European criticism of your _bete noir_, old Leopold, is entitled to
attention; American (of him or any other king) is not. It looks as if
the wretch may be guilty of indifference.
In condemning as "revolutionary" the two-rhyme sestet, I think I could
not have been altogether solemn, for (1) I'm something of a
revolutionist myself regarding the sonnet, having frequently expressed
the view that its accepted forms--even the number of lines--were
purely arbitrary; (2) I find I've written several two-rhyme sestets
myself, and (3), like yours, my ear has difficulty in catching the
rhyme effect in a-b-c, a-b-c. The rhyme is delayed till the end of the
fourth line--as it is in the quatrain (not of the sonnet) with
unrhyming first and third lines--a form of which I think all my
multitude of verse supplies no example. I confess, though, that I did
not know that Petrarch had made so frequent use of the 2-rhyme sestet.
I learn a little all the time; some of my old notions of poetry seem
to me now erroneous, even absurd. So I _may_ have been at one time a
stickler for the "regular" three-rhymer. Even now it pleases my ear
well enow if the three are not so arranged as to elude it. I'm sorry
if I misled you. You'd better 'fess up to your young friend, as I do
to you--if I really was serious.
* * * * *
Of course I should be glad to see Dick, but don't expect to. They
never come, and it has long been my habit to ignore every "declaration
of intention."
I'm greatly pleased to know that you too like those lines of Markham
that you quote from the "Wharf of Dreams." I've repeatedly told him
that that sonnet was his greatest work, and those were its greatest
lines. By the way, my young poet, Loveman, sends me a letter from
Markham, asking for a poem or two for a book, "The Younger Choir,"
that he (M.) is editing. Loveman will be delighted by your good
opinion of "Pierrot"--which still another magazine has returned to me.
Guess I'll have to give it up.
I'm sending you a booklet on loose locutions. It is vilely gotten
up--had to be so to sell for twenty-five cents, the price that I
favored. I just noted down these things as I found them in my reading,
or remembered them, until I had four hundred. Then I took about fifty
from other books, and boiled down the needful damnation. Maybe I have
done too much boiling down--making the stuff "thick and slab." If
there is another edition I shall do a little bettering.
I should like some of those mussels, and, please God, shall help you
cull them next summer. But the abalone--as a Christian comestible he
is a stranger to me and the tooth o' me.
I think you have had some correspondence with my friend Howes of
Galveston. Well, here he is "in his habit as he lives." Of the two
figures in the picture Howes is the one on top.[11] Good night.
[11] Howes was riding on a burro.