November 22, 1938
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I'm returning the MS at last and I beg you to forgive my delay. Mona has sent you some material, and so has Sigurd. The former may suggest some corrections and possible additions. I have marked errors throughout and made suggestions.
You ask what prompted me to write "Beyond the Spectrum". I have always been deeply interested in what I know call "the otherness of things", and my interest is far more pronounced now than formerly. - being greater, I think, than my interest in this world of sense.
"The Ghostly Brother" has a profound meaning in my life. The dream or vision to which it refers has continued to influence me and is growing stronger. Traces of it are to be found scattered through my work. I have used pentameter because, for sustained narrative, it best suits the genius of the English language as hexameter suited that of the Greek. The rhyme is never forced, and when the verse is read as written, the rhymes seem incidental. My verse method in handling rhymed pentameter is essentially that of blank verse. The unit is not the line ending in a rhyme, as I write it. The unit is the breathing length, determined by the handling of caesuras (pauses). Some very simple people have leaped to the conclusion that I write in couplets. I doubt if there are five couplets in 15,000 lines.
Greek and Latin have influenced my only as forgotten beefsteak influences the physical body. There is no direct influence at all -but I was richly nourished.
If you have to say something about my athletic stunts, the following is true: While in Bancroft I developed by years of training a chest expansion of 10 inches; lifted 125 lbs. (my weight) from floor over my head with one hand; tore a new pack of cards in two with my hands; was a good enough wrestler to mix with most men of around 160 lbs; and had for some time the highest score in the county on the striking machine.
Yes. "Indian Wars" has exhaustive notes by Dr. House.
You are doing a bully job, and I'm grateful.
Jno. G. Neihardt
John G. Neihardt.
Why not write A. H. Nelson, head of Educational Dept., The Macmillan Co., 60 Fifth Ave., New York, about your plans for a study manual, telling of your present job too?
