The glorious telegram, signed by four dear people, reached the station here at 8:20 A.M. yesterday. The telegrapher delivered it at 4:30 P.M., explaining that he had "overlooked" it. I think that's doing pretty well i nthe overlooking line. He had only to 'phone it up, at that. But, really, it was even more a joy to receive it late; for we had settled down to looking for a letter.
At 3 P.M. on the 19th we said: "Now they are beginning to gather at the park". At three thirty we tried to imagine how the ceremony was beginning, and at five we said "The ceremony is over now". We wondered if it could be possible that a rain had come up just at the wrong time, but we comforted ourselves by deciding that it would be easy to get over to the Normal auditorium.
I'm keen to see the papers. So far as I know, this is unique. I know of no modern American poet who has been treated so wonderfully. I know why. They haven't had any Julius T. House to conjure the right mood. I hope you get the full force of what I mean when I say that this is a very great triumph for the teacher in you. You've taught not only your students, but the whole community. It has been a slow process, and when you undertook this, you put your wider teaching to the test. I congratulate you, Comrade. It was a very remarkable thing to be able to do.
It made me especially happy to think of you four together there in that house. Really, that gave me
Now I'm wondering when I shall have the courage to slip into Wayne and look at that monument. I think I must wait untill until some new work,successfully just completed, shall have made me feel, for a little while, big enough to containthe solar system, and loving enough to kiss an enemy.
Wait until they see the MESSAIAH!
Jno
Mott writes that he submitted a review to The Saturday Review of Literature and that the editor said an article had been arranged for. Mott thought this merely a polite way of turning him down; but we know it was not so. I hope you have assured the lady editor that you will positively be on hand with a review of the sort she wants. The book is not yet published. Macmillans have written me to that effect, and no reviews will be wanted anywhere until the trade edition is out. Mott says that Stuart P. Sherman has accepted his article for the magazine called BOOKS. Sherman is editor, it seems. I don't know the sheet, but it must be good if Sherman is behind it. I'm glad you got in with the Saturday Review before an assignment was made.
Is not Dean James the new man from Texas?
Jno
