1 8 IN TROD UC TION
I meant, when I began this letter, to have pointed out some things in your book that particularly pleased me, but I have no time at present to write more. Do you never come to New York ? I should be glad to see you here, and can give you lodging and bread enough to keep you from starving (I say nothing of butter at present rates!). Try it some time this fall or winter.
Yours very sincerely,
S. CoNANT Foster. 59 West 35TH St.
��New York, Aug. 11, 1S64. Dear John,
I wrote you yesterday and sent the letter today. But that is no reason why I should not write you today and send the letter tomorrow, or when I please. I have been reading some of your poems again, and I must write you again.
I have not the poetical faculty. But I have, thank God, the faculty of appreciating it wherever I find it, and I should not be doing justice to myself or you, if I did not express what I feel. You know very well, or ought to know, that I am no flatterer ; and you will therefore give me credit for sincerity, when I try to convince you that you ought to give greater publicity to your poems. Shall a man who has the gift of music refuse to let others hear his melodies . This is the part of a churl, and it is not your spirit. Why, such things as these of yours are the very pabnhnn of the soul !
I have known you from boyhood, but I have not appre- ciated you hitherto. I have, it is true, always perceived that you were capable of great things, but I did not think
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