Dear Miss Addams:
Miss Kelley, who has written me for you about the poems of Scharmel Iris, does not know that a magazine is made up three months before publication, and that to have written about anything for the Christmas Harper I must have had the material early in October. But in any case I could not have written of the poems she sent in proof as I could wish. Such pieces as the noble sonnet Heroes, and the piece After the Martyrdom, are exceptional, among the [verses] <[illegible]> glittering [page 2] with jeweled emotions and the "turmoil of rich dyes" in the thick & [covering fancies], which I could not honestly praise <only as> the promise of greater things. I wish I could, for I cannot look in the boy's face without tenderness.
In default of what you wish me to do, will you let me help a little in getting him to Arizona? Some day he will be <a> star in our literature, but as yet he is too [nebulous?] for the recognition I should like to give him. For pity's sake, tell him I have great hopes of him and faith in him.
Yours sincerely
W. D. Howells.
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