Dear Slade:

Bless your heart! It was dear of you to tease the lecture committee in my favor, and it will be very good to look forward to a meeting in the Fall! Do you know Bliss Carman's poem? - "The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry of bugles going by!" It will be like that after frost, for I seem to remember that you have a lot of hard maples. I wrote you the other day just before your letter came. Tomorrow we begin the new semester. I'll have at least 160 in my Epic America course. The largest class thus far. I'm beginning my 13th year —! Where did the time go, I wonder? What's the meaning

over
of it all? It's a fact that the students do act and talk as though they got something of special value to them. I don't really understand this, but I suppose it must be true, since so many have said the same sort of thing for so long. If it's true, then all is justified. But I'm damned lonely when no one is looking and I used to do what I did because Mona would care! O I'm in my 80th year. Strangely enough, I'm as able to do my work as ever — in some ways, more so. But this world grows less impressive, and my secret interest in the next phase of life increases. Anyway, I don't go around acting unhappy. In fact, I'm probably nearer happiness than the vast majority.

Love —

John Neihardt