The Upson Number which I have just received looks inviting.
I have just returned from a week's trip with Sigurd--doing a little lecturing.
A review copy of BLACK ELK SPEAKS should have reached you already. If not, I am sure it will soon arrive. The indications for the success of the book seem rather more than good. Morrows are going after it with great vigor and shrewdness.
It is a fact, as I know now, that Latham was abroad and is only about now returning. I am sure that Macmillans are sincere in their expressed anxiety about my "departure from the Macmillan ranks", and I am also sure that my bargaining power with Macmillans has been greatly increased. I will have something definite to say about this within a few weeks I think.
The biography idea is a good one, I am sure, and I am thinking of your prospects rather than mine when I say this.
You will be going to New York later on and you will find Latham cordial when you do go. You will be diplomatic as usual, giving them a very friendly feeling from me.
I have hesitated to promise anything for the Gabriel Indian book because I could not know about it and would not care to be put in a position to seem ungenerous. It may be that he knows whereof he writes, in which case of course I'dwould be delighted to say so. Your plan to send me the book for examination before I promise anything is a good one; then I can tell you how it strikes me without hurting anybody in case he should not know what he is talking about. Believe me, few of them do when they write about Indians. They don't get on the inside, and writing about Indians from the outside is a hopeless industry.
Jno.
