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

How do you like the new year thus far?

I've been viewing my TV course, The Twilight of the Sioux, for the last time, checking for bad errors, if any, before I join the Fathers! We are in the Messiah, and I've been surprised at the power and beauty — the richness — of that poem. Don't, please, let this sound vain and foolish, Lucile. Hearing it read aloud after so many years, it does strike with a new force. A husky, foot-ballish (!) young fellow asked to sit in with me in my private viewing room, and I let him do it. During the reading I looked over at him, and there were tears

in his eyes. He saw that I had seen, and he said, "That's the most beautiful stuff I ever heard". He did not know I wrote "the stuff."

Pre-registration has been the largest ever. They closed the TV at 125 for lack of room. Then the students turned to my "live" program, The Mountain Men. 101 pre-registered, and many more tried to get in. If a larger lecture hall can be made available, there will be a mob in that class,

I guess the youngsters have the idea that the old man may fold up before next year.

Bruce Nicoll of the Neb. Uni. Press assures me that the Lyric and Dramatic Poems will go into production at once, be "in stock" early in the summer, and be on sale in the Fall.