Across the Spectrum:The Interdisciplinary Life and Letters of John G. Neihardt (‘Flaming Rainbow’)

It's fine of you to let me share a little in your new life there. I'll do the best I can off hand and in a hurry. I am leaving to be gone ten days. But please, if you want something more exhaustive and more definite in some particular, have at me again. If I don't know, I have lots of ways of getting at such things, as I always have a string of more or less dim memories that merely need following up, even though I may not have the answer at the tip of my tongue. I'll remember and remember things I should have written you, just as soon as I get on that train. Please keep after me, if you think I can do anything, and be sure it gives me pleasure. You are certainly going after those youngsters right. Lucky kids! You'll give them the deep sense of great moods and make them feel what can not be told.

Well, here are answers to your questions:

As to essays of a class good enough to compare with Emerson:

• Geo. Edward Woodberry. Harcourt Brace & Co., N.Y. Collected Essays, Vols. II and III.
• Paul Elmer More. Scribners. Shelbourne Essays (11 vols.) Any volume.
• Henry Osborne Taylor. Macmillan. Many vols., all too heavy for your purpose, except "Prophets, Poets and Philosophers of the Ancient World", which you know, I'm sure. You could choose portions to good affect.

The following essayists are not of the same class, as you'll know, but good stuff:

• Samuel Burt Carruthers. An Absentee Landlord. (Some of these essays will certainly delight the kids and give them ideas. For instance the one in which the owner of Epictetus writes a letter to his property and then the answer Epictetus sends!
  Get from Brentano, N.Y. Can't locate my copy just now.
• Gamaliel Bradford. American Portraits.I think this is Houghton Mifflin Harper + Bros. N.Y.

These should hold you for essay, especially as there's great stuff in Woodberry, More and Taylor.

Conrad.

• The Nigger of the Narcissus
• The Shadow Line. (both Doubleday Page & Co.)

There is a chapter in the latter that is simply marvelous for the mystery you mention. You may know it. The "Nigger", of course, is a wonder.

You can't go astray on the Ancient Mariner. It does something nothing else does.

As to general critical ideas, I have a doubtful feeling about Poe's revelations of method. Just the same, of course it's worth giving. It will make a kid think about such things. That's important. The best thing I know for such general critical ideas is the following:

Rollo Walter Brown: The Writer's Art. Harvard Uni. Press. This contains 25 essays chosen from the writings of successful and great writers - all on the art of writing. The essay by Lewes is simply a whale - one of the wisest things I've ever read in that line. Old Lewes was surely great. You'll be able to use this book to advantage, I think.

Of course, this essayists I name can't be compared, strictly, with Emerson. I simply mean they are of the upper air.

I hope you will get Magellan, the book just issued. It should be a whale. Who could write "a romantic biography" of Magellan without making it full of enthralling stuff?

I'll have a copy of the Lonesome Trail sent you from here, and you may return it when you're through with it. I don't know where it could be gotten, unless some second-hand dealer were set hunting it. By the way, I feel pretty sure I gave you a copy some years ago. Didn't I? And if I did, was it swiped from you? Honestly, I'd almost swear I gave you a copy when you were in Bancroft.

It won't take any "hard study" so get my little book, POETIC VALUES. It's not that sort at all. It only undertakes to show why and how poetic values must be regarded as real. It's only the front porch to another thing which, if it is ever written, will be called the Modern Mood.

Special:

One of the most valuable things I've ever seen - perhaps the most valuable - from giving youngsters like yours a feeling for the finest, as the Greeks had it, is the following:

J.A.K Thomson: Greeks and Barbarians

N.Y: The Macmaillan Co. It's an English importation, but no doubt Macs. have it in stock. Be sure to get this.