I appreciate that letter of yours written when you were far from happy. I can imagine the situation. But don't worry, old man. Everything is grist for the mills of the gods gods. I feel for both of you, instinctively, marriage can be hell, and separation is a brutal sort of spiritual surgery. There's no solution for such problems, it seems. It's too bad we can't fit into each other better. Men + women never really get acquainted. Strange antagonism made the more terrible with what we call affection. Women are a queer breed; men are a queer breed — and
poets, I fancy, are queerer still. Don't stew, old man.
Thanks for the poem — a curious, moody thing, and beautiful, of course.
I'll write [Lindsay?] on the 10th, as you suggest. Very glad for the chance to know him.
When you go on that world — [though?], don't forget me. Come this way, if possible.
I want to make a confession & ask a favor. The confession: I gave away my copy of that terrific sonnet, "The Thirst of Satan". A friend, to whom I was deeply indebted, asked for it. A copy wouldn't do. The favor: won't you write me out another — sign it?
When I get farther along with the "Song of Hugh Glass" I'll give you a copy if you want it. Have 500 lines now — and I believe I'm succeeding. There will be about 1500, and yet the thing is closely wrought. It's a big story, worth elaborating. I'm doing the thing simply & it flows.
Did you know Cawein gave Miss [Moural?] & her fat donkey a gentle drubbing? He did. She sent me the letter last Spring!
Say, The Boston Poetry journal ought to live, because it stands for the real thing as much it can. [Braithwaite?] tells me he's having hard sledding with it — at least he suggests as much.
So long for the moment. Luck to you! Big Brother!
John Neihardt
