Did you understand that what I wanted for the Alber Bureau was a 300 word blurb on my programs and my ability as a platform spieler, to be used in a circular? They are already well sold on me and were before they approached me. I know that what you may do will be suitable, if you understand the nature of the job.
You bet I know I can depend on you to back the cycle, and I know it is worth backing, for it is almost alone just now, if the worth of a contribution is to be judged by its survival value. Almost none of our poets has done anything that can survive. When the log-rolling of the supporting clique ceases, the reputations so manufactured will languish immediately. Macmillans know this and go ahead with the understanding that my stuff will continue to sell. You must keep in mind the fact that very few poets sell as well as I do, and this without any noise. That is why Macmillans keep asking for new books. When I offered an unselected bunch of my reviews of last year, Latham, who didn't understand that I had no thought of publishing the stuff in that form, wrote me that he thought the stuff important, that he was in a quandary as to the advisability of publishing it without some winnowing, but that (rather than have any other publisher take it, he would send me a contract at once for the book, just as it was.) I was astonished, for it wouldn't do to print reviews just as they appeared, without any eliminations.
And you must keep in mind that my reputation is pretty big. The attacks (only two of any power) took the tone that I had been talked about entirely too much, and now I was going to get a good demolishing. On the other hand, there have been reviews saying just what you believe. One even said that without doubt my poetry would last longer than any poetry written since Browning. The Saturday Review had the enclosed on the Pulitzer award. Even Louis Untermeyer said the award belonged to me.
No, we have no reason to be at all discouraged. The stuff moves steadily. I found St. Louis full of fans whom I had never suspected of existing! It's so all over the country. I'm just not fashionable with a certain small and powerful log-rolling set in New York. That's all that can be said by way of discouragement. It is also are our best reason for hope. That crowd is certainly goofy, judging by the stuff it touts - really insane stuff and, at best, piffling, save in a very few instances.
Jno.
Dr. Sullivan, the Unitarian preacher here - a man of great learning and fine spirit - has read POETIC VALUES three times and says it is absolutely a contribution, that it does some important things that have never been done before. He even told a friend of ours that it seemed to him one of the most important books he had ever read! I got back at him by sending him word to say some of those things in one of his big Unitarian journals. He believes that my stuff will outlast all the other stuff done in our generation.
Would you like to have Bedford's Readings in Urban Sociology? If it interests you - it's a ponderous to me - I'd be glad to send it to you. You could give me something like a half column on it, if you should care to do so. But this would not be nominated in the bond. I can give you other things from time to time.
