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

Black Elk Speaks will be published on Feb 18th instead of in April as first planned. It seems that Linderman has an Indian book for March 10th & Morrows have decided to "get the jump" on him, as they put it. I'm eager to have you see the book. It will interest you, I think, as a student of social matters. I doubt, too, if the Indian religious consciousness has ever been so clearly revealed before — and this will mean a lot to you. Hilda, who is really uncannily intelligent seriously repeats a certain prayer of Black Elk's & it gives her a great uplift. I feel the same way about it, & so does Enid. It is essential religion, pretty close to the source. You should hear Hilda & Alice go through the pipe ceremony & sing Indian songs! They make it rather a moving affair.

I think of you often & of your loneliness, & I wish & wish I could be of some good to you; for I too seem to have

a way of being lonely, though not as you are now.(1) You mean much to me, good Comrade.

Did you know that Morrow himself, who was a great friend of my work, died shortly after my MS reached N. Y.? He was waiting to get well enough to read the book in bed, when he died. There was something between that man & me, & had been for ten years. We both felt this.