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

I have just heard from Dr. Brown of Macmillans, and he says he and Seaver will take up the matter of boosting the school editions and possbily employing you as soon as Seaver returns to the office. He has asked me to estimate the number of pages in your notes, so that he may go ahead with the composition immediately. I'm glad you will go over the text again, making sure that nothing is over-looked that should have attention. The notes must be made as fool-proof as possible, for I understand that there are a good many teachers who are only so-so, and that some are even worse.

There is no indication that the popular interest in fiction is on the wane. You wouldn't think so if you were constantly buried in novels as I am. It makes no difference who got off that wise crack. Everyone shoots off these days in the desperate hope that some attention may be attracted. The celebrated ones are worse than the obscure in this particular, since they become celebrated by that method. It is a difficult matter to stave off the blackest melancholy in a job like mine. Every ridiculous thing conceivable is shouted and no one seems to realize that anything can be ridiculous. As for biography, history, sociology and autobiography, the run in these lines is simply overwhelming. Of course it must be "popularized" to get across, and so it is. To understand the present literary world, one should talk not to so-called literary critics. But to advertising experts and successful publicity men. Nevertheless, I believe there never has been a time when so much truly wonderful work was published, as now. If it were possible to stop all the noise and lay the dust of the moment, there would be so much wise and beautiful stuff to considerthat even the best informed would be astounded. The rabble mind is on top, and the mind of the rabble is the mind of the fool and the brute.