P.S. Does it bore you that I like you to know my friends? Professor * * *'s widow (and daughter) are very dear to me. She knows about you, and I've written her that I'd ask you to call on her. You'll like them all right, but I have another purpose. I want to know how they prosper; and they are a little reticent about that. Maybe you could ascertain indirectly by seeing how they live. I asked Grizzly to do this but of course he didn't, the shaggy brute that he is.
[Haines' Falls, Greene Co., N. Y., August 4, 1904.]
I haven't written a letter, except on business, since leaving Washington, June 30--no, not since Scheff's arrival there. I now return to earth, and my first call is on you.
You'll be glad to know that I'm having a good time here in the Catskills. I shall not go back so long as I can find an open hotel.
I should like to hear from you about our--or rather your--set in California, and especially about _you_. Do you still dally with the Muse? Enclosed you will find two damning evidences of additional incapacity. _Harper's_ now have "A Wine of Wizardry," and they too will indubitably turn it down. I shall then try _The Atlantic_, where it should have gone in the first place; and I almost expect its acceptance.
I'm not working much--just loafing on my cottage porch; mixing an occasional cocktail; infesting the forests, knife in hand, in pursuit of the yellow-birch sapling that furnishes forth the walking stick like yours; and so forth. I knocked off work altogether for a month when Scheff came, and should like to do so for _you_. Are you never going to visit the scenes of your youth?
It is awfully sad--that latest visit of Death to the heart and home of poor Katie Peterson. Will you kindly assure her of my sympathy?
Love to all the Piedmontese. Sincerely yours,
[Haines' Falls, Greene Co., N. Y., August 27, 1904.]
First, thank you for the knife and the distinction of membership in the Ancient and Honorable Order of Knifers. I have made little use of the blades and other appliances, but the corkscrew is in constant use.
I'm enclosing a little missive from the editor of _Harper's_. Please reserve these things awhile and sometime I may ask them of you to "point a moral or adorn a tale" about that poem. If we can't get it published I'd like to write for some friendly periodical a review of an unpublished poem, with copious extracts and a brief history of it. I think that would be unique.