When one is in a state of insurrection, one makes demands:
mine is that you write me, dear friend, if you are quite recovered
from the fatigues of Baltimore and of Boston, and if you have not
nourished yourself to new strength in feeding upon the honeys
the people brought you there so freely.
. . . . .
Copies of "The Symphony" have been ordered sent to you and Miss Stebbins,
and I have the MS. copy which you desired, ready to transmit to you.
You will be glad to know that "The Symphony" has met with favor.
The "Power of Prayer" in "Scribner's" for June -- although the editor
cruelly mutilated the dialect in some places, turning, for instance, "Marster"
(which is pure Alabama negro) into Mah'sr (which is only Dan Bryant negro,
and does not exist in real life) -- has gone all over the land,
and reappears before my eyes in frequent heart-breaking yet comical disguises
of misprints and disfigurements. Tell me; OUGHT one to be a little ashamed
of writing a dialect poem, -- as at least one newspaper has hinted?
And did Robert Burns prove himself no poet by writing mostly in dialect?
And is Tennyson's "Death of the North Country Farmer"
-- certainly one of the very strongest things he ever wrote --
not a poem, really?
Mr. Peacock's friendship, in the matter of "The Symphony", as indeed
in all others, has been wonderful, a thing too fine to speak of in prose.
To-morrow I go to Savannah, and hope to find there a letter
from Miss Stebbins.
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