Hurrah for everything!
This outburst is the result of a number of things that seem to be brewing of their own accord, and I begin to see clearly a few things that were formerly dark. Anyway, I'm a very lucky devil, so long as I have a vision and one wonderful friend - not to mention several very excellent friends and all the rest that blesses me.
I have just gotten back from a little run in Nebraska. Mostly very successful. At last I appeared at Kearny Normal! Can you believe it? The Kiwannis Club out there put me on, and I had that huge auditorium cram-jammed with people. It was grapes, I can tell you. There were two thousand in the crowd, and they were like mice for nearly two hours, except when I'd stop and give them a chance to let me quit. I enclose the newspaper report, which you may return. What pleased me was the fact that it was the Kearney Normal! Ouch! Well, I loved the crowd before I said a word to it, and some people afterward said they could feel "it" all over the house. I did not ask what "it" might be. I think I know, for I could feel "it" going out of me all the time.
Here's a deuce of a note! William Rose Benet, the poet and one of Sat. Review editors, said in a recent review, which has not yet reached me, that POETIC VALUES deserves the Nobel Prize. Well, it doesn't, of course, but I'm glad Benet liked the book. Certainly we are not acquainted, and I have no gang affiliations in New York.
Guiterman, in Outlook, you may remember, said the WARS should have the Pulitzer prize. This last I believe, for good reasons; but I'm not really caring about it. It' s only value would be to convince those whose opinions are valueless that the WARS is a worth effort. Who cares to convince those people?
I am more and more impressed with the possibilities in your new version of Neihardt, Man and Poet, and in your proposition to go on the road awhile for Macmillans. Comrade, I wish we were nearer ready for what they may be ahead of us. But then, there will be time for anything worthy, and we want nothing else.
Within six months I may be either tied up with a chain of newspapers, writing a page of literary comment, or I may be balled up with the University. Anyway, there are those two movements going now. The latter has to do with an independent department. It's a quiet movement, which I am not in any way favoring. In fact, I've said to those who approached me that I was not in the least interested, which is true. What comes will come, and I'll somehow know what to do with what comes.
And I love you, Comrade!
Tomorrow I must spout at the Southwestern State Normal at Springfield. It's a big school, and I suppose I'll have a mob.
I wish I could feel your hand.
Jno.
United State[s Postage?] 2 Cen[ts 2?]
