your life is precious to me
and to the world. Sincerely yours,