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LOVE LETTERS OF THE BACHELOR 
 POET, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 

 /^ w : - .- llv:w ^^"Ka, I*-*^^- n V, a V"WA v^-*^ »/* ^ **C. 
 
LOVE LETTERS 
 
 The portrait of Riley on the left is from a tintype 
 take^m }l-3i7^,i - ItOWa? seiif to Miss Elizabeth 
 Kahle, accompanied by these verses, as shown in 
 
 JAME'§ WilTCpMB jRILEY 
 
 ** I send you the shadowy ghost of a face, 
 
 To haxmt you forever with eyes 
 That look in your own with the tenderest grace 
 , Affectionate art can devise. 
 
 MIS^J'iitlS^iS^KMr Um^^i speak 
 
 In the language of smiles and of tears, 
 NOW i^Kk rakibowief love wooid illonaiaxesthe cheek 
 w-Axsi ba2i!usk<l!be gLoornvJii^ appears. 
 
 In his letter to Miss Kahle of October 10, 1879, 
 Riley said: — 
 
 "And I write now simply to enclose a long-prom- 
 ised tin-typey for it is not a likeness, as in spite of 
 all attempts my face refuses to be reproduced in 
 even 'shadowy similitude.' The general contour 
 of head and features, however, is exact, and the 
 eyes are positively the best I have ever succeeded 
 in getting. Biit this picture I intend to suppress 
 as soon as I succeed in getting a successful photo- 
 graph of the present Riley, — for now, as I told 
 !5*0tf/^tBy'rfac©sii^a toarcesBiMifiseirt^twith no oasis in 
 the shape ofwacunastaajhe to break its broad monot- 
 ony c^ desolation, and I only send you this that 
 ou mky hold it as a sort of hostage until my 
 prese^a^^turjjjjs^^ves; then you must 
 return ix. r ^ ^ 
 
 th;i 
 
sq^tnit JlWioii zi iial exit no ysliil io tifi-rtioq edT 
 
 ni nworia bb ,292|©v 989xi:f y^^ bsiiiBqmooDB ,9lxle2 
 "^ /v — :9limi33Bi 9ri:J 
 
 j; ,93J35 B io Jaoifg ^{wobBxIa,,^j^t;oY bxisa I 
 »i?-' aa\f9 xlJiw i9V9t<a4w)i{;'jm;BxI oT 
 
 93Bt3 J39i9bn9J eil* rilJv rrwo luoY ni rioal iBiIT 
 .93' tiB gJBXioiJosllA. 
 
 jlsaqa bxiB abltsqa o? iswoq aril y;9d* bjsif bnA 
 
 faiseJ io ijAB 89lim2 \o sgBugnBl 9ilJ nl 
 3l99rio ddi enhtwlli bitrow 9voI \o wodnisi 9iIT 
 .aiBgqqB iBdi moolg edi dzinsd bnA 
 
 ,QV8l ,01 i9doJoO \o 9ljdB2 aaiM ot teiiel aiil nl 
 
 — :biB2 xP^i9L 
 
 « •■ 
 
 -moiq-anol b 92olDn9 ot ylqiaia won 9tiTW I bnA** 
 io eiiqz ni aB ,z%^n^^V^ b Jon ai ft loi ,sq'*{;\-m^ b98i 
 ni b9otrboiq9i sd o;t 89aui9-r 93Bi xm 2jqm9J:^B IIb 
 luotnoo lBi9h9S 9riT *.9bu:tilimi3 ywobBiIfe' n97'9'' 
 
 9riJ ^flB ,JDBX9 2i.,19V9W0Xi ,391iiJB9i btlB bB9lI io 
 b9b99b3JJ2 19V9 9VBri I l29d 9di Yl9vi;ti20q 91B 29^9 
 
 ^^^•^q(\w^ o:t bngJni I 9iJjtaiq sidi iuQ .3niW93 ni 
 -oJoriq Iui22900ij2 B gxiiWgg ni b99oou2 I 2b nooa 2b 
 bloJ I 2B ,won loi — ,x^\'i?i ^i^^^^^<\ edi io dqBis 
 ni 2i2B0 on illiw ,ii929b n9TiBd b. ai ^o»\ -^niy i^pox 
 -Jonom bBOid 2ti 2lB9id oi 9jrIoBj2jjm b io 9qBri2 edi 
 iBdl zidi uo\ bn93 ylno I btiB ,noiJf£f629b io x^o 
 y;ra litnn 93Bj2ori io Jioa b 2B It blori xfipt uox 
 iBiffn-^n^- n4di' iieviriB il92 siuJui ba& Jn929iq 
 
 " Ji niirt9i 
 
LOVE LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BACHELOR POET 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 TO 
 
 MISS ELIZABETH KAHLE / 
 
 NO'W FIRST PRINTED FROM THE ORIGINALS 
 WITH NUMEROUS FACSIMILES 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED, EXCLUSIVELY FOR 
 MEMBERS OF 
 
 THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 
 
 BOSTON — MCMXXII 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 
 V 
 THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 
 
 All righti resened 
 
 OCT 10 "12 V 
 
 ^CU683612 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 It has been observed that an author sel- 
 dom appears at his best in writing love 
 letters, for such tender missives do not 
 generally arouse much enthusiasm in any 
 one but the individual to whom they are 
 addressed, — not excepting the author him- 
 self, who in the calmer moments of disen- 
 chantment is apt to marvel at his own 
 unguarded effusiveness. The love letters 
 of Robert Browning afford one of the rare 
 exceptions to this rule, and the present 
 group of letters written by James Whitcomb 
 Riley to Miss Elizabeth Kahle, of New 
 Brighton, Pa., are unquestionably the most 
 noble — as they are also the most self-re- 
 vealing — utterances that ever fell from his 
 pen. 
 
 An author of either prose or verse may 
 reveal but little of self in his published 
 works, but in these unconventional auto- 
 graph letters the popular American Poet 
 discloses the innermost recesses of his 
 [9] 
 
nature in a light that will greatly enhance 
 the admiration of even his most devoted 
 adherents. They will likewise be of almost 
 equal interest to those who know their 
 author only by name. In fact, had they 
 been written by an unknown hand they 
 would be no less entitled to a permanent 
 place in our literature. 
 
 Although these letters were intended for 
 no other eyes than those of the one to whom 
 they were written, the bond of privacy has 
 been loosed, since their recipient has 
 voltmtarily disposed of them with the full 
 understanding that they are to be given to 
 the world, and with the feeling that they 
 will afford a better appreciation of the true 
 character of their author. The correspond- 
 ence having begun and continued for up- 
 wards of three years before they met, her 
 profoimd and lasting regard for him was 
 fostered largely by these intimate letters, 
 and she desires now in her latter days that 
 the medium through which she came so 
 closely in touch with the human qualities of 
 his heart and soul be imparted to others in 
 order that they, too, may know and esteem 
 110] 
 
his personal traits, as they aheady know 
 and admire the fruits of his genius. ' 
 
 Owing to the fact that the young lady was 
 an entire stranger to Riley at the com- 
 mencement, he felt it necessary at first to 
 write much about himself, which happily he 
 did. In one of the early letters — that of 
 February 21, 1879 — he says: "I recognize 
 the fact that you know nothing of my history, 
 my character, social position and all that, — 
 perhaps don't care to, yet I believe it a duty 
 that I owe both to you and to myself at this 
 juncture, to assure you of the fact that I am 
 a young man and unmarried. I write senti- 
 mental verses occasionally, simply because 
 I don't believe in love and am anxious to 
 convince myself of my error, possibly — I 
 don't know why else. I have many friends, 
 but more enemies, and can scarcely tell 
 which I most enjoy — for I really enjoy 
 being hated by some people. I am cynical 
 in a marked degree, and disagreeable at 
 times, I most frankly admit. Socially I 
 move in the best circles, — not, perhaps, 
 because I was *to the manor born,' but 
 because — because^ — well, I recite dialectic 
 [111 
 
poems acceptably, sing comic songs and 
 make funny faces, all of which seems to 
 please everybody but myself, for when I 
 seem the happiest is when I feel the most 
 like crying — though there are times I could 
 take the whole world in my arms, and love 
 it as I would a great, fat, laughing baby with 
 a bunch of jingling keys. . . . 
 
 "When at home (my home is like yours, 
 as I guess, in one respect, — the mother isn*t 
 there) — when at home I live mechanically, 
 much like the house-plants — not so obtru- 
 sive perhaps, but quite as silent. I never 
 speak — only to ask for more sugar for my 
 coffee, or to say, 'I'm too busy to waste time 
 at the wood-pile — I'll send a boy' (for I 
 have a step-mother, by the way, whose 
 chief delight is in rasping matter-o'-fact 
 ideas over my aesthetic sensibilities). 
 *What is a home without a (step) Mother!' 
 — Give it up. So I stay here in my down- 
 town room curled up like a wooley-worm, 
 and, when at work, quite happy in spite of 
 Fate, Misfortune, etc., etc." 
 
 And of her letters to him he says: "Your 
 letters, drifting out of the unknown and 
 [12 1 
 
eddying about me in this far-off land, come 
 to me like truant whiffs of perfume from 
 enchanted vales . . . When you write, tell 
 me more about yourself. Do as I do, — 
 talk of nothing but yourself." 
 
 The five year period over which the 
 correspondence extends was the most im- 
 portant of the Poet^s life, — beginning in 
 the obscure days when he was struggling 
 against adverse fates, and closing just as 
 he was approaching the goal of his ambi- 
 tion. But whatever may be the rewards of 
 Fame, neither happiness nor contentment 
 appear to have been among her awards to 
 our Hoosier Poet. For although most of 
 the letters are of a hopeful and courageous 
 tenor, in one of the last of the series, fol- 
 lowing one in which he writes enthusiasti- 
 cally of having returned home triumphant 
 after having "conquered'' the East, he says: 
 **I am still meeting with more and more 
 success, but that seems even more pitilessly 
 pathetic than the old-time agony of effort 
 and hunger for it. What is to become of it 
 all I hardly care. I am only stoically wait- 
 ing for the issue. . . . The beautiful vases 
 [13] 
 
came, but one was broken — that one is 
 me! The other is yourself, so it is very 
 good to look upon, and I have brought it 
 home, where all my best things are, to- 
 gether with your pictures — and they glad- 
 den all the gloom of the old home that needs 
 them so." And again, eighteen months 
 later, — "Time seems utterly stagnant — 
 and my Ufe and all, and everything. I go 
 about and I write some, but always I am 
 very tired and blue and hopeless. The sun 
 shines, but / don't." All of which may be 
 compared to the feelings of one who climbs 
 laboriously to some lofty mountain peak, 
 only to find the summit barren, bleak and 
 unsatisfying. 
 
 The discovery of these veritable human 
 documents is the more opportune because 
 no comprehensive Life of Riley has yet 
 appeared, and however faithful any future 
 biography may be it could scarcely be more 
 revelatory than the contents of the present 
 volume, which — apart from the interesting 
 romance it brings to light — must therefore 
 be regarded as a valuable accessory to his 
 published works. They supply indubitable 
 [14 1 
 
proof of the source from which he derived 
 the inspiration for many of his finest poems ; 
 they reveal a side of his nature but little 
 known to his readers, and they contain 
 withal a graphic account of his struggles, 
 disappointments and successes in his slow 
 but determined evolution from poverty and 
 obscurity to affluence and fame. His estab- 
 lished place in the foremost ranks of Ameri- 
 can poets is now universally acknowledged, 
 and since his death the number of **Riley" 
 collectors has steadily increased, until his 
 manuscripts, letters and first editions are 
 numbered among the coveted prizes of the 
 auction room. 
 
 Throughout the years that Riley was in 
 correspondence with Miss Kahle (who later 
 became Mrs. Brunn) he sent her many 
 newspaper and magazine clippings contain- 
 ing his poems and accounts of his work in 
 literature and on the lecture platform. The 
 letters contain numerous references to such 
 items, and his correspondent states that she 
 also received a great number of clippings, 
 of which no mention was made in the letters. 
 Many of these which she considered of 
 [15] 
 
little or no importance were either lost or 
 destroyed; but among the items that were 
 preserved there is a poem which will be of 
 much interest to the literary world. This 
 poem, which does not appear to have been 
 included in Riley's published works, was 
 probably written in 1880, when he was on 
 the editorial staff of the Indianapolis Jour- 
 nal^ and was printed on a four-page leaflet 
 (see facsimile), addressed as a ''New 
 Year's Greeting of the Carriers of the 
 Indianapolis Journal^ It is quite possible 
 that the manuscript perished in the printing 
 office after serving its purpose in the com- 
 positor's hands, and that Riley himself for- 
 got about it in after years when his poems 
 were first brought together and published 
 in book form. Furthermore it is not at all 
 likely that more than a very limited number 
 of the leaflets were issued, and owing to the 
 fact that the poem was unsigned, and the 
 further fact that newspaper ''carriers" are 
 not usually gifted with the collector's in- 
 stinct, it is doubtful if many copies were 
 long preserved. — Indeed it may be that 
 the one he sent to Miss Kahle is the only 
 [16 1 
 

 
 i4Wi mMEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ►i-l-Carriers-^^ 
 
 OF THE 
 
 iiiliiiiiiipiiliis flailp 1 0iir 
 
 -^' 
 
 rti)il2t^^ 
 
 T wari the nighty ere New Yearns night, 
 
 And a poet sat in a dreary gloomy 
 Lit with a glimmer of anthracite, 
 
 That grimly gleamed in the cheerless room; 
 And a dim lamp winked in a dismal way 
 
 Back in the eyes, so weighed with care 
 That the tired li<U-. drooped o'er the page that lay 
 
 Still untouched on the table there. 
 
 lie hod counts-;<l liis teeth with his pencil tip 
 
 In a long "vain search for a New Year's theme— 
 lie had drummed the rubber against his lip, 
 
 And drowsed with the eyes that would not dream 
 And over and over a thousand times 
 
 lie had twirled the pencil to and fro. 
 And danced each end through a thousand rhymes 
 
 Used for a thousand times or so. 
 
 And he dashed it aside at last and said: 
 "It is as vain for a man to seek 
 A New Year's song in an old year's head, 
 As the rose of youth in an old man's cheek. 
 
What remains for the minstrel's tongue 
 
 When his art has grown but a cheerless thing? 
 
 When his song is the same he has always sung, 
 What is there left for a man to sing?" 
 
 And lo! as he bent in a grief profound, 
 
 The table ti[)ped, and the pencil rolled 
 Rack in the hand that had dashed it down, 
 
 And a low voice spake in his ear. " Behold, 
 Rest shall come to the weary brain, 
 
 And on your eyes till the early dawn 
 Sleep shall dwell and oblivion reign — 
 
 While hand and pencil still write on." 
 
 And so he slej^t, or it seemed he slept, 
 
 P)Ut ever his shut eyes seemed aware 
 ( »t the pencil still in his fingers kept. 
 
 Scrawling rhymes o'er the pages there — 
 Scrawling, just of itself alone, 
 
 Quips and jingles of quaint design, 
 Such as never his mind had known. 
 
 Or thought invented, or could define. 
 
 And to start with, now," the pencil wrote. 
 
 ■'1 will sing you a song of the olden days. 
 When the bard's cue powdered his crimson coat 
 
 As he read to the King his roundelays. 
 I will sing you a song of Christmas cheer 
 
 So old that the poet who writ the stave 
 Lies buried, hundreds of years from here, 
 
 Safe with his songs in an unknown grave;" 
 
 -^^QNe-j^" 
 
 And it is a song for Christmas 
 
 Ye would have me sing this night, 
 
 While ye wassail steams on ye table, 
 And ye yule-fire crackles bright. 
 
 And it is a merry chanson, 
 
 Full heartsome and warm with cheer. 
 Whose echoes hid in ye rafters 
 
 Shall clap their hands to hear. 
 
 Then ho, for ye i hii^ of holly, 
 And ho/ for ye sparkling wine, 
 
 And ho/ for ye chimes of Christmas times 
 In this jovial song of mine. 
 
Ye kine may moo in ye stable, 
 And ye milkmaid blow her nails, 
 
 And ye milk home come with a frosty skum 
 Crusting ye milking pails. 
 
 Ye brook may leap from its laughter 
 
 To a silence of frozen foam, 
 And ye cock may crow not, fearing 
 
 To jostle his frozen comb. 
 
 But ho, we will sing by ye hearthstone, 
 Where ye yule-fire crackles bright, 
 
 A song of cheer for ye winter drear, 
 And ye hearts warm-housed to-night. 
 
 And what if ye chill December 
 
 Shall etch on ye window pane. 
 Miniature mountains and glaciers, 
 
 And gulphs of his bleak domain ? 
 
 And ye stars in ye skies seem twinkling 
 
 In icicles of light. 
 And ye edge of ye wind cuts keener 
 
 Than ever ye sword-edge might? 
 
 And ye footstep crunch in ye court-way, 
 And ye trough and ye cask go ping, 
 
 And ye china crack in ye pantry, 
 And ye cricket cease to sing? 
 
 Why, ho for ye twigs of holly. 
 
 And ho for ye sparkling wine, 
 And ho for ye chimes of Christmas times. 
 
 In this jovial song of mine? 
 
 And then, as though in a spasm of glee, 
 
 The pencil wriggled and writhed about, 
 And drew strange figures, and smilingly 
 
 Wrinkled their faces, and puffed them out; 
 And one, the form of a gray old man, 
 
 Caught at his long, thin beard and hair, 
 Blowing the way that his pathway ran, 
 
 And sang to the storm this mystic air: 
 
 The 0iid Ye^i^ 3pe^K3. 
 
 I am old, and my figure is shrunken 
 And palsied and weary and weak, 
 

 And I totter and reel as one drunken 
 
 Whose footsteps know not what they seok. 
 
 And ray eyes, all so hollow and sunken, 
 Are rained full of tears as I speak. 
 
 'Twas a brief year ago, 1 remember — 
 
 I am sure but a brief year ago — 
 That I stood on the grave of December, 
 
 Where never a lily may blow; 
 And the heart of me burnt like an ember 
 
 In smoldering ashes of snow. 
 
 And the world — ah! the world it seemed waiting 
 
 To welcome me heir of it all. 
 With a thousand sweet voices relating 
 
 The legends of love, where the tall, 
 Stately evergreen's boughs were vibrating, 
 
 And holly-wreaths hung on the wall. 
 
 And I heard, as one might who is dreaming 
 
 Of melody, song upon song; 
 And I smiled back in eyes that were- beaming 
 
 With rapture; and all the night long, 
 Low ripples of laughter came streaming 
 
 From hearts that knew never a wrong. 
 
 The clangor of bells was around me, 
 The ringing applause of the throng 
 
 That had lifted a shout as they found me, 
 And raised me, and bore me along, 
 
 And with garlands of roses had bound me, 
 And crowned me with roses of song. 
 
 I am old, now, though still I remember 
 My youth of a brief year ago; — 
 
 But again on the brink of December, 
 Where never a lilv may blow, 
 
 I thank God there still burns an ember 
 Of faith in the ashes of snow ! 
 
 80 closed the song: and the pencil and 
 Its strange gyrations ceased and fell, 
 
 And the poet, waking, found his hand 
 Folded over the word ' Farewell." 
 
 
one that survived. On this copy he made 
 several lead pencil corrections (most of his 
 letters to her were written in lead pencil), 
 chiefly in punctuation, though in one place 
 he corrected what seems to have been a 
 compositor^s blunder in making the text 
 read ^Hhings of holly" instead of ^Hwigs of 
 holly." Mrs. Brunn {nee Kahle) states 
 that she distinctly remembers receiving this 
 leaflet from Riley, and that although a great 
 many other poems in the form of newspaper 
 and magazine clippings were destroyed 
 because she did not at that time * 'consider 
 them worth saving," she placed this one 
 among his letters because she particularly 
 fancied it; — though she perhaps little 
 dreamed what a precious item it was des- 
 tined to become. 
 
 The ending of the correspondence gives 
 rise to various deductions and conjectures, 
 and it has therefore been deemed advisable 
 to print the letters practically free from 
 editorial comment. In this way each reader 
 may enjoy the privilege of reading them 
 just as Riley wrote them, and be free 
 to draw such inferences as the letters, 
 [17] 
 
either singly or collectively, may seem to 
 warrant. 
 
 Mrs. Brunn says that after she had cor- 
 responded with Riley for about two years 
 he made her several visits at New Brighton, 
 and that when she received the last letter 
 of the series she had been lately married, 
 therefore she did not answer it, as it seemed 
 improper to continue a correspondence with 
 an unmarried man. 
 
 In a sworn statement which accompanies 
 the letters, their former owner declares that 
 they have been in her possession ever since 
 she received them; that none of them have 
 ever been published, and that not more than 
 ten persons — mostly her family and close 
 friends — have ever read the originals. 
 The Bibliophile Society was indeed fortu- 
 nate in acquiring possession of this treasure- 
 trove, which was accomplished through the 
 kind mediation of one of our members, Mr. 
 John Needels Chester, of Pittsburgh, who 
 procured them for us direct from their 
 owner. 
 
 H. H. H. 
 
 118 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF THE BACHELOR 
 POET, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
LOVE LETTERS OF THE BACHELOR 
 POET, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 January 20, 1879. 
 
 "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness 
 I implore!"* 
 
 L. D. Kahle: — 
 
 A few days since, I received by mail a 
 graceful little poem in MS., addressed "To 
 a Poet," and bearing the signature "L. D. 
 Kahle, New Brighton, Penn." 
 
 As it came without letter or explanation, 
 and as the name given is wholly unknown 
 to me, I am at some loss to account for it; 
 and I address you in the hope that "L. D. 
 Kahle" is a reality, and will further favor 
 me as intimated. 
 
 Of the poem, I take the liberty of saying 
 that I like it, and think some touches it 
 
 ♦Riley quotes this appropriate line from the fourth stanza of 
 Poe's "Raven," where the speaker addressed himself to an 
 unknown visitor who came "tapping at his chamber door." 
 
 119] 
 
contains are simply exquisite. In style and 
 finish it is new to me, and I must frankly 
 add that there is a something in it makes 
 me like its unknown author; and should 
 this reach that person it will require no 
 unusual tension of that fancy to discover 
 here enclosed the warmest pressure of my 
 hand. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 January 29, 1879. 
 Miss L. D. Kahle — 
 Dear friend: — 
 Your letter comes to me like "AThjmge 
 of Wytchencref ," — strange — mystical — 
 mesmeric. I think we have known each 
 other all our lives and never met till now, 
 for even as you wrote, **I am an artist," 
 
 "With inward vision my outward sight grew 
 dim, 
 
 I knew the rhjrthmic secret of the spheres, 
 I caught the cadence, and a noble hymn 
 
 Swam swan-like in upon the gliding years." 
 
 [20 1 
 

 
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I was once stark, staring mad to be an 
 artist, but unlike yourself, I never realized 
 the sweet fruition of my dreams. 
 
 "My crayon cupids, reddening into shape. 
 Betrayed my talents to design and— scrape" 
 
 — nothing more. So I leant my easel in 
 the corner like a pair of tongues [tongs?] 
 and gave my pictures to the poor — deter- 
 mined that henceforward, like little Tom 
 Tucker, I would sing for my "supper" — 
 though at times I sadly fear that in running 
 away from the thunder, I have run into the 
 lightning, for with good Chispa, I am left 
 to exclaim, — "Alas and alack-a-day! Poor 
 was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither 
 win nor lose. Thus I wag through the 
 world, half the time on foot, and the other 
 half walking!" 
 
 As Miss Broughton would say, why did 
 not you enclose in your letter a sketch of 
 some bit of life or fancy? And may I ask, 
 what is your peculiar trend in art? The 
 fanciful, I would guess. If so, IVe a poem 
 you must illustrate. It will make both our 
 fortunes. It's too wildly extravagant, as it 
 [211 
 
is, for the pokey old public to comprehend. 
 You would understand it, and could make 
 the world, — but will you? I am quite 
 serious, and it's a glorious theme for an 
 artist. It is filled with most uncanny 
 sprites and eldritch things — unheard-of 
 wonders in undreamed-of lands, where 
 musical perfumes and odorous melodies 
 haunt all the winds, and blur the eyes of 
 Night with drowsiness that never sleeps, 
 and dreams that never end.* Your pardon, 
 but I do so like to talk about the "Gems of 
 purest ray serene" that drip like dew-drops 
 from my pen inspired! ! ! ! ! 
 
 Yet with all this air of nonchalance, let 
 me be frank and say that I am quite uneasy, 
 wondering as I write if you will really smile 
 
 *Mr. Charles W. Famham, of St. Paul, Miim., has very 
 kindly furnished the following note: "Riley undoubtedly 
 refers here to a long poem which ordinarily occupies a volume 
 by itself, and which is called 'The Flying Islands of the Night.' 
 It contains much verse that is very musical and fanciful, some 
 that is deliberately nonsensical. My own experience with it 
 is, that you must take it in bits — not attempt to read the 
 whole thing at a sitting or consecutively — though I may not 
 do justice to it in this attitude. I had some conversation 
 with Mr. Eiley about it and he was pleased that I compli- 
 mented certain parts of it; or, as he said, that I even noticed 
 it at all, because 'most everybody else ignores it. It seems 
 to be too extravagant and fanciful, and to have too much 
 nonsense in it for any number of people to care anything about 
 it.' " 
 
 [22 1 
 
where I would have you, and fearing that 
 you may not find beneath it all the nobler 
 motive that inspires it. Be lenient in your 
 judgment of me — if indeed you give the 
 matter any thought. The future shall re- 
 store the trust untarnished as pure gold. 
 
 Although you have called yourself "a 
 romantic girl," believe me, I do not address 
 you as such. That avowal coming as it 
 does, I understand; and to assure you how 
 •wholly I do understand it and appreciate it 
 at real value, I tell you truly that I don't 
 believe it. Romantic things are good in 
 Art and Poetry, but a Woman's heart is 
 worth them all, — and such a heart as that 
 is yours, I am sure. 
 
 Your good words spoken of my poetry 
 have encouraged me to ask if I may send 
 you something in prose. It will more than 
 delight me if you will, for then I may find 
 newer courage to ask for other specimens of 
 your writings, as well as the sketchesy which 
 I can assure you will be quite as highly 
 appreciated. In return for them I hereby 
 agree to talk Holbein, Durer, Hogarth, 
 Rembrandt, Chiaro ScurOy etc., &c, the full 
 
 [23 1 
 
"perspective" of my "fore-shortened" capa- 
 bilities, "picking out" the same with such 
 "subtle touches" of "light and shade" as 
 this "magic wand" of Faber's can evoke. 
 
 Earnestly hoping to hear from you soon, 
 and trusting you will indulge the hectic 
 gaiety of my poor letter, I am, with all good 
 wishes. 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 P. S. — I have just received a letter that 
 reminds me of a duty I yet owe you. This 
 will require another page or two. Will you 
 bear with me? This unhappy sequel may 
 pain you, though not more than it will me 
 as I give it utterance. 
 
 Your Uttle poem so pleased me I showed 
 it to a jotunalistic friend while at Indian- 
 apolis the other day ; and influenced — not 
 by vanity I assure you — but by some 
 indefinable impulse, I allowed him to retain 
 it for pubUcation, modestly suggesting a 
 change of title for our mutual sakes. And 
 then in ignorance most blissful I awaited 
 the denoument that was to Uterally crush 
 
 124 1 
 
me, and be the means perhaps of wrenching 
 me from the grasp of your regard for all 
 time. 
 
 The day of doom arrived, and in the 
 coming state of frenzy now about to fall 
 upon you, I leave you to imagine my per- 
 turbed and startled attitude to find the poem 
 published with the glaring caption, — 
 
 MY PALACE OF PEARL AND FIRE 
 To J. W. Riley 
 
 with your name and address in full blazoned 
 at the bottom.* 
 
 Now spare me if you can. I deserve to 
 hang, however much I prefer a life-sentence 
 in the close imprisonment of your regard. 
 
 *Mrs. Brunn states that she first met Riley — when she was 
 a girl of seventeen — at a literary society meeting in Spring- 
 field, Ohio, where he read some of his poems. She was only 
 one of many to whom he was introduced in a perfunctory 
 manner, and he did not remember her. She greatly admired 
 him as a poet and an interpreter of poetry and after returning 
 to her home in Pennsylvania she sent him a poem that she 
 copied from a newspaper. The fact that she neglected to use 
 quotation marks led him to suppose that she was the author 
 of the verses. She says that the poem was written by Emma 
 Alice Brown, "who lived and wrote in the early 50's." Mrs. 
 Brunn can recall only the last stanza, which runs, — 
 
 Come up to my palace among the hills. 
 
 For a stately house is mine — 
 
 O' come, my Poet, and drink with me 
 
 The Blood of Immortal Wine. 
 
 [25 1 
 
In reality, I am not wholly blamable. I 
 admit my disloyalty to the trust you so 
 graciously reposed in me, but for the luck- 
 less manner in which the poem was pre- 
 sented to the public the editor deserves our 
 mutual ire. And I wrote him a letter of 
 indignation, demanding in the name of all 
 things sacred what he meant by such a 
 liberty, to which he mockingly responded, 
 that "The readers of The Herald would 
 take more interest in it if they knew it was 
 intended for anybody in particular, you 
 know." 
 
 Forgive me, I pray you in all contrition 
 and sincerity. I believe you'd really pity 
 me if you could look upon me as I sheepishly 
 acknowledge all this. It's late at night, 
 and I am all alone, and there's a mirror just 
 across the room, but I wouldn't look into it, 
 as I now feel, for a genuine 18-carat * 'Palace 
 of Pearl and Fire" as big as your Exposition 
 Building. 
 
 The only recompense in my power to 
 
 offer you is a poem in response, which — 
 
 if it will in any way allay your vengeful 
 
 feelings toward me — you may pubUsh in 
 
 [261 
 
all its inferior merit, that it may rise up 
 before the world and shake its gory locks 
 at me and say I did it. — 
 
 MINE* 
 
 AN EXTRAVAGANZA 
 
 "Mme she iSj — of the whole world mine!** 
 
 I knew you long and long before 
 God sprinkled stars upon the floor 
 Of Heaven, and swept this soul of mine 
 So far beyond the reach of thine. 
 Ere day was bom I saw your face 
 * Hid in some starry hiding-place 
 
 Where our old moon was kneeling while 
 You lit its features with your smile. 
 I knew you while the earth was yet 
 A baby — ere the helpless thing 
 Could cry, or crawl, or anything; 
 Nor ever will my soul forget 
 How drowsy Time, low murmuring 
 A lullaby above it, kept 
 A-nodding till he dozed, and slept, 
 And knew it not, till wakening. 
 The Morning Stars began to sing. 
 I knew you even as the hands 
 Of angels set your sculptured form 
 Upon a pedestal of storm. 
 And lowered you to earth with strands 
 Of twisted lightning. And I heard 
 
 *We are unable to find that the first thirty-nine lines of 
 this poem have ever been printed. — Ed. 
 
 127 1 
 
Your voice ere you could speak a word 
 
 Of any but the Angel-tongue. — 
 
 I listened and I heard you say, — 
 
 * 'Though Heaven sows otir souls among 
 
 The worlds a miUion miles away 
 
 Each from the other, they will lean 
 
 Their tendrils nearer, day by day, 
 
 Till all the lands that intervene 
 
 Shall dwindle slowly, and the space 
 
 Shall see them vine-like interlace 
 
 Caressingly, and climb and twine 
 
 Up treUises of summer-shine. 
 
 And burst above in bloom divine!" 
 
 And even as you spake, a stream 
 
 Of some strange rapture over-ran 
 
 My laughing Ups, and thus began 
 
 The imknown song that men call * 'Dream." 
 
 Because her eyes were far too deep 
 And holy for a laugh to leap 
 Across the brink where sorrow tried 
 To drown within the amber tide, — 
 Because the looks whose ripple kissed 
 The trembling Uds through tender mist 
 Were glamoured with a radiant gleam — 
 Because of this I called her "Dream." 
 
 Because the roses growing wild 
 About her features when she smiled 
 Were ever dewed with tears that fell 
 With tenderness no tongue could tell, — 
 Because her lips might spill a kiss. 
 That dripping in a world like this 
 
 [28 1 
 
Would tincture death's myrrh-bitter stream 
 To sweetness — so I called her "Dream." 
 
 Because I could not understand 
 
 The magic touches of a hand 
 
 That seemed, beneath her strange control, 
 
 To smoothe the plumage of the soul, 
 
 And calm it, till with folded wings 
 
 It half forgot its fiutterings, 
 
 And nestled in her warm esteem 
 
 And trilled a song, and called her * 'Dream." 
 
 Because I saw her in a sleep 
 As desolate, and dark, and deep, 
 And fleeting as the empty night 
 That brings a vision of delight 
 To some poor convict as he lies 
 In slumber ere the day he dies — 
 Because she vanished like a gleam 
 Of Heaven do I call her "Dream." 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Pardon paper and pencil. My writing is 
 bad enough at best, but with a pen, most 
 wretchedly atrocious. 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 February 21, 1879. 
 Miss L. D. Kahle — 
 
 Dear friend : — ^C 
 
 You were good enough to honor me some 
 weeks ago with a communication that elated 
 
 [29 1 
 
me to that degree of exuberant delight, I 
 responded, forgetful of the fact that your 
 letter contained nothing to warrant such a 
 liberty on my part. I did more ; I filled page 
 after page with the lightest pleasantries — 
 as I then thought, but now think — hearing 
 nothing from you in return — have very 
 probably been received by you with any- 
 thing but that pleasure and kindly welcome 
 I had dared to anticipate for them. Although 
 guiltless of any motive but to give you 
 pleasure, I can but find in my own thought- 
 lessness full cause for your being afifronted 
 at what has doubtless seemed to you pure 
 impudence. Used as I am to all manner 
 of rebuffs, in public and in private, I confess 
 I have had nothing to so deeply pain me as 
 the consideration that you have (naturally 
 enough, perhaps) misinterpreted my real 
 character in thinking me either frivolous, 
 sentimental, or anything beneath the dignity 
 of true manliness, or at least that aspiration. 
 And yet I feel that my position with you now 
 is such that I can offer nothing, either by way 
 of extenuation or explanation, but that which 
 woiild simply be to you further annoyance. 
 
 [30] 
 
Mentally reviewing my former letters to 
 find, if possible, wherein I could have un- 
 designedly offended, I recall that portion 
 relating to the publication of your poem, and 
 my confession of the chagrin I felt upon 
 seeing it in print. Possibly you may have 
 misunderstood me there. The cause of my 
 chagrin was to see it thus publicly appear 
 addressed to me, without your consent, and 
 the awkward and unjust position in which it 
 might place us both. And with good cause, 
 therefore, did I deplore this unfortunate 
 fact, — for the following week, in the same 
 paper, appeared a rythmical screed ad- 
 dressed to you by a literary Thugg of some 
 local reputation, in which you were advised 
 of the utter uselessness of inviting me to 
 your ' 'Palace of Pearl and Fire," since my 
 utter selfishness in the pursuit of fame 
 wouldn't permit me for an instant to bestow 
 my attentions in any direction that might 
 be of pleasure to a fellow-pilgrim, etc., etc. 
 Nor was this all; the week following, ap- 
 peared another screed from an evident 
 admirer of mine, in which the "Thugg" is 
 informed that **When^oe^5 are asked to tip 
 [311 
 
the flask of the blood of immortal wine, to 
 them alone was the privilege known to 
 accept or to decline" — or something like 
 that — anyway, intimating that the "Thugg" 
 was nothing but a 'Verse-carpenter," treas- 
 uring a malice toward "our poet" (that's me 
 
 — O fame, where is thy sting?) , for having 
 publicly unveiled some of his prolific plagiar- 
 ies, etc., etc., — and so the war goes on, 
 and on — for I feel that the end is not yet 
 
 — **and the biirden laid upon me seems 
 greater than I can bear." 
 
 As to the unfortunate cause of all this, I 
 desire to say most truthfully that your poem 
 made me very proud — I was proud of it, 
 and am proud of it, and shall continue to be 
 proud of it till you yourself object, and even 
 in that instance I shall bury it away in some 
 dark recess of my heart, and grope down 
 there and like it all alone by myself. 
 
 I write this in the hope that you may 
 believe me wholly sincere. If I have 
 offended you in any way, may I hope for 
 your forgiveness? I don't know why I so 
 desire your good opinion, but I do desire it, 
 
 — whether worthy of it or not, I cannot say; 
 
 [32] 
 
however that may be, I would be delighted 
 to know you cared enough to inquire, for in 
 that instance I could then offer references 
 which might be received by you with far 
 more interest than any words of mine, — 
 for I recognize the fact that you know noth- 
 ing of my history, my character, social posi- 
 tion and all that, — perhaps don't care to, 
 yet I believe it a duty that I owe both to you 
 and to myself at this juncture, to assure you 
 of the fact that I am a yoxmg man and un- 
 married. I write sentimental verses occa- 
 sionally, simply because I don't believe in 
 love, and am anxious to convince myself of 
 my error, possibly — I don't know why else. 
 I have many friends, but more enemies, 
 and can scarcely tell which I most enjoy, 
 for I really enjoy being hated by some 
 people. I am cynical in a marked degree, 
 and disagreeable at times, I most frankly 
 admit. Socially, I move in the best circles, 
 — not, perhaps, because I was "to the 
 manor born," but because — because — well, 
 I recite dialectic poems acceptably, sing 
 comic songs and make ftmny faces, all 
 of which seems to please everybody but 
 
 133 1 
 
myself, for when I seem the happiest is when 
 I feel most like crying — though there are 
 times I could take the whole world in my 
 arms, and love it as I would a great, fat, 
 laughing baby with a bunch of jingling keys. 
 Trusting you will recognize the truthful- 
 ness and earnestness of all that I have said, 
 and hoping for such a response as I can but 
 feel is due me in the very peculiar and un- 
 comfortable position from which you alone 
 can extricate me, I am. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 P. S. — This postscript will be a much 
 happier one for me to write than my first, 
 for I have just received your letter of date 
 15th, in which, as the old romance winds up, 
 — *'all has been explained." 
 
 I am delighted beyond all words to find 
 evidence of the fact that I have not been 
 misinterpreted, and I thank you from the 
 bottom of my heart for the frankness and 
 confidence in which you have spoken. I 
 shall certainly think none the less of you 
 
 [34 1 
 
because you really can't write poetry, while 
 you write such truths. — As you intimate, 
 it must, at such a time, have required 
 extraordinary courage and magnanimity. To 
 tell the fact about it, I believe I admire you 
 more for this avowal than had you written 
 in its stead the most majestic sonnet. 
 
 Though my former explanation, etc., will 
 be now of little value, I send it, hoping you 
 will find in it, scattered here and there, 
 scraps of my better-self, and because I am 
 about leaving home for some business en- 
 gagements and have much hard work before 
 me. Yet I can most truthfully assure you, 
 I will go with a much lighter heart, having 
 heard from you so pleasurably. 
 
 Have you the faculty — though of course 
 you have — of seeing even what is but 
 vaguely described to you? I have, and in 
 consequence I see you and your little old 
 father living away out there all alone by 
 yourselves like the Mr. Twomeleys (is that 
 the name?) and his father in Great Expecta- 
 tionSf and living just as happily. It is 
 monotonous, of course; yet you are brave, 
 I guess, and anchored in that sweet belief 
 
 [35 1 
 
that some kind power has us in keeping — 
 
 ever ripening on and on to some glad end. 
 
 Shall I tell you how it seems to me you 
 
 are? — or rather how I like to fancy it? 
 
 Well, you're the little girl I read of in a poem 
 
 the other day; she was alone — so all alone, 
 
 the world grew as a blank to her ; for, in a 
 
 dream, she dwelt among loved unlovely 
 
 things, and yet "She dared not stay — she 
 
 dared not go," tmtil at last '^beneath her 
 
 feet a satin floor of white and blush and 
 
 crimson roses sprung — and on this bridge 
 
 of bloom she ran and sung, — and so came 
 
 unto the South — 
 
 And there she sleeps within a folded rose. 
 Dreaming there is a power rocking the stem 
 That sees all helpless souls and mothers 
 them.'' 
 
 And that's the way I shall picture you in 
 
 preference to thinking of bleak hillsides, and 
 
 a gaimt old house, perched all alone there, 
 
 with great staring windows, glaring ever 
 
 and in vain for something animate, forgetful 
 
 even of the sad-eyed girl that sits within 
 
 bent ever over her needlework, and — 
 
 ^* Shaping from her bitter thought 
 Heartsease and forgetmenot." 
 
 [36] 
 
O, you should see what I endure! When 
 at home (my home is like yours, as I guess, 
 in one respect, — the mother isn't there) — 
 when at home I live mechanically, much 
 like the house-plants — not so obtrusive 
 perhaps, but quite as silent. I never speak, 
 only to ask for more sugar for my coffee, or 
 to say, *'I'm too busy to waste time at the 
 wood-pile — I'll send a boy" (for I've a 
 step-mother^ by the way, whose chief de- 
 light is in rasping matter-o'-fact ideas over 
 my aesthetic sensibilities) . * * What is home 
 without a (step) Mother!" Give it up. So 
 I stay here in my down-town room curled 
 up like a wooley-worm, and when at work, 
 quite happy in spite of Fate, Misfortune, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 My time is most delightfully diversified 
 however, by occasional calls from different 
 parts of the state to lecture, and since I've 
 made this confession, I must admit that I've 
 as strong an ambition in that peculiar field 
 as in literature. Glad, too, to be able to say 
 that I'm succeeding there beyond even my 
 vainest expectations — but I'm running on 
 beyond the limits of my time, or your 
 [371 
 
interest, I am sure. You will write me, — 
 will you? — at your very earliest conveni- 
 ence. I like your letters, and shall await 
 the next with more impatience than the last 
 even, if such a thing could be possible. 
 
 I earnestly hope the acquaintance begim 
 imder such peculiar and harassing circum- 
 stances will eventuate, after all, as happily 
 as I desire, for in that instance the world 
 will have in us the noblest artist, and the 
 gladdest poet that ever twanged a string. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 
 March 15, 1879. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 Yes, I meant "Wemmick"* and "The 
 Aged," and I'm glad to get your good letter 
 — for I've been from home for a week or 
 two, and am tired — tired — tired ; and 
 your letter is the one oasis of that pilgrim- 
 age. Your picture of home is not at all 
 unlovely — I like it, and I envy your great 
 
 ♦Instead of "Mr. Twomeleys" in Great Expectations. See 
 postscript to letter of February 21st. 
 
 138 1 
 
depth of tranquility and rest. It's like a 
 prayer — hushed, holy and so full of gra- 
 cious peace I feel like kneeling as I read. 
 
 Your letters do me good- — they are so 
 different from my flighty **Crinkum-crank- 
 ums" — they seem like— like a deserved 
 yet unintentional rebuke, and so I welcome 
 them most warmly. 
 
 I have a fear, however, that will haunt me, 
 i.e., that I am simply an intrusion on your 
 better time. Forgive me if I am, for know- 
 ingly I would not vex you, and am '*more 
 glad than words can say" that you have 
 pardoned me for so unwittingly occasioning 
 you the ''sleepless hours" you speak of over 
 the publication of the lines "To a Poet" — 
 which, by the way, is still of interest to me, 
 and in your next will you tell me, please, the 
 real author? 
 
 All comment regarding it has died away, 
 and there will be no further comment, rest 
 assured. 
 
 I take the liberty of sending you by this 
 mail an old poem of mine that was the occa- 
 sion of more worry to me than ever could 
 have been your "Palace of Pearl and Fire." 
 
 139 1 
 
Perhaps you may have heard something of 
 it, yet fearful you have not, and desiring 
 that you may fully understand it, I will 
 briefly outline its history. 
 
 About two years ago, in conversation with 
 a friend, I ventured the assertion that 
 poetry, to be popular, didn't require positive 
 worth ; if it were the production of an author 
 known to fame, that of itself was sufficient 
 to insure its success. My friend took the 
 opposite ground and argued so positively 
 against my theory, that I determined to con- 
 vince [him] of his error if in any way pos- 
 sible; and beating about for a means of 
 proof, I hit upon the idea of vaguely imitat- 
 ing some dead author, and then fabricating 
 a story to correspond with the supposed dis- 
 covery of "his" poem, lay them both before 
 the public. This project I perfected and 
 carried out, selecting Poe* as the helpless 
 victim of my heinous design. The poem, 
 **Leonainie" was the result, and it is not 
 vanity in me to say that the ruse worked so 
 successfully scarcely a journal within the 
 
 *By a singular coincidence, Poe died on the same day 
 that Riley was bom. 
 
 [40] 
 
boundaries of the United States failed to 
 reproduce it. Among the more notable, 
 William Cullen Bryant's '^Saturday Post," 
 while Poe's latest, and, I guess, best, biog- 
 rapher, Wm. F. Gill, of Boston, wrote for 
 the *'orig." MS. copy which we (the editor 
 who gave it first to the public, and myself) 
 claimed was in our possession. — This lat- 
 ter fact occasioning the expose of our fraud, 
 for it had grown serious, you see, and we 
 were in a manner forced to come to the sur- 
 face, or a-la "Truthful James," "rise and 
 explain." This we did, but as the grand 
 majority had bitten at the tempting literary 
 morsel of deceit, the irate press "went for 
 us then and thar," and for your humble serv- 
 ant with an especial intensity of vitupera- 
 tion and exhaustless abuse ; and it was some 
 months before I dared cheep a line of poetry 
 without being reviled beyond measure. I 
 can smile over it now, but then it was really 
 very, very serious. 
 
 Well, this poem has been set to music 
 
 (by some fiend evidently who desires to 
 
 perpetuate that unholy fraud of mine) and 
 
 I have just received a copy of it and send it, 
 
 [411 
 
hoping, after all, it will prove a passing 
 pleasm^e to you, dear friend. I regret to 
 note, however, that one verse of the poem 
 has been omitted in the musical arrange- 
 ment, as it makes still more obscure the 
 real meaning of the poem.* 
 
 Trusting you will still continue to favor 
 
 me, as your time and pleasure may allow, 
 
 and hoping, too, that you will recognize the 
 
 real interest I find in your good letters, I am, 
 
 Truly and gratefully 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 LEONAINIE 
 
 Leonainie — Angels named her; 
 
 And they took the Hght 
 Of the laughing stars and framed her 
 In a smile of white ; 
 And they made her hair of gloomy 
 Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy 
 Moonshine, and they brought her to me 
 In the solemn night. 
 
 In a solemn night of simmier. 
 When my heart of gloom 
 
 *The poem, including the missing stanza, is given on this 
 and the next page. 
 
 [42 1 
 
Blossomed up to greet the comer 
 Like a rose in bloom ; 
 
 All forebodings that distressed me 
 
 I forgot as joy caressed me — 
 
 (Lying joy! that caught and pressed me 
 
 In the arms of doom!) 
 
 Only spake the little lisper 
 
 In the Angel-tongue ; 
 Yet I, listening, heard her whisper, — 
 "Songs are only sung 
 Here below that they may grieve you, — 
 Tales but told you to deceive you, — 
 So must Leonainie leave you 
 While her love is young." 
 
 Then God smiled and it was morning. 
 
 Matchless and supreme. 
 Heaven's glory seemed adorning 
 Earth with its esteem; 
 
 Every heart but mine seemed gifted 
 With the voice of prayer, and lifted 
 Where my Leonainie drifted 
 From me like a dream. 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 
 April 11, 1879. 
 Miss Kahle — 
 
 Dear friend : — 
 More than a month has flashed away 
 since the receipt of your last letter. I would 
 have written long ere this, but for the gentle 
 
 143 1 
 
intimation that I need display no prompt- 
 ness at all — which meant, I sadly, sadly 
 fear, that my letters are of value the most 
 nominal in your esteem — Ho! ho! But 
 you shall not find me so easily eluded. I 
 will bide my time. I will ''possess my soul 
 in patience." I will hide me low adown 
 among the dim, dark shadows of your life, 
 and as you journey on, forgetful of all else 
 but art and fame, I will leap up before you 
 like some monstrously-distorted ''Jack-in- 
 the-box," and I will chortle with uncanny 
 glee, — "Ho! ho! Ail things come round 
 to him who will but wait!" 
 
 But we are good friends, "ain't us"? as 
 Joe Gasgery would say. And your letters, 
 drifting out of the imknown and eddying 
 about me in this far-off land, come to me 
 like truant whiffs of perfume from en- 
 chanted vales. There ! how's that? — but 
 I mean it — every word, and more, too — 
 for the world I know and deal with is a 
 wrangling, jangling, slip-shod old concern 
 that rattles as it rolls along the road of Time, 
 and the noise of it sinks low and dies away, 
 and I am soothed and thankful when your 
 
 [44 1 
 
letters come. You are very good to me, 
 and you must know that I appreciate and 
 like you better every woman's-word you 
 write. 
 
 And you're at work again. Is there any- 
 thing better than work? I have never found 
 [it]. Sometimes I lose the way of it, and 
 grow idle — then morose and sullen, dis- 
 agreeable — and at last most wretchedly 
 unhappy. I am very busy now, and very 
 happy. I am always happy when at work, 
 ^and never wholly so even when necessarily 
 idle — no, not even when I dance, laugh, 
 sing or anything. — *'For fear ye die to- 
 morrow let today pass by flower-crowned 
 and singing," is advice I never could accept, 
 — for if I knew I would die tomorrow I 
 would occupy the day preceding that very 
 notable event in labor — not in laughs. 
 
 I did mean *'Wemmick" in Great Ex- 
 pectations, and your correction, together 
 with the home scenes as they actually exist, 
 I enjoyed beyond measure. You say you 
 cannot write. I say you can; and I know; 
 for IVe been an editor — think of that! 
 And when you write again, you must tell me 
 [45 1 
 
more and more of home, your father, your 
 work, everythmg. 
 
 And sometime I want you — for my sake, 
 since you declare yourself my friend — to 
 write a poem. You can, and you must. I 
 shall accept no excuse. 
 
 Just now I'm a raving lunatic on the son- 
 net topic. Here is one of Christina Ros- 
 setti's. To use her own chaste words, ''And 
 very sweet it is : — " 
 
 AFTER DEATH* 
 
 "The curtains were half drawn, the floor was 
 swept 
 
 And strewn with rushes ; rosemary and may 
 
 Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay, 
 Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept. 
 He leaned above me, thinking that I slept 
 
 And could not hear him ; but I heard him say 
 
 *'Poor child! poor child!" and as he turned 
 away 
 Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. 
 
 He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold 
 That hid my face, or take my hand in his. 
 
 Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head. 
 
 He did not love me living ; but once dead 
 He pitied me, and very sweet it is 
 
 To know he still is warm though I am cold." 
 
 ♦This sonnet and the one following appear in the body of 
 the letter, in Riley's handwriting. 
 
 146] 
 

 ^ x. 
 
 -i.y -svowi / 
 
 ynJ 
 
 ^^-^'^ 
 
 
And here's one by your modest friend — 
 not by any means so excellent as the one 
 just quoted, but he wrote it, and he wants 
 you to read it. 
 
 JUNE 
 
 queenly month of indolent repose! 
 
 I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume, 
 As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom 
 
 1 nestle like a drowsy child, and doze 
 The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws 
 
 The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom. 
 
 And weaves a damask-work of gleam and 
 gloom 
 Before thy listless feet; The lily blows 
 A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade, 
 
 And, wheeling into ranks with plume and 
 spear. 
 Thy harvest-armies gather on parade ; 
 
 While faint and far away, yet pure and clear, 
 A voice calls out of alien lands of shade, — 
 
 "All hail the peerless goddess of the year!" 
 
 I will also enclose with this a recent sketch 
 in prose.* Nothing ambitious — nothing 
 vigorous. You would term it — and I 
 
 * "The prose mentioned in the next to last paragraph of 
 letter of April 11th, 1879, I did not consider of any conse- 
 quence, for I do not recall it and it is not at this date in my 
 possession, nor do I know of its whereabouts." — Signed 
 statement by Elizabeth Brunn, nee Kahle. 
 
 f471 
 
would be greatly pleased if you did — "A 
 quiet bit of color" — nothing more. 
 
 And now, when may I hope to hear from 
 you again? Write me when you can — if 
 at once, I shall be all the more delighted, 
 but if not, I will conform my desire with 
 your own good time, and remain as faith- 
 fully yours as now. 
 
 Truly your friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 May 6, 1879. 
 My dear friend : — 
 
 First, I must tell you truthfully that it has 
 not been through neglect that I have not 
 written in answer to your last good letter 
 sooner. (And your last letter is ^^ better, 
 better, better than anything on earth" — 
 only the quotation proper is ^^ sweeter ^ 
 sweeter, sweeter^^ — but I'm afraid to say 
 that, having never, but in fancy, seen your 
 woman-face, or caught and wrung your two 
 kind hands.) 
 
 [48 1 
 
I need not enter into any detail as to 
 reason of my silence, and yet I do want you 
 to know that I have been worried, fretted, 
 vexed, and 'Vooled" around the last few 
 weeks most pitilessly. Business for one 
 thing — what little business I have to em- 
 ploy my mind — has been slowly slipping 
 and sliding beyond my reach, though by an 
 almost superhuman effort IVe enough left 
 to fatten my ambition in that line — for if 
 I might have my way I'd have nothing to do 
 with matter-of-fact affairs in any way. 
 
 You've heard of Job's Turkey, of course 
 (wonder if it was a Thanksgiving Turkey!). 
 Well, in a financial aspect, I am left about 
 as poor as that — only I'm a very patient 
 and contented fowl, and so long as I'm not 
 too poor to * 'gobble" I shall count myself 
 extremely opulent. At least I shall say so, 
 and how are you to know, so far away, but 
 that I'm just as happy as I profess to be ! 
 
 The reference to your brother — his leav- 
 ing you for the world — his return home, 
 and then his death — told me that you had, 
 and have, a brave, good heart, and made me 
 like you even better than before. For even 
 
 [49] 
 
now as I write, a brother — older than my- 
 self — is lying very seriously ill. This is 
 one of my present troubles. John is his 
 name, mine's Jim. My life has been just 
 what the name suggests; John's life has 
 been only good. He always had his lessons 
 at school, and was never whipped either 
 by the teacher or father — while / — why, 
 I went about with welts nmning over and 
 aroimd me, like a rhinoceros' hide. O I 
 was a calloused little wretch, both outward- 
 ly and in, and was never so happy as when 
 breaking rules. 
 
 But John was good, and is good, and 
 though you say you like bad boys best, you 
 couldn't help loving John, for he wasn't the 
 insipid good little boy of the Sunday-school 
 books. Besides, you must like him, be- 
 cause if it hadn't been for John I'd never 
 have been fit to write one word to z/ou, or 
 any one so good, nor would any one have 
 cared to hear from one so low — so lost. 
 And if John should die there would be no 
 one left whose praise could be quite so much 
 as his is to me. He praises every line that 
 has a moral worth, and every sentiment that 
 [50] 
 
speaks out for the poor. John was the first 
 to believe in me, and if he lives I know I 
 will be better every day. I am selfish — 
 very selfish — but I would rather die here 
 at these words than to know that he had 
 left me. 
 
 The world is such a great wide ache of 
 emptiness without some one you know is 
 wholly true, and though one writes and 
 writes till all who read applaud, how much 
 more lovable is he who teaches us *'how 
 better 'tis to be the poem than write it 
 down." I don't know anything of a here- 
 after, but when I die I want to go to — John, 
 if he goes first, and I pray he may not. 
 
 I was glad to hear you say, **you didn't 
 want to be let alone." I think / heard your 
 voice in that sentence. You like me, don't 
 you? It makes me very happy thinking so 
 anyhow, and I do think so, and even if you'd 
 say you didn't, I doubt if I'd believe you, so 
 there, now — here's a quandary of some 
 kind ! What's to be done? Tell you what : 
 I'll steal in upon you as in fancy I see you 
 reading this, and even as you said, "lay a 
 gentle hand upon your shoulder," saying — 
 fSil 
 
"forgive me!" Do you hear? and do you 
 lift your eyes up to my own? and do you 
 smile? — Then I am forgiven — and so I 
 stand here by your side, tranced in some 
 strange silence that lays a viewless finger* 
 on my pencil now, and talks on in my stead. 
 
 I do wonder if you would like me if you 
 could know and see me as I am. I*d like 
 you to, of course, but would be almost fear- 
 ful of the test. But I'll tell you frankly 
 what I will do, if you'll take an equal risk; 
 I'll send you my — (I won't say **photo," 
 as the **Wills" and ''Harries" do, please 
 mark) picture — if — you'll — let me. (I 
 try to say this very humbly, very bad-boy- 
 ishly, yet after all I want you to know that 
 I say it far more earnestly than any other 
 way, and you will understand me rightly I 
 am sure and answer in your next.) 
 
 And how do you progress with your work? 
 I can't say I am waiting patiently for that 
 landscape you promised me so long ago; 
 but I am waiting — waiting. Will it ever 
 come, and when? 
 
 *Riley afterwards incorporated this same thought in the 
 fifth stanza of the New Year's Greeting poem, facsimile of 
 which appears in the front of this volume. — Ed. 
 
 152 1 
 
O yes! — I am quite well acquainted with 
 the author of the little poem * 'Unwritten" 
 which you sent me in your last. It is Mrs. 
 D. M. Jordan, of Richmond, Ind. I have 
 visited at her home two or three times. I 
 see her quite often. She is an editor as well 
 as a poet, and a most lovable woman. She 
 is a woman of wonderful magnetism, and it 
 is music to hear her talk. Is married, and 
 has two grown children; one, a daughter, 
 quite recently wedded to some lucky dog 
 whose happiness I trust will follow him for- 
 ever and forever! I want to tell you all 
 about Mrs. Jordan, for she is my very best 
 friend — but I haven't time, and perhaps 
 you wouldn't care to listen anyhow, but I 
 will quote something from a newspaper 
 letter written years ago, when I first met 
 her. It is here in my scrap book : — 
 
 *'And now let me leave a good taste in 
 your mouth by telling you of my visit to 
 Mrs. Jordan, that charming child of Song 
 whose melody ripples around the happy 
 world. There's a woman everybody likes 
 at first sight. She meets you with a glad 
 face that only blossoms warmer as you know 
 [53 1 
 
her better. She takes your hand and 
 shakes it — no dainty affectation of cold 
 finger-tips. 
 
 *'She is what the English would call *a 
 trifle stout' in stature; but her bearing is 
 both graceful and majestic. She has a way 
 of growing in height at certain utterances 
 that makes her manner extremely fascinat- 
 ing. Her eyes are capable of great expres- 
 sion — particularly of the tenderer emo- 
 tions. So marked is this, in fact, that at 
 the reading of any tender verse her eyes will 
 moisten, and her rich voice fail and falter. 
 I had the rare good fortime to listen to her 
 latest poem, which she laughingly called *a 
 bit of jingle,' but if I might venture an 
 opinion, I would call it a grand poem. 
 
 "I met her daughter also — a bright little 
 woman of eighteen, with all the mother's 
 qualities but the poetry. She is quite hand- 
 some, with bright eyes that flash an extra 
 brilliance through a pair of fimny 'specs,* 
 surmounting a nose *Tip-tilted like the petal 
 of a flower.' " 
 
 So much for my dear friend Mrs. J. That 
 last clause was inserted for a purpose, which 
 
 [54 1 
 
of course failed — for have I not told you 
 that she's went and gone and got married 
 to another fellow? and the sigh I breathe 
 here would inflate a hot-air balloon. But 
 there! forgive me again. 
 
 When you write, tell me more about your- 
 self. Do as I do, — talk of nothing but 
 yourself. I seem to know you better from 
 your last letter, but you're always saying or 
 intimating that your ways and your capabili- 
 ties and your efforts and all are sorto' 
 secondary; and always putting yourself in 
 the background, — and I'm going to take 
 your part, and tell you that you shant talk 
 that way any more, for I know you are bet- 
 ter than you try to have me think, and am 
 too true a friend to submit to such innuen- 
 does without coming to your assistance as I 
 now do in this way. 
 
 When will you write? Write just as soon 
 as you can, and next time I'll answer with 
 more promptness — nothing shall prevent 
 me. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 [55 1 
 
Greenfield, Ind., 
 May 16, 1879. 
 Miss Lizzie KaMe — 
 Dear friend : — 
 Some days ago I said I would send you 
 my latest sketch.* I enclose it to you now; 
 also — if you will pardon the vanity — 
 notices of my recent debut as a reader in 
 our capitol city, Indianapolis. The latter 
 I ask you to kindly return — the former I 
 trust you will like so well you will embalm 
 it in your scrap book for the sake of 
 
 Your true friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 In the meantime, if your letter doesn't 
 shortly arrive I'll be crazier than the sketch 
 I send you indicates. 
 
 *"The 'sketch' referred to in letter of May 16th, as being 
 enclosed, was a prose sketch entitled The Tale of a Spider. 
 It was not interesting and I considered it of no literary worth, 
 so did not preserve it." — Signed statement by Elizabeth 
 Brunn, nee Kahle. 
 
 [56] 
 
Greenfield, Ind., i 
 
 June 10, 1879. 
 Miss Lizzie Kahle — 
 
 Dear friend : — i 
 
 I am not so prompt in my reply to your i 
 
 last good letter as I could have been, and .] 
 
 wanted to be ; but you will pardon the delay \ 
 
 when I tell you the anxiety occasioned by I 
 
 my brother's long and still dangerous ill- i 
 
 ness, together with a complication of other 
 trials, has kept me silent with an aching 
 hope that some brighter time than this would 
 dawn upon my needs and my desires. 
 
 I think I must be a very disagreeable sort i 
 
 o' wretch about now. There is a lull about , 
 
 the house when I go home, and the old dog 
 lying on the doorstep, with his nose leveled 
 townward over his two paws, always leaps 
 up when I reach the gate, and vanishes 
 
 around the corner. He knows who's com- ; 
 
 ing. — He's heard some one reading in the ! 
 
 papers about something having "cast a j 
 
 gloom over the entire community," and he i 
 
 thinks it's me, I've no doubt. | 
 
 I wonder if you are quite as lonesome as I 
 
 I am. I think not — I hope not — I pray 
 
 157 1 ! 
 
that you are not. I half wish that I were a 
 dog that I might crawl away under the 
 sleepers of some old deserted house, and 
 howl — and howl. I can*t express my 
 feelings with any degree of elegance — fine 
 figure wouldn't fit 'em, and it's the veriest 
 selfishness in me to prance 'em out in public 
 anyhow. Guess I'll drive 'em back, and 
 fling old Fate smile for smile. 
 
 I was down to the city last week and went 
 skippety-hop to the picture shop to get my 
 picture taken, and when I got there I sat 
 down in a chair, and looked sad and for- 
 saken. There! that fact's embalmed for 
 immortality — for it is a fact that in sitting 
 for a picture the human face asstimes its 
 saddest and most hopeless expression. As 
 yet I haven't the result of my last venture, 
 but you may prepare for the worst, for I 
 know the smile I tried to wear will look 
 positively bleak — and I'm not what the 
 world would call handsome even at my best; 
 and there never was but one girl ever told 
 me so, and her face was a perfect constella- 
 tion of freckles, to say nothing of the masta- 
 donian proportions of her hands and feet. 
 158 1 
 
You see I can't write pleasantly — there 
 is nothing healthful in my mental composi- 
 tion and I am powerless to affect a lightness 
 and gaiety which I do not feel. You will 
 forgive me. You are good, and you will 
 understand. I want you to write me a 
 better letter than I deserve for this nothing- 
 ness. 
 
 Sometimes I write dialectic poems and 
 publish them anonymously or under noms 
 de plume, I will send you two or three,* 
 but will have to copy some. They at least 
 will be more pleasure to you than the poor 
 juiceless lines I have written here. 
 
 Truly your friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 OLD-FASHIONED ROSES 
 
 They aint no style about 'em, 
 
 And they're sorto pale and faded, 
 Yit the doorway here without 'em 
 
 *Only one of these copies of his "dialectic poems" seems 
 to have survived in the correspondence, — the one entitled 
 "Old Fashioned Roses." It is printed herein, followed by 
 the author's Note, written on the back of the sheet on 
 which he copied it in his own handwriting. The text differs 
 slightly from the printed versions. 
 
 [59 1 
 
Would be lonesomer and shaded 
 With a good-'eal blacker shadder 
 
 Than the momin'-glories makes, 
 And the sunshine would look sadder 
 
 For their good old-fashion' sakes. 
 
 I like *em 'cause they kindo 
 
 Sorto make a feller like 'em, — 
 And I'll tell you, when I find a 
 
 Bunch out whur the sun can strike 'em, 
 It alius sets me thinldn' 
 
 O' the ones that used to grow 
 And peek in thru the chinkin' 
 O' the cabin, don't you know. 
 
 And then I think o' Mother, 
 
 And how she used to love 'em 
 When they wasn't any other, 
 
 'Less she foimd 'em up above 'em, — 
 And her eyes, afore she shut 'em, 
 
 Whispered with a smile and said 
 We must pick a bunch and put 'em 
 In her hands when she was dead. 
 
 But as I was a-sayin', — 
 
 They aint no style about 'em — 
 Very gaudy or displayin' — 
 Yit I wouldn't be without 'em, 
 'Cause I'm happier in these posies 
 
 And the hollyhawks and sich. 
 Than the hmnin'-bird that noses 
 In the roses o' the rich. 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 160] 
 
Note. — Not knowing, of course, that 
 you are familiar with, or will appreciate, the 
 Hoosier dialect, I would say, both in justice 
 to my fellow-Hoosiers and myself, that the 
 two poems within are very careful, and I 
 think, accurate studies, not only of dialect 
 but character as well, — for, to aptly and 
 truthfully apply the idiom, — "We're as 
 meller a hearted set o' folks as you ever laid 
 eyes on!" 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 July 13, 1879. 
 
 My dear friend : — 
 
 I suspect that by this time both your con- 
 fidence in me, and your patience are almost 
 exhausted. I will not worry you with long 
 excuses for my long silence, but say simply 
 I have been disappointed many ways, and 
 so kept from many things I desired to do — 
 foremost of which a letter to your own good 
 self. I merely scrawl this page now — not 
 as a letter, but as an assurance of my warm 
 [61] 
 
remembrance of you. There's an old love- 
 song from the Japanese, the quaint burthen 
 of which is — 
 
 **/ have forgotten to forget — " 
 
 Well that is my sentiment, believe me. 
 
 The main reason of my silence, however, 
 has been that I couldn't enclose the picture 
 when I did write — for it was simply hor- 
 rible! ! — and I'm going into the city to- 
 morrow to "try, try again." So I write this 
 merely to assure you that I intend writing 
 you in a week at farthest, and to ask you 
 to forgive me for my apparent neglect of 
 your last best of all letters. 
 
 And O yes! — I mustn't forget to tell 
 you that my dialectic poems, under the 
 name of "Walker" are creating some com- 
 ment through the press both East and West 
 and I enclose a clipping, hoping for a con- 
 gratulatory smile from you; also a poetical 
 corner — a recent feature of the Indianap- 
 olis Herald — which I am glad to say is 
 proving most successful. They are odd 
 jingles mainly, though occasionally I think 
 a more than average stanza escapes my 
 
 162 1 
 
careless pen. I am almost sure you will 
 like * 'Mirage," for I thought of you every 
 
 line as I wrote. i 
 
 And now God bless you, and forgive me, i 
 
 and I will soon send you the letter you 
 deserve. 
 
 Ever your true friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 MIRAGE j 
 
 I ,; 
 
 An alien wind that blew and blew 
 
 Over the fields where the ripe grain grew, i 
 
 Sending ripples of shine and shade i 
 
 That crept and crouched at her feet and played. 
 
 The sea-like sununer washed the moss 
 
 Till the sun-drenched lilies hung like floss, j 
 
 Draping the throne of green and gold 
 That lulled her there lUce a queen of old. 
 
 n 
 
 Was it the hum of a btunble bee. 
 
 Or the long-hushed bugle eerily ' 
 
 "Winding a call to the daring Prince ] 
 
 Lost in the wood long ages since? — ' 
 
 f 63 1 ' i 
 
A dim old wood, with palace rare 
 Hidden away in its depths somewhere! 
 
 Was it the Princess, tranced in sleep. 
 Awaiting her lover's touch to leap 
 
 Into the arms that bent above? — 
 
 To thaw his heart with a breath of love — 
 
 And cloy his lips, through her waking tears. 
 With the dead-ripe kiss of a hundred years I 
 
 m 
 
 An alien wind that blew and blew, — 
 I had blurred my eyes as the artists do, 
 
 Coaxing life to a half-sketched face. 
 Or dreaming bloom for a grassy place. 
 
 The bee droned on in an imdertone. 
 And a shadow-bird trailed all alone 
 
 Across the wheat, while a liquid cry 
 Dripped from above, as it went by. 
 
 What to her was the far-off whirr 
 Of the quail's quick wing or the chipmunk's 
 chirr? — 
 
 What to her was the shade that slid 
 Over the hill where the reapers hid? — 
 
 Or what the himter, with one foot raised, 
 As he turned to go — yet, pausing, gazed? 
 
 [641 
 

 ^<___ ^.^ «... (^^rrt., r.trCi t^'^, , ^c^'^u^u^^ '' 
 
— ^And here^s a laddie from the Highlands 
 — if you like Scotch — butterscotch. — 
 
 THE LITTLE TINY KICKSHAW* 
 
 ** — And any pretty little tiny kickshaws." 
 
 — Shakespeare 
 
 O the little tiny kickshaw that Mither sent to me! 
 
 'Tis sweeter than the sugar-plum that reepens 
 on the tree, 
 
 Wi' dainty flaverin's o' spice, and musky rose- 
 marie, 
 
 The Uttle tiny kickshaw that Mither sent to me. 
 
 'Tis lu[s]cious wi' the stalen tang o' fruits frae 
 
 o'er the sea, 
 And e'en its fragrance gars me laugh wi* 
 
 langin' Hp and ee 
 Till a' its frazen sheen o' white maim melten 
 
 honey be, 
 Sae weel I lo'e the kickshaw that Mither sent 
 
 to me. 
 
 O I lo'e the tiny kickshaw, and I smack my lips 
 
 wi' glee, 
 And mickle do I lo'e the taste o' sic a luxourie, 
 But maist I lo'e the bonnie bans that could the 
 
 giftie gie 
 O' the little tiny kickshaw that Mither sent to me. 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 *This poem, which is printed exactly as the Poet wrote 
 it to Miss Kahle, differs slightly, both in text and punctuation, 
 from the printed versions. 
 
 165] 
 
And O yes! — when I go in with a Lecttire 
 Bureau next season — which I will — Fm 
 going to struggle to get down your way. I 
 shall never be content till you see me on 
 *'my throne — the rostrum," — that's the 
 way the big bill reads. I fill this blank up 
 with a real laugh. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 Of course you'll forgive all this display of 
 vanity — no, it isn't vanity — it's just 
 'cause I'm glad, and want you to know it. 
 But it is such fun to bewilder folks. My 
 best friends don't know I am Walker, and 
 you will notice comment from Mr. B. S. 
 Parker — a leading poet of our State, and 
 one of my closest friends — and only just 
 see what he has written to the editor regard- 
 ing "Walker," and observe, too, the clever- 
 ness of the comment following. O, I just 
 clap my hands! 
 
 Don't bother about returning the scraps. 
 I have bushels of 'em. You remember the 
 little old myth of "Beauty and the Beast." 
 
 166 1 
 
I came across a reminder of it yesterday, 
 which I embellish and enclose. I want you 
 to smile upon it. 
 
 Kokomo, Ind., 
 July 15, 1879. 
 Once more dear friend : — 
 
 My scrawl of yesterday I have carried till 
 today, being so busied with a thousand 
 things. I'm unexpectedly visiting my good 
 friend here, the editor of the Tribune, He's 
 going to put me at work, too; so you see, 
 like good Chispa, — '4n running away from 
 the thunder I have run into the lightning;" 
 but after all, the world is very good. 
 
 You will pardon the apparent haste and 
 untidiness of my last communication, I am 
 sure, and believe me. 
 
 As ever your friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Later, — I want to tell you all about that 
 cunning little sketch you sent me. When 
 I write I will, and I intend to write soon. 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 Maybe I'll send you a sketch. Used to 
 sketch a little. 
 
 [67 1 
 
Greenfield, Ind., 
 August 14, 1879. 
 Miss Kahle — 
 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 I cannot blame you if you think me 
 neglectful. It will appear so, though again 
 and again must assure you that I am not. 
 When I wrote you last I was anticipating a 
 brief rest from my labors, but was driven 
 back to work again with scarcely the interval 
 of a good long breath. 
 
 I am now regularly furnishing four papers 
 with contributions, besides writing a part- 
 nership book, and perfecting an original 
 programme for readings the coming season. 
 So you will see I am indeed overwhelmed, 
 and I must throw in, too, by way of good 
 measure, the fact that I'm in rather ill health. 
 I don't like to acknowledge this, but I feel 
 that I will be better for the confession. I 
 am very nervous, and worry a great deal 
 more than is good for me, and the doctor 
 says if I don't give up night-work (my time 
 of all times for work) I'll just naturally "go 
 out" like a candle. Pleasant contempla- 
 tion! — isn't it? But this winter will bring 
 168 1 
 
me round all right again, I'm sure — when 
 I get on the road, you know, entrancing the 
 world at large with my rhythmic eloquence, 
 and leaving delighted thousands bathed in 
 tears — Ah, ha! what a picture for the sallow 
 little giant as his pencil trips along the words. 
 You'll think I have forgotten the picture, 
 too, but I haven't. O but this blotchy old 
 face of mine takes awful! It aint blotchy 
 either, but it always takes that way - — so 
 you'd think I was uglier than I really am — 
 and that's bad enough. But will you wait 
 just a little longer? Please see how I want 
 you to have my picture, and how more I 
 want yours, and if I don't very soon get a 
 better one than this, why I'll send it along 
 with directions how to look at the paradox 
 ^-for my mustache is not black (as the 
 picture makes it) — my head bald ; my eyes 
 brown, or my face solemn, haggard and long 
 as an undertaker's. All this the picture 
 makes me, and I won't submit to it. My 
 hair is rather light in color, and I have a way 
 of brushing it closely down and sleeking it 
 so the camera of the artist just glances off, 
 I guess. Then my mustache is — well what 
 
 169 1 
 
I have always persisted in calling "amber- 
 colored" — "hardly golden" — a trifle deep 
 even for pinchbeck — but it aint red — nor 
 it aint black, and you'll say so when you see 
 me, and like me all the better for not being 
 prejudiced with this paraphrase on my real 
 appearance. 
 
 In the meantime, I find that I am sadly 
 missing your good letters, and I need them. 
 They are more to me than I can tell you, 
 and you must write to me now, now, now. 
 
 Soon I will have more leisure to respond 
 than now, but by the time another reaches 
 me, I will take the time whether I have it 
 or not, and I will write to you as I want to. 
 
 I have got the little sketch you sent, pinned 
 here above my desk, with a terra cotta 
 Venus on either side, and stacks and stacks 
 of poetry heaped high up to her baby feet. 
 
 Please write to me at once. Tell me you 
 forgive me for everything, 'cause I can't 
 help it all and you must forgive me. 
 
 I again afflict you with scraps — scraps, 
 — scraps. As ever 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 [70 1 
 
Greenfield, August 23, 1879. 
 
 My dear friend : — 
 
 Your letter is so kind — so very kind and 
 good, that I must write at once to thank you 
 for it and grab your two warm hands close 
 in my own and wring them fervently. Only 
 you mustn't be concerned about my health 
 or welfare — anything ■— 'cause I don't de- 
 serve such interest from anyone so good as 
 you. I do smile, though, when you say, "I 
 want to ask, like I do of children when they 
 cry, what is the matter? Tell me." 
 
 Surely if you feel like that, then indeed 
 you comprehend me just as I am, — a little 
 helpless child — who would thank God 
 with all his boyish heart if you just could — 
 now this minute — put your hands over my 
 eyes and say, "Now you must sleep;" only 
 
 — only — I want to be strong enough to bear 
 my burden, and your dear words make me 
 weak. You don't know — you can't know 
 
 — what a weight it is, and how heavier it 
 grows each weary step I take. 
 
 Forgive me, but you mustn't be so good 
 to me, because / want you to be happy — 
 [711 
 
not like me, who cannot even lift my empty 
 hands at times, and ask God's help. You 
 make me want to call you "little girl." You 
 make me want to come to you creeping on 
 my face and hands, to hide away from all 
 the world and rest — rest! But this is 
 Fate's hand clutching mine, and dragging 
 me from pleasant ways through tangled 
 labyrinths and steep defiles, and over stony 
 paths where no flowers bloom, and no bird 
 ever sings, and no one (should I not thank 
 God for that?) to — "tSzY down in the dark- 
 ness and weep with me on the edge of the 
 world — 50 love lies dead^ Yet, I wish 
 that I might talk with you a little for / am 
 good and you must know that always. You 
 are like me in many things, and in one thing 
 in particular, you are inclined to tire of it all 
 (I mean this thing of living on and on — for 
 — - what?) — and ever yearning for some 
 indefinable good that is ever kept from you. 
 Am I not right? Well, I do not know your 
 strength, but I will pray that it, too, is like 
 my own; that you can say with me, — *'It 
 all means something ^ since God wills it, and 
 may He give me strength and patience to 
 f72l 
 
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abide." And it does mean something since 
 God wills it, and He will give us strength and 
 patience to abide. And I smile now as I 
 fancy our two souls are kneeling here to- 
 gether side by side, praying in one voice, 
 and God will hear it. 
 
 *Wou; another new moon is here." 
 
 The poems you send are both good. The 
 Moon-poem especially — only it is so pas- 
 sionately hopeless. It is like the sound of 
 my own voice, — or Yours — Ours! God 
 bless us yet a little more than this! 
 
 And you are not to cry now, 'cause I'm 
 almost well, and will be quite when your 
 next letter comes, — that will cure me. 
 And I do promise you not to work quite so 
 hard as I have been doing. And I have 
 heard you call to me, and I have answered 
 saying ■ — '*God bless you, little girl, you rest 
 me so!" 
 
 There, — 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 Later, — Will you understand it all? Will 
 you understand, I wonder, if I tell you that 
 I fear that I am going to make you unhappy? 
 173] 
 
Will you understand me when I tell you 
 that should this premonition prove true, 
 that your unhappiness would be my own? 
 I fear you never will quite understand the 
 strange, strange paradox I am. I hardly 
 understand it all myself. At times, it is all 
 black — black. You must not think too 
 kindly of me. Not that I don't deserve 
 esteem, perhaps, — but, rather, all the 
 affection I can ofifer in return is as vain as 
 it is wild and fervid. If I could take your 
 hand and hold it as I say these words you 
 would know how deeply truthful, sad and 
 earnest I am in this belief. My life has 
 been made up of disappointments and de- 
 spairs. This is no morbid fancy, — it is 
 fact. I have learned to bear it well, as I 
 have learned to expect but little else. I 
 ache, but I grope on — smiling in the dark. 
 You are not strong as I am strong. Your 
 tears would overflow the path and sweep 
 you back. You must not know what I 
 endure. God made you to be glad, so you 
 must not lean too far out of the sunshine to 
 help me. I am not wholly selfish, strug- 
 gling down here in the gloom, but I am worn 
 [74 1 
 
and O so tired — tired — tired, that I can 
 but grasp your hand if proffered — only 
 don't — don't! Just hail me from the brink 
 with cheery words. That will be best for 
 you — and as for me — why, I will be 
 stronger surely, knowing I have dragged 
 no bright hopes down with my poor drown- 
 ing ones. 
 
 My whole being goes out from me, and I 
 am calling to you through the great distance 
 that divides us. Do you hear? — God bless 
 you, little girl, and keep you always glad as 
 you are good. 
 
 You must write to me at once. I dream 
 now that your face is drooped a little, but I 
 lift it with my hand, and it is bright and beau- 
 tiful to me. So, set it heavenward and where 
 the sunlight falls full on it as you move, 
 and I will see its radiance flash back, and 
 that will help me. And so God Mess us both. 
 Want you, when you write, to tell me all 
 about yourself — And do you have a hard 
 time, and no rest, and no promise of it? 
 And are you poor like me — and proud, 
 though? Ah, so I thought. Well, be brave. 
 That's all. You are not poor like the world; 
 175 1 
 
thank God for that. I am so poor I cannot 
 even keep the sister I love from work. Some 
 tunes I smile though when she makes more 
 money than I do, with all my preponderance 
 of Genius — (ahem! !) — please laugh! 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 
 September 1, 1879. 
 My dear friend : — 
 
 You will never know how bewilderingly 
 glad and proud your gift has made me. You 
 mentioned in your letter that you would 
 send me "Two little pictures,'' though they 
 did not get here till three days after — 
 Saturday — and this is Monday. Posi- 
 tively I don't know what to do or say. The 
 surprise is so great — their worth is so much 
 above even what I had fancied — and they 
 are so everything to me that I am powerless 
 to do anything but stretch my empty hands 
 out toward you as I sometimes do toward 
 Heaven when it is good to me. 
 
 I fancy that this face of Beatrice is like 
 
 your own, and so I smile and smile upon it, 
 
 wishing it could speak and tell me just how 
 
 tired it has grown of everything, that I might 
 
 [76 1 
 
bend and touch it with my own, and say 
 "Dear child, be rested for my sake." You 
 must wait a long time patiently till I can 
 think of something that will please you in 
 return. I can't imagine now what it will be, 
 but it must be something very rare and rich 
 and curious and beautiful and dear in your 
 eyes. So I must think and ponder studi- 
 ously for ages yet. 
 
 And how I like this little piece of charac- 
 ter — Genre, do you call it? — something 
 like that, I suspect — but / will call it 
 homei/j and heartsome^ and most lovable, 
 in its dim, earthy beauty, and matter-of-fact 
 individuality. I am not critic enough to tell 
 why the work is good, but I feel intuitively 
 that as a real artistic performance it does 
 possess the highest merit. I have many 
 artist-friends at Indianapolis, and am with 
 them quite often, and I think I absorb in 
 some degree something of their knowledge 
 and insight regarding such things. Any- 
 way, I shall hold that this little work is not 
 only a very truthful life-study, but in color, 
 tone, and conscientious treatment in all 
 technical details, it is masterly. 
 [77 1 
 
I haven't swung them up yet. My little 
 room here is so dismal now that I will be 
 forced to remodel it throughout, and I'm too 
 poor to paper the walls as I would like, or do 
 anything but turn the carpet, wash the 
 windows, and move my desk to some other 
 comer. But I can smile yet. Don't forget 
 that, and have waited so long already that 
 the ''good time coming" can't be so very far 
 away. 
 
 I was expecting to go into the city today 
 with my brother, who is still an invalid, but 
 he feared the rain, and so will not go until 
 tomorrow. Then I'm going to get you a 
 tin-type of this face of mine anyhow. I'm 
 growing very anxious for you to see just how 
 I look now, 'cause I've concluded to sacri- 
 fice the mustache in the interest of my char- 
 acter readings, and once off it must remain 
 so, 'cause it would argue to the dear public, 
 — seeing me first with and then without 
 beard, — that I had no stability of character 
 and all that. So really it is a very serious 
 change to contemplate. Besides, I've worn 
 a mustache now for years and years ; in fact 
 this is my first, as it must be my last. 
 f7Sl 
 
I must hurry through. I have only time 
 to clip and enclose a recent ''interview" 
 with a special correspondent.* I shudder 
 as I fold it up, feeling that in it I send you 
 more of my real self than you have ever 
 gathered through my letters, or perhaps 
 have ever dreamed. I think a thousand 
 things. Maybe you will be shocked — 
 though I don't believe that ; maybe you will 
 think *'It might have been worse," or may- 
 be, — "He's better now^^ — and that's some 
 comfort. No matter what you think, my 
 dear, dear friend, I will be proud if you will 
 recognize in it honesty above all subterfuge, 
 and [endeavor?] to defy the censure of the 
 Vere de Vere element, since after all, — 
 
 ** 'Tis only noble to be good." 
 
 I don't know what your next letter will be. 
 I am restful. I am waiting; I believe in 
 you, and you have made me better. I think 
 you are wholly good, and you have my 
 fullest confidence. 
 
 *Mrs. Brunn (nee Kahle) says that this "interview" was 
 not preserved, and that she has no recollection of what it 
 was, or what became of it. 
 
 [79 1 
 
God bless you and keep you always glad ; 
 and with all gratitude and warm esteem, 
 believe me, 
 
 Your true friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 HOPE* 
 
 Hope, bending o'er me one time, snowed the 
 flakes 
 
 Of her white touches on my folded sight. 
 And whispered, half rebukingly, "What makes 
 
 My little girl so sorrowful tonight?" 
 
 scarce did I unclasp my lids, or lift 
 
 Their tear-glued fringes, as with blind embrace 
 
 1 caught within my arms the mother-gift. 
 And with wild kisses dappled all her face. 
 
 That was a baby-dream of long ago. 
 
 My fate is fanged with frost, and tongued 
 with flame : 
 My woman-soul, chased naked through the 
 snow, 
 Stiunbles and staggers on without an aim. 
 
 And yet, here in my agony, sometimes 
 A faint voice reaches down from some far 
 height, 
 And whispers through a glamoring of rhymes, — 
 "What makes my Uttle girl so sad to-night?" 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 *This poem, in Riley's handwriting, appears on a long 
 sheet, above the prose note that here follows it. 
 
 [80 1 
 
September 18, 1879. 
 
 Here is a little poem that wrote itself. I 
 hardly know if I fully comprehend it, but 
 something tells me you will like it, for all its 
 strangeness, and I trust you will. 
 
 Soon I will answer your last note and gal- 
 lant letter that made me laugh and cry. 
 You mustn't be so queer! I'm growing 
 envious — or jealous, rather. I've been 
 without a rival in that line for so long I can't 
 be reconciled to any competition. I know 
 the letter like a prayer, and I do breathe it 
 quite as fervently. 
 
 Don't think that I suspect you of duplicity 
 in any way. I only thought the Elde Kael 
 poem might be yours, sent to the Herald 
 through a friend, perhaps. Am truly sorry, 
 though, you don't live nearer. But never 
 mind ! — for I will find you some day. Then 
 I will tell you just how good you have been 
 to me (for you don't know) , and just how I 
 appreciate your every kindly word and wish. 
 Only you mustn't go on thinking I am 
 not strong and well, or ever likely to be 
 
 [81] 
 
otherwise — 'cause I'm a positive athlete^ 
 though I don't look so. 
 
 Just completing the lecture. You should 
 hear it. Good^ if it is mine ! 'Spect there's 
 not a line of it but was untangled from 
 thoughts of you — (slap him! slap him!). 
 Anyway, I'm thinking of you now^ and shall 
 work no more tonight. "God bless us 
 every one!" The Cenci smiles and smiles. 
 How strange is everything! Good night. 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 October 10, 1879. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 It has been ages since I last wrote you, 
 but you will forgive me when I tell you that 
 I've been preparing a special programme for 
 a Benefit tendered me by the people of 
 Indianapolis. It is such an undertaking for 
 me — and I must succeed there, of all places 
 in the world — that for weeks I have forced 
 myself to neglect everything else. And I 
 write now simply to enclose a long-promised 
 tin-type^'' for it is not a likeness ^ as in spite 
 
 *See left-hand picture on frontispiece in this volume ; also 
 explanation at page 69 ante. 
 
 f82l 
 
of all attempts my face refuses to be repro- 
 duced in even "shadowy similitude." The 
 general contour of head and feature, how- 
 ever, is exact, and the eyes are positively 
 the best I have ever succeeded in getting. 
 But this picture I intend to suppress as soon 
 as I succeed in getting a successful photo- 
 graph of the present Riley ^ — for now, as I 
 told you, my face is a barren desert, with no 
 oasis in the shape of a mustache to break its 
 broad monotony of desolation, and I only 
 send you this that you may hold it as a sort 
 of hostage until my present and future self 
 arrives ; then you must return it. The other 
 I will send in a few weeks at farthest. 
 
 And now in the meantime, enclose me 
 your own, for I can never tell you just how 
 eager I am to look upon your kindly face. 
 You say you are anything but handsome, 
 but I know you will be beautiful to me. God 
 bless you always, and keep you forever just 
 the good little girl that rests me so! 
 
 Please write me soon. Your letter will 
 please me even beyond the most flattering 
 ovation that could be given at my approach- 
 ing appearance at the shrine of Public Favor. 
 183] 
 
I enclose also announcements of the 
 coming Trial* — which please return, as I 
 file away every scrap of good and bad that 
 anybody ever says about 
 
 Your True Friend, "Till death us do part." 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 October 18, 1879. 
 
 Goin' to call you My dear, dear friend, 
 today, — 'cause your picture's come at last, 
 and I do love it so! I've been talkin' to it, 
 and smiling over it and wondering at it, but 
 you just stand there dead still, and will not 
 even whisper to me in return — and so, like 
 the grim old lover of "Beautiful Evelyn 
 Hope," I press one blossom in your folded 
 hand saying, — 
 
 "There! that is our secret. Go to sleep, — 
 You will wake and remember and understand." 
 
 You are not exactly like the picture I have 
 
 ♦Doubtless referring to the coming Benefit to be tendered 
 him in Indianapolis. 
 
 [84 1 
 
been holding up before my fancy's eye — 
 you are even more womanly than my ideal 
 
 — and O so womanly was she ! — That is 
 my one best word of all — Woman. It is 
 so regal, high and pure and white! God 
 bless you, Woman ! ! 
 
 Have been too confused and tangled up 
 to sit for the present Riley, but you may 
 look for that now very soon, as I begin to 
 breathe once more. The prolonged agony 
 attending The Benefit is over now, and I am 
 very, very — (I was going to say * 'happy," 
 but it aint quite that, — for the old ache in 
 my throat is not quite gone and it will never 
 go, I guess. But I am Glad, and very, very 
 thankful — to God first, then my little girl 
 
 — then all the world. 
 
 Such a brave poem was that you sent me !* 
 I do hug it in my arms. God bless you, — 
 bless you — bless you — just 'cause I can't 
 help thinking that your own heart hurts like 
 mine. — Only I'm too selfish to think it 
 could hurt worse. I wouldn't allow that, 
 though the white lips of your soul moaned 
 **I am tired!" — O are you "tired?" Once 
 
 *See poem in full, next following this letter. 
 [85 1 
 
I wrote a poem called "Tired."* That was 
 the burthen of it, — Tired! Tired! And I 
 must rest. The last verses read : — 
 
 And I must rest! — But do not say **he died," 
 
 In speaking of me, sleeping here alone . 
 I kiss my fate as one might kiss a bride. 
 And close my eyes in slumber all my own. 
 Hereafter I shall neither sob nor moan. 
 
 Nor murmur one complaint: All I desired, 
 And failed in life to find, will now be known. — 
 So let me dream — Good night! — And on 
 the stone 
 Say simply, "He was Tired." 
 
 The Benefit has been such a success, in 
 every way! You can but be glad with me, 
 
 *The last stanza of this poem which appears in the printed 
 editions under the title, "An Outworn Sappho," reads as 
 follows: — 
 
 And I must rest. — Yet do not say she died, 
 In speaking of me sleeping here alone. 
 I kiss the grassy grave I sink beside, 
 And close mine eyes in slumber all mine own: 
 Hereafter I shall neither sob nor moan 
 Nor murmur one complaint; — all I desired 
 And failed in life to find, will now be known — 
 So let me dream. Good night! And on the stone 
 Say simply: She was tired. 
 In copying it for Miss Kahle the Poet changed the gender 
 from feminine to masculine, thus making it a sort of personal 
 requiem, somewhat after the order of Stevenson's famous 
 requiem poem. He also improved the third line by sub- 
 stituting — 
 
 I kiss my fate as one might kiss a bride 
 for 
 
 I kiss the grassy grave I sink beside. 
 
 f 86 1 
 
so I send press notices without comment of 
 my own. You will return the scraps as 
 before, as I will need them as references, 
 you know; such is business (how I hate the 
 very word!). 
 
 Now I hold your hand, and say God bless 
 you, and Good by. You will write soon and 
 1*11 hope that when I write again I can say 
 more than this. 
 
 Yours as ever, 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 A WOMAN'S CONCLUSION 
 
 I said, if I might go back again 
 
 To the very hour and place of my birth. 
 
 Might have my life whatever I chose, 
 Aad live it in any part of the earth. 
 
 Put perfect sunshine into my sky. 
 Banish the shadow of sorrow and doubt. 
 
 Have all my happiness multiplied. 
 And all my suffering stricken out; 
 
 If I could have known in the years now gone 
 The best that a woman comes to know. 
 
 Could have whatever will make her blest. 
 Or whatever she thinks will make her so; 
 
 187 1 
 
Have found the highest and purest bliss 
 That the bridal-wreath and ring inclose, 
 
 And gained the one out of all the world 
 That my heart as well as my reason chose, 
 
 And if this had been, and I stood tonight 
 By my children, lying asleep in their beds. 
 
 And could coimt in my prayers, for a rosary, 
 The shining row of their golden heads, — 
 
 Yea! I said, if a miracle such as this 
 
 Could be wrought for me, at my bidding, still 
 
 I would choose to have my past as it is. 
 And to let my future come as it will! 
 
 I would not make the path I have trod 
 
 More pleasant or even, more straight or wide, 
 
 Nor change my course the breadth of a hair, 
 This way or that way, to either side. 
 
 My past is mine, and I take it all. 
 Its weakness — its folly, if you please — 
 
 Nay, even my sins, if you come to that. 
 May have been my helps, not hindrances! 
 
 I have saved my body from the flames. 
 Because that once I had burned my hand; 
 
 Or kept myself from a greater sin 
 By doing a less — you will understand ; 
 
 It was better I suffered a little pain. 
 
 Better I sinned for a little time. 
 If the smarting warned me back from death. 
 
 And the sting of sin withheld from crime. 
 
 f88l 
 
Who knows his strength, by trial, will know 
 What strength must be set against a sin. 
 
 And how temptation is overcome ; 
 He has learned, who has felt its power within I 
 
 And who knows how a life at the last may show? 
 
 Why, look at the moon from where we standi 
 Opaque, uneven, you say; yet it shmes, 
 
 A luminous sphere, complete and grand! 
 
 So let my past stand, just as it stands, 
 And let me now, as I may, grow old; 
 
 I am what I am, and my life for me 
 Is the best — or it had not been, I hold. 
 
 Alice Carey 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 
 November 22, 1879. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 I*m an awful quiet fellow, ain't I? Sorto' 
 mysterious like, almost — 'spect you're be- 
 ginning to think. But you'll forgive, I know 
 — 'cause you've never failed me yet, and 
 somehow I feel so sure you understand. 
 **You will wake and remember and xmder- 
 stand" — won't you, Evelyn Hope? You 
 know that poem of Browning's, don't you? 
 
 Well, I have been very busy; not so busy, 
 though, that I have forgotten you — only I 
 
 [89 1 
 
just couldn^t find time to write the kind of 
 letter that I wanted to — and even now you 
 see I'm galloping along like a hook-and- 
 ladder company to a conflagration. Haven't 
 time even to tell you how good your last 
 letter was and how it made me bless you 
 over and over again. You must guess all 
 that — and you can if you will bury your 
 kind face away down deep in your pillow 
 this night, and think of the grim old face 
 that as it bends above this page is molten 
 with a smile, and even half-way handsome, 
 I believe. 
 
 God bless you — bless you — bless you. 
 I say it over and over again. You are good, 
 I know — only you must not have presenti- 
 ments — or feel blue — or sad — or any- 
 way but happy. Do you hear? ^^ 
 
 I'm regularly employed now — what time 
 I'm not before the * 'clamouring public," 
 lecturing — on a daily paper, and my home 
 henceforth is Indianapolis , and you must 
 direct care Daily Journal — don't forget 
 that! Next time I write I'll make a letter 
 of it — this is but a note — the only thing 
 I can offer. I enclose a sample of the little 
 190 1 
 
sketches I am forced to dash off now. 
 Haven't time for anything but such bits as 
 this — and odds and ends in verse — and 
 paragraphs — and nothings. 
 
 O yes, — I must tell you about a late 
 visit to Mrs. D. M. Jordan, evidently your 
 favorite, since you send me so many clip- 
 pings from her pen. Mr. Griswold — the 
 Fat Contributor — and myself went in ca- 
 hoots last week, and lectured jointly for her 
 benefit at Richmond, Ind. O, what a time 
 we had! If you could only see and know 
 her! Why, the very voice of her is pure 
 music! And she gave me a little volume 
 of her poems with her own handwriting in 
 the front — and do you know what I'm 
 going to do with it? Going to bundle it up, 
 and send it to you to muse over, and laugh 
 over — and cry over, and thank God and 
 Mrs. Jordan and ME for every line of it 
 — Ho!ho! 
 
 And so Good night — Good night! 
 
 "What! both your snowy hands? Ah, then 
 I'll have to say good night again!" 
 
 Oh, I must hunt that little song and send it 
 [911 
 
too. It's so like you — or so it seems — 
 only you're more vague and shadowy, and 
 farther away — yes, even farther than my 
 fancy dares to go. 
 
 Yours as ever, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 December 12, 1879. 
 
 O, my dear girl, how long you have kept 
 me waiting! But you're here again, and 
 just how glad your letter makes me you will 
 never know. I've fancied a thousand awful 
 reasons why you haven't written, and a 
 thousand corresponding fears have been 
 worrying me till — but no matter! — you 
 are here at last, and I grab you up and hug 
 and hold you till the breath o' me goes 
 crumbling into little broken bits of sighs 
 like baby-breezes 'fore they've learnt to 
 walk without wabblin' — bless 'em! 
 
 I'm mighty glad to think that you think I 
 think I'm happy — (I steal this dubious 
 
 [92 1 
 
phraseology from Coventry Patmore, I be- 
 lieve : — 
 
 **I saw him Kiss your Cheek!" ** 'Tis true." 
 *'0, modesty!" "Twas strictly kept — 
 
 He thought me asleep — at least I knew 
 He thought I thought he thought I slept.") 
 
 But I am about half happy, — I won*t ac- 
 knowledge more, — though just why I 
 should be I can't see for the life o' me ! I*m 
 working hard enough to scare you to death, 
 though I hasten to lull your fears by the 
 admission that I'm weighing heavier than 
 ever before in my life. Just guess how 
 big I am! Hundred an' twenty-six pounds I 
 O aint it awful! Now let me guess how 
 much you weigh — and you must acknowl- 
 edge if I guess it right. — Just about one 
 hundred and eight pounds. There! aint 
 that a good guess? — just from 'way off 
 here? 
 
 The "Tired" poem you send me is so full 
 of strength — the very bone and thew of 
 passionate yearning for that great vast un- 
 known good that is always coming to us — 
 though it never gets quite here. — 
 193] 
 
"Ah! would you care? and would you bend 
 down, Sweet, 
 And kiss the chill mouth with regretful pain? 
 And would your tears fall downward on the 
 hands. 
 Pallid, and purified of all earth's stain?" 
 
 To me the poem is almost perfect — though 
 had I written it, I might have made it less 
 perfect with a concluding verse like this : — 
 
 Christ! you who died ere weariness like this 
 Had reached you, for a moment's rest beside 
 
 The one I love, that I might taste one kiss, 
 O willingly would I be crucified. 
 
 Such a galloping letter is this, and so 
 untidy withal, I'm more than half ashamed 
 to offer it. But it's the very best I can do, 
 and you're so good I know you'll pardon it 
 for all its incompleteness. I want you to 
 just keep on liking me all you can, and when 
 I do say, or do, unpleasant things, just tell 
 me of it, or shut both your fists and pound 
 me like a drum — anything is good enough 
 for me if even unwittingly I should wound 
 your woman's heart in any way. 
 
 I'm up very late tonight — you mustn't 
 194 1 
 
blame me this time — IVe got company — 
 you^re here, and so I sit here with your two 
 warm hands in mine. There! there! and 
 there again! 
 
 J.R. 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 December 26, 1879. 
 
 My dear, dear friend : — 
 
 I can't thank you — I can't write — I 
 can^t say one word! I have been lecturing 
 'way out west, and am just back to find your 
 magnificent Christmas present waiting me 
 — and your letter — God bless you, little 
 girl, you rest me so! But how bewildered 
 I am! I want to send you something in 
 return for the pictures (they are here with 
 me in more sumptuous quarters than my 
 dim old room at home — for here is brussels 
 and French furniture, and all that — with 
 great molten bulbs of gas to light it up — 
 Ah! I'm growing proud and cold and austere, 
 shall I say? No, no ! my little girl, I'm only 
 growing gentler with my growing fortunes, 
 and I like you — O you can't guess — you 
 195] 
 
can never guess how much). I haven't 
 time, nor the taste, I fear, to select some 
 present you would like — leastwise I dread 
 making the attempt — for of course I would 
 never know if I suited you or not — for even 
 though the gift should displease you, I know 
 you would not acknowledge it, and so I'm 
 going to do with you just as I have wished a 
 hundred times others would do with me 
 (though not in your instance — for the 
 presents you have given me were just the 
 very ones of all the world afforded that I 
 want!) — but what Pm going to do — or 
 rather what I'm going to propose to do — is 
 to send you a present in hard money, for 
 you to use just as you like. Will you let 
 me do this? I ask in all seriousness. I 
 could buy you a picture — I could buy you 
 something in statuary — a book — a piece 
 of jewelry — (no, I couldn't — 'cause I'm 
 almost certain your taste is far above that). 
 But no matter — whatever I might buy, I 
 am still in doubt if it would be either pleas- 
 ing or appropriate, — so I am just going to 
 have you tell me that you won't be offended 
 if I send my present in money — Hard 
 196] 
 
Cash! Ah! that's a sweet old word if you 
 study it rightly! And in offering this, I 
 must not forget to assure you that whatever 
 amount I shall send, I can freely spare, and 
 without in the least inconveniencing my 
 own selfish self. In fact, if you don't let 
 me do as I want to in this, I'll be mad at 
 you — that's all. And you have told me 
 time and again that everything I did was 
 right, so I must have my way — for I do 
 most solemnly assure you that I believe it 
 would be right, and were it otherwise I 
 would not offer it. So you just begin your 
 next letter with "dear friend" as you always 
 do, and don't forbid me — then I will know 
 that you do indeed trust and believe in 
 me, and then my gift, just as munificent 
 (no more) as I can make it, shall reach 
 you. 
 
 I hold both hands out to you — I look 
 your two eyes full of all kindly things — I 
 brim them over with pure joy — and some- 
 time soon — I hope — I may lean closer yet 
 and listen to your voice. 
 
 You must pardon this hurried scrawl, — 
 I am busier than a hive o' bees — just such 
 [97] 
 
lots and lots of lecture engagements all over 
 the country! 
 And still, still I am so hungry! As ever, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 
 January 2, 1880. 
 
 — And A Happy New Year! 
 
 Dear, dear friend : — 
 
 A week ago I wrote you the enclosed,* 
 but have been too big a coward to send it. 
 And in all the time I have been withholding 
 it I have searched in vain for some appropri- 
 ate present for you. I want to send you 
 something — but whaty I can't find — so in 
 sheer desperation I enclose this week-old 
 proposition — though in the meantime I 
 have thought of another way of putting it, 
 i.e., I'm going to give you — for my New 
 Year's gift — you never would guess what 
 — I'm going to give you a — Benefit. Ho! 
 ho ! Now ain't that just the joUiest idea in 
 the world? I'm lecturing, on an average, 
 
 ♦Referring to the previous letter, of December 26. 
 [98] 
 
about four times a week, and am succeeding 
 so wonderfully in pleasing people, and my- 
 self as well, that you must be pleased too, 
 and utter no protest. The proceeds of my 
 next lecture shall be yours, and you are to 
 invest it in whatever way, or ways, you 
 please. You can't object to this, — for 
 Benefits^ you know, are tendered artists, 
 actors, and literary people every day. Even 
 your humble servant, you will remember, 
 was mighty glad and proud of one extended 
 him not long ago. So you must accept the 
 one I tender you, though it be not so an- 
 nounced upon the bills or hallooed from the 
 house-tops. 
 
 Now I am glad, — 'cause at last, at last, 
 I have settled within my own bewildered 
 and long-suffering brain the most intricately 
 complex question that ever tangled its 
 relentless talons in the wool of my mental- 
 ity. Just think how happy I must be — not 
 how happy, but how fortunate — that's 
 better. 
 
 Three days ago I met Burdette, the funny 
 man of the Hawkey e. Our hitherto diverse 
 paths across the lecture field came together 
 
 [99 1 
 
at last, and we shook hands and swore to 
 love each other always. He is just as true 
 and pure and good as he is funny, and youM 
 like him, I know — you must like him, 
 that's all! — 'Cause I do, you know. I'm 
 going to enclose to you the card he wrote 
 for me, so be good to it always, and nestle 
 it away among your sacredest of treasures. 
 I write, as I must, all hurriedly. I am 
 so busy, as you know. God bless you I 
 Write soon — as ever. 
 
 Your old friend, 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 
 January 21, 1880. 
 
 My dear friend : — 
 
 I have stared through all the shelving of 
 the world, to at last select and send you 
 this.* I don't know whether it will please 
 
 *"The phrase 'and send you this' used in the second line 
 of letter of January 21, 1880, refers to Songs from the pub- 
 lished writings of Alfred Tennyson, set to music by various 
 persons, — being a folio book, boimd in yellow and gold 
 cloth and inscribed in Riley's autograph, 'To Miss Lizzie 
 D. Kahle with the regards of her friend J. W. Riley, Indian- 
 apoUs, Ind., 1880.' " — Signed statement by Elizabeth Brtmn, 
 nee Kahle. 
 
 [ 100 1 
 
you or not. I hope it will — but after all, 
 it is so poor a gift. 
 
 It was mighty good of you to say that you 
 were poor — and mighty noble in you to be 
 proud — only — only — I would like to send 
 you something that would be of real value 
 to you, being poor. NoWy you know, I'm 
 going to be rich, and could help you, and 
 would be so glad to — O so glad — and it 
 would make me happier and better and 
 that's why I do want to help you — if you'll 
 ever permit me to. You wanted to help me 
 once, and would again, I know, so whether 
 the time is come, or ever is to come, you 
 must let me help you — and while I can — 
 'cause maybe, after while, I can't help any- 
 one — not even myself — and in that in- 
 stance, I'll call on you sure! 
 
 And so, God bless you always, little girl, 
 and always feel and know that with you I 
 am wholly good. 
 
 I write hurriedly, as you see. I am 
 pressed with hundreds of duties, but soon 
 will try to write you at more length. 
 As ever yours, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 [1011 
 
Indianapolis, Ind. 
 Feb. 29, 1880. 
 My dear friend : — 
 
 I wonder if it has seemed long to you 
 since my last letter — it has seemed like 
 ages to me. I have been so wonderfully 
 busy with my lecture business, and so in- 
 volved with its thousand of matter-of-fact 
 considerations, that I have delayed writing 
 until my mind might be free to dwell on 
 pleasant themes. But I find the longer I 
 wait the more complicated become con- 
 tending forces, so half in despair at last, and 
 desperate, I determine to say something to 
 you this emptiest of all days — Sunday. 
 
 I have been speaking almost every night 
 for weeks and weeks — am very tired of it 
 all, I assure you. I have not been meeting 
 with the best success either, in a financial 
 point of view, but still I am not falling behind 
 in any way, and therefore have no reason to 
 find fault or be discouraged. One good 
 thing is, I have visited no point yet, in the 
 capacity of reader, without pleasing those 
 who have heard me, and being recalled the 
 second time at least. So you see I am at 
 
 [102] 
 

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least advancing my reputation, and that of 
 course is "money in my pocket," as the old 
 phrase goes. 
 
 I cannot tell you how often I think of you, 
 or with what kindly feeling. I shall never 
 forget you, and you must never hurt me by 
 thinking me capable of forgetting. You 
 know in your last letter you almost question 
 the strength of my fidelity — as though I 
 could be won away from your regard by 
 any force of fate or circumstance! I want 
 you always to know that I am your friend, 
 and that, although I am forever to be denied 
 the warm clasp of your hand, or listen to 
 the spoken assurance of your esteem, still 
 on and on through Time I yet shall *4ove 
 you better than you know," and pray that 
 God will bless and make you happy, what- 
 ever bitter destiny remains for me. 
 
 I wish that I might see you face to face, 
 and tell you just how pitiless and changeless 
 is my fate, and make plain to you the many 
 seeming paradoxes of my life. But you 
 will understand at last, if not now, that I 
 am neither fanciful nor misanthropic — 
 only most seriously sensible of the one great 
 f 103] 
 
fact of my existence, i.e., that I am power- 
 less to stay or change the fate that hurries 
 me along to some dread desolation of futur- 
 ity. I try to believe otherwise, and laugh 
 lightly oftentimes, but still in spite of all I 
 get no rest and am so tired. 
 
 I think I oughtn't say such miserable 
 things, but what can I say other than this to 
 my one best friend of all the world? Do you 
 know that you have been kind and good to 
 me when I most needed just such help, 
 and when, too, not one other friend of all 
 that have avowed themselves my friends 
 came to me with a word of cheer or heart- 
 felt sympathy. And so it is that over and 
 over I pray God to make you happy, and 
 myself more grateful every day. And if 
 ever He will be so good to me, I want to 
 come some time and reach this right hand 
 out and grasp your own, and tell you in such 
 words and v/ays that you will know are true 
 as Heaven — that I am indeed your friend 
 as you are mine. God keep my little girl 
 till that day comes! 
 
 I will enclose with this a photograph — 
 the one long-promised. It is like me as I 
 1104 1 
 
now am, though I fear you will not like it 
 even half so well as that old tin-type with 
 the mustache and the sunken cheeks. 
 
 Please write to me at once, and tell me 
 you forgive my long, long silence. Don't think 
 anything of me but good — and though I am 
 not always happy you must know your let- 
 ters make me happier than all things else. 
 As ever and always yours, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 
 March 20, 1880. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 You are always so very patient with me 
 that I fear sometimes I ahnost wait too long 
 before answering your letters. Anyway, 
 I know how lenient you are, and when 
 bothered with much work and cares of other 
 kinds, I just think, '*I will put off writing to 
 my good friend L. Kahle till Vm in better 
 humor, and she will understand." 
 
 I know of nothing new to tell you of, un- 
 less it be to say that my prospects are grow- 
 ing good again, — and for a long time they 
 [105 1 
 
have been anything but that. Not that I 
 have ceased in any measure to strive for 
 their advancement — only there come kinks 
 and twists and tangles in the timeSy just as 
 in the smoothest silken skeins ; and always 
 at such times I worry, fume and fret in spite 
 of all, and so am never in condition but to 
 vex and still disturb, when I should calmly 
 take things as I find them. 
 
 I think the lines you quote from Byron 
 most appropriate, for I am intensely eager 
 to win something of a name, since it would 
 seem that all things else must be denied. 
 But this is not the prelude of another moan, 
 for I shall have no further bitterness to 
 waste on Fate. I'm going to do my best to 
 smile the wrinkles from my life, and drown 
 out all the discords with the best laugh I can 
 raise. 
 
 Your own life is, as you have intimated, 
 anything but sunshine and fair weather, and 
 I want you always to know that whatever it 
 has been, is, or may be, you have a true 
 friend in me ; and one, too, who can appreci- 
 ate from every sad experience just what 
 it is to feast on sorrow, and go famishing 
 f 106 1 
 

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forever for the taste of peace and utter hap- 
 piness. When I die — which bless God I 
 will do some day — I have no desire at once 
 to be translated to the Perfect Land, be- 
 cause I want a long, long rest of utter chaos 
 
 — ages of rest and blank forge tfulness, 
 wherein I may catch up, and gratify my 
 present vast and limitless demands. I say 
 this with a half smile and whole earnestness 
 
 — but still— no matter! 
 
 When you write me next, I am going to 
 hope that you will tell me more about all 
 that old ache of yours, so that I may reach 
 out my hands to you, and let you feel that 
 they are warm with every sympathy, and 
 tender to the touch as are your own. God 
 bless you always, and God bless us both, 
 and keep us ever strong, with lifted brows, 
 and faces set forever heavenward. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 (Over). — Here is a little poem I wrote 
 last night, and copy for you this bright 
 afternoon. — 
 
 f 107] 
 
SLEEP* 
 
 Orphaned, I cry to thee, 
 Sweet sleep : O, kneel and be 
 A mother unto me ! 
 
 Calm thou my childish fears, 
 And fold mine eyelids to all tenderly, 
 
 And dry my tears. 
 
 Come, Sleep, all drowsy-eyed 
 And faint with langour, slide 
 Thy dim face down beside 
 
 Mine own, that I may rest 
 And nestle in thine arms and there abide 
 
 And be thy guest. 
 
 Good night to every care, 
 And shadow of despair — 
 Good night to all things where 
 
 Within is no delight! — 
 Sleep opens her dark arms, and swooning 
 there 
 I cry, Good night! 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 April 13, 1880. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 'Spect this'll be an awful scrimpy little 
 letter, ^cause I'm all unsettled, like your- 
 self, and tangled up so with a thousand 
 
 *The text and pimctuation in our MS. differs considerably 
 from the printed version, but we give it here exactly as the 
 Poet wrote it. 
 
 I 108] 
 
things. I was mighty sorry though to find 
 in your good letter such an undertone of 
 sadness and unrest. Guess we must get 
 braver than we are! I can stand my own 
 sorrows with more patience than the sor- 
 rows of my friends. And you are good to 
 me, and have been always, and it would 
 make me very glad indeed if anything that 
 I might say or do could make you happier. 
 I think so much of selfj and dwell so on my 
 own needs and desires that sometimes I am 
 more than half convinced that I do others 
 wrong who suffer just as much and yet 
 make no complaint. I know you must have 
 much to try your patience, being noble and 
 ambitious, yet compelled so long "to labor 
 and to wait." But I am sure God must 
 mean something by it all. And so, dear 
 friend, we'll smile back all the tears and 
 say Amen to all God says. You think that 
 I have more than you to make me glad, and 
 keep me propped securely beneath all the 
 burdens Fate can weigh one with. You 
 only think so, — though you may be right, 
 and I myself wrong, — yet I seem to know 
 such utter loneliness as I pray God may 
 
 [109 1 
 
never even cast its shadow over you. But 
 I'm not going to cry out against it any more. 
 There! lefs be glad, and ^*Let today pass 
 by flower-crowned and singing." 
 
 And so you're stationed now in Pittsburg, 
 and I'm glad. I'm glad of everything you 
 do, because it's always for the best. You 
 are the wisest little woman in the world — 
 at least you seem so — and I like you all 
 the better, knowing how you have to plan 
 to get along and make the most of every- 
 thing, and yet find so much time for goodly 
 deeds, and kindliness to others all about 
 you. 
 
 I've been hoping all this busy season 
 through that I might be fortunate enough to 
 *4ay up" quite enough money for an idle 
 summer, in which I might "take mine ease," 
 and run about a bit, and visit you, and take 
 you by the hand, and thank you with real 
 living words for all your goodness to me. 
 But I'm really afraid I'll have to work harder 
 than ever — 'cause I've been losing money 
 as well as making it, and am just too poor 
 for any use — though I do make quite an 
 outward show, and keep my chin high in 
 f 110 I 
 
the air. I'm in better health, too, than I 
 ever was before, and have just been fairly 
 boosting my reputation along ! Next season 
 — Ah, the money I will make! Though I 
 may make quite enough from this on, for 
 my writings are in growing demand, and at 
 better prices all the time. My newest 
 victory is the New York Sun, And such a 
 dear delightful little weenty-teenty hearty 
 letter as I got from Mr. Dana the other day! 
 I'm going to contribute regularly to his old 
 fat paper, and they say, too, that the Sun 
 pays higher prices for its contributions than 
 any magazine. I enclose my first poem to 
 them, and must close this letter now to 
 fashion them another rythmic something by 
 next mail. 
 
 Write to me, and tell me you are kindo 
 happy, anyway! And be happy anyhow, 
 and no matter though neither of us can have 
 the one-tenth part of all our needs, let us 
 thank God heartily that He has made us 
 friends. 
 
 As ever yours, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 [111 I 
 
Indianapolis, Ind., 
 May 27, 1880. 
 
 My dear good friend : — 
 
 As usual I have been very busy, and so 
 have neglected your last briefest of all 
 letters a long time. I wanted, and did start 
 to answer it the very day it came — for you 
 will remember what a long, long time you 
 kept me waiting for it. But God bless you! 
 it did [come?]* to me after all, and made me 
 glad, though I think too it made me just a 
 little sorto sorry as well, for it seemed to 
 bear an undertone of sadness along with it, 
 and made me fear that you were having a 
 much harder time than you deserve. 
 
 The old problem of this existence is al- 
 ways a worry to me, when I think about it, 
 only I try not to think about it, knowing that 
 the old order of labor for the weak and rest 
 for the strong — riches for the undeserving 
 and poverty for they of generous spirit — 
 cannot be altered, but must abide a fixed 
 law till Heaven bursts in blossom on our 
 
 *The original is clearly written, but it seems as if the 
 author inadvertently omitted a word, — perhaps come. 
 
 1112] 
 
eyes, — then we'll understand, and not till 
 then. 
 
 You have never told me yet what you were 
 doing, though that would matter little after 
 all, for it is work, and work of any kind, God 
 knows, is hard enough; though without it 
 we could never be quite so noble as we are, 
 bent with the weight of it. All we can do I 
 guess is just to bear it and smile anyhow — 
 that's what we'll try always to do, "Won't 
 we, Pip?" 
 
 Now for months and months, almost, I 
 have been doing but little in the progressive 
 way — financially, I mean, for otherwise I 
 still have God to thank for great success. 
 That's what keeps me alive, I think. I work 
 very hard, but am stronger, and can stand 
 the labor better than I used. 
 
 Nearly two months ago I began contribut- 
 ing to the N. Y. Sun (Sunday issue) and am 
 growing in favor with my new eastern audi- 
 ence, so indications say. I have many 
 flattering letters from Mr. C. A. Dana, the 
 editor, and will endeavor with all | my [might 
 to be a lasting favorite of his. I am sure 
 he likes my work — though he sometimes 
 1113 1 
 
criticizes pretty sharply, as he ought to, 
 of course, for no one knows better than 
 myself that I am anything but perfect in 
 my art. 
 
 Here in the city, your pictures still smile 
 down upon me, and over and over I want to 
 send you something in return, but I guess 
 you'll have to wait yet a little longer. Some- 
 time you will know that I have not forgotten. 
 
 Summer has flung wide her golden gates, 
 and all the land is like a blooming rose. A 
 time for rest and utter laziness, and yet we 
 can't loll back, nor pause a minute's space. 
 But we can be glad for all that, and we will 
 — we will. 
 
 Soon I will get together some of my latest 
 poems and send them — not many, for I 
 haven't written much, being so busy with 
 lecturing business. Next season in that 
 field I will reap a great harvest, I am sure. 
 Then with great wads o' money bursting my 
 pockets I will go through at least one sum- 
 mer only working as I care to. 
 
 I write you hastily and briefly. I can 
 do no better now. I've a Decoration Day 
 poem to prepare for the 30th, and so you 
 
 [114] 
 
see must leave you. I wring your two warm 
 woman's hands, and so farewell a little. As 
 ever, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 
 July 6, 1880. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 Your letter of date June 27th I have been 
 forced to neglect because of my ever-grow- 
 ing engagements in my work. 
 
 It's almost wrong, I think with you some- 
 times, to work with the ambition that I do. 
 But I am so eager to succeed — so feverish 
 in my desire to be something and somebody 
 
 — that my effort never flags or falters for a 
 minute; but, self -impelled, moves on and 
 on, gathering newer force and power with 
 each succeeding hint of final victory. Hence 
 it is that now I find myself almost hedged 
 in with engagements for regular contribu- 
 tions for a dozen different papers, and con- 
 stant and unremitting applications to the 
 magazines - — which, by the way, at last I 
 have most refreshing signs of conquering 
 
 — having but just within the last two weeks 
 
 f 115 1 
 
had two poems accepted by them — both 
 trifles in their way, but yet enough to indi- 
 cate that **the wind is no longer in the 
 East," as John Jamdyce would say. And 
 for two or three months steadily I have been 
 contributing to the New York Sun (Sunday 
 issue), where I am meeting with a good 
 eastern audience, and evidently pleasing, 
 judging from the letters I have received 
 from the editor, Mr. Chas. A. Dana, who 
 evidently is very kindly disposed, and in- 
 clined to humor my vanity in the stubborn 
 belief that I will ultimately win. Now, 
 there ! — that's all I'll say about my selfish 
 self. 
 
 It was very good of you to gratify me with 
 some outline of your own doings in the 
 struggle of existence, and I was greatly 
 interested in all you said, though I could but 
 wish, with each line as I read, that I might 
 be able to make your path a trifle smoother. 
 But after all there's nothing to do but take 
 things as they come, and bear with cheer- 
 fulness all that seems sent to vex us and 
 annoy. Sometimes the way is stony, and 
 the path so choked with briars that our foot- 
 
 [116 1 
 
prints leave red stains along the dust; yet, 
 thank God, the way has never been so dark 
 — nor may be — but the Christ face may 
 smile back upon us from beyond, and woo 
 us on imto the final good. And with the 
 best encouragement that I can give, I pin 
 right here, the latest poem I have written 
 for both our striving sakes.* 
 
 I'm a little troubled, too, thinking your 
 erratic ramblings in search of the "Golden 
 fleece" may keep this letter from your 
 hands, for you never told me where I should 
 direct it, and of course my only way will be 
 to use the old address. So you must write 
 me if you do receive it, for until I hear I will 
 never rest quite contented — thinking you 
 may think me even more neglectful than I 
 really am. 
 
 And now I must close, — but first tell 
 you it was queer that the poem you sent me, 
 "What She Thought" has been a favorite 
 of mine for years — not many, perhaps, yet 
 I think a half dozen at the least — since its 
 
 *"The poem mentioned in the last line of third paragraph 
 of letter of July 6th, 1880, was not preserved, and I have no 
 recollection of the title." — From a signed statement by 
 Elizabeth Bruim, nee Kahle. 
 
 1117] 
 
first appearance in the magazine in which 
 it first appeared. It is very beautiful and 
 tender and pathetic — all that's lovable, and 
 were the speaker but the opposite in sex, 
 we would be counterparts in hopelessness, 
 — since — 
 
 "Questioning thus, my days go on, 
 But never an answer comes to me ; 
 
 All love's mysteries, sweet and strange, 
 Sealed away from my life must be." 
 
 But like her, too, I have much to live and 
 
 hope for, and after all, I'm not quite sure that 
 
 all of this life's happiness depends upon just 
 
 love. Not that I'm a cynic, but I have seen 
 
 so many — Oh, so very many — dear friends 
 
 that had been happier had they remained 
 
 just friends and never wed each other. 
 
 But it's a solemn thing to think of never 
 
 having one's own home — but here I go 
 
 again! — and I just aint goin' to think about 
 
 it all just to make myself more and more 
 
 miserable. I clasp the warm hand of my 
 
 good girl and laugh along, forgetful of all 
 
 gloomy things! 
 
 And as "Ever the best of friends, aint us 
 
 Pin"?" 
 
 ^^P* J. W. Riley 
 
 1118 1 
 
Indianapolis, Ind., 
 Aug. 22, 1880. 
 
 Dear little friend : — 
 
 Your last letter has been neglected a long 
 time — two weeks, I guess, but I just 
 couldn't help myself, — being hurried, flur- 
 ried, worried all the time. I should have 
 liked much better to have answered at once 
 with the influence of your words fresh upon 
 me — for the letter was so very good and 
 cheery lilie, although at times it had enough 
 of sadness in it, too, to make it hurt a little. 
 And I'm 'most afraid the little girl [is] often 
 gloomier and more disconsolate than she 
 would have me know! Well, well, — you 
 must be strong, since after all, without 
 strength there is very little in existence we 
 could bear at best. 
 
 You're a queer little nomad, you are! and 
 you can't settle down into that **garret of 
 your own" any too soon, 'cause I am grow- 
 ing quite impatient to visit you, and will 
 surely come some day when you least expect 
 me. Last year I fondly hoped I might go 
 capering down your way — lecturing — but 
 [119 1 
 
didn't get a call within hundreds of miles of 
 you, and now this season I'm going to hope 
 again, and if I don't get an engagement 
 down that way, am at least going to try to 
 save money enough out of it all to make a 
 visit to you in the spring vacation. I have 
 tolerably "hard lines" through the summer, 
 because, although I write almost constantly, 
 the pay as yet is anything but munificent, 
 and besides I have so many demands be- 
 side my own to supply. The only thing left 
 you or me to do is to make the best of what 
 the gods so gingerly bestow. That's what 
 they all have to do anyhow! Sometimes 
 I'm foolish enough to envy those who have 
 no end of leisure, wealth *'and a' that," 
 but am generally not long in discovering 
 my mistake, for no matter who they be, they 
 always have some source of misery that 
 poverty alone knows nothing of, and is there- 
 fore by far the happier state. 
 
 You sent a little poem to me that sounded 
 like you, 'cause it was "Tired" — as I know 
 you were. Now, don't you deny it — for 
 of course you must grow very weary of the 
 dull old stupid "double-double toil and 
 
 [120] 
 
trouble" sort of existence sometimes. It's 
 natural, but you mustn't encourage such a 
 feeling. God knows the best is bad enough, 
 but it is simple duty for us to meet all things 
 bravely, and with sunshine in our faces, 
 though the storm raves in our hearts. God 
 will recompense us yet for every ache of 
 pain we undergo. And know, too, always 
 that your own burden, however it may chafe 
 and weigh you down, is but a feather's 
 weight compared with thousands that are 
 borne without a murmur but of gracious 
 prayer and patient faith that God's ways, 
 however strange to us, are always for the 
 best. 
 
 The summer has been a very trying one 
 for me. That is, it's been simply like every 
 other summer, — only with less rest in it, 
 — but I'm growing more and more content, 
 I think, and willing to accept things, good 
 and bad alike, with proper patience and 
 appropriate thankfulness. I'm at least mov- 
 ing a little toward the far height I have 
 fixed upon for [the] perch of my ambition. 
 
 Yesterday, I had the nicest letter imagin- 
 able from Ella Farman, editor of that 
 [121] 
 
delightful Child's Magaziae, Wide Awake, 
 She likes a little poem I ofifered her, but 
 must have a more appropriate verse by way 
 of ending, etc., etc., and so I wrote as she 
 directed, and am almost certain it will please 
 her. It is a little jingle called *The Land 
 of Used-to-Be," and you may keep an eye 
 out for it, and when it appears, tell me what 
 you think of it — though I know you'll like 
 it. 
 
 And you asked me if I wrote a poem you 
 saw, called "Delilah." Perhaps so. I 
 wrote, about a year ago, a poem of that title, 
 though there may be others of that same 
 title better than mine. 
 
 Did the one you saw begin : — 
 
 I loved her, why I never knew — 
 Perhaps, because her face was fair; 
 
 Perhaps, because her eyes were blue. 
 And wore a weary air. 
 
 If so, I wrote it — and you must not be 
 jealous, as you say, because poets, to inter- 
 pret all things as their mission, must often- 
 times be sorry dogs themselves. However, 
 1122 1 
 
I must not let you think that I ever have 
 loved seriously visions only; one part of 
 my life has been seriously scarred with 
 dissipation — as I think I have often inti- 
 mated to you, because I would never wil- 
 fully attempt the denial of any fact, however 
 impleasant the acknowledgment of it would 
 be. You will know that I will be glad 
 always of your friendship, and that mine for 
 you is now as always, and God bless us 
 every one! 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 
 Oct. 6, 1880. 
 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 And so you wonder if I have really missed 
 you since you wrote last? Well, I really 
 have, and what is more, I am growing more 
 and more mystified over your strange ways 
 all the time. Just a week or so since, the 
 little picture came — the queer little * 'Crink- 
 um-crankum" girl, which you have always 
 
 [123 1 
 
insisted is like you.* And you are a queer 
 little **Crinkum-crankum" girl, sure enough; 
 and, to be dead-honest now, Fm glad you 
 are, I wouldn't give the snap of my thumb 
 for just ordinary little girls. The world is 
 full of them — and they, in consequence, 
 are not novel — so, my dear little "Mar- 
 chioness," I am werry proud o' you — werry 
 proud indeed! But what I was going on 
 to say, was — Here came the picture, and 
 the briefest note saying for me not to write 
 till I heard from you again — that you were 
 
 *"The little picture referred to in first paragraph of letter 
 of October 6th, 1880, and designated as the 'little Crinkum- 
 crankum girl,' was a small imitation bumtwood of a little 
 girl with simbonnet, bearing the title 'Looking for Jimmy,' 
 which I sent him at that time. 
 
 I might here explain that the constant allusions to my 
 poverty came about from the fact that in my letters I mis- 
 represented to him my real financial condition — which 
 was, that while not rich, I enjoyed from my father a sufficient 
 allowance to supply every ordinary want; but believing he 
 would better appreciate me and my letters, I throughout the 
 correspondence maintained the attitude of not absolute but 
 near poverty, and having to live in meager quarters on a 
 small income which I myself earned; this was in order that 
 he himself, being poor, would believe me to be more sym- 
 pathetic with his actual condition and aspirations. 
 
 The reference in latter part of first paragraph, to being *on 
 the wing,' and not to write until he heard from me again, 
 came about through an ambition that grew out of my isola- 
 tion at New Brighton, and a desire to do something in the 
 world — which led to my going to Pittsburgh and working 
 in the Fort Pitt Glass House, where they did china painting, 
 in which I wished to perfect myself." — Signed statement 
 by Elizabeth Brunn, nee Kahle. 
 
 1124 1 
 
"on the wing," so to speak — as our dear 
 old "Doctor Marigold" would say, — 
 
 "North and south, and west and east, 
 Winds liked best, and winds liked least; 
 Here and there and gone astray 
 Over the hills and far away." — 
 
 And there was really no telling where you 
 would amchor — or when. Now I thought 
 that was odd — kindo piques a fellow like 
 me to be told not to write, when I'm so 
 used to being asked, nay even coaxed and 
 pled with to do just the opposite — and by 
 the very smilingest of all imaginable girls-- 
 and the most anxiousest too ! — not that 
 I'm at all handsome, or even good-looking, 
 but because — because — I hardly know 
 why the silly things will act so — but they 
 do act so, — and perhaps it is for that very 
 indefinable reason that I — don't write to 
 them if there's any possible way out of it — 
 Now! — And I like this shabby little girl, 
 turning her back toward me, and staring 
 wistfully the other ivay^ better than all the 
 others, however daintily they dress and tilt 
 their smirking faces up to mine. Fact is, 
 1125] 
 
I am sure you are a good girl, though you 
 do say you are not so good as I am. You 
 can't say that, though, in anything like a 
 convincing way to me, for I know you are 
 worth a thousand of me, — God bless you! 
 Yes, I am truly glad you are back home 
 again. I don't like to think of you out in 
 the great coarse, rasping world. It's a 
 horrible place to be, and a place, too, where 
 we are apt to lose our gentler natures — and 
 with every reason. And however poor your 
 home is, always rest content with it, know- 
 ing that 'To stay at home is best." — 
 
 *'Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest. 
 Home-keeping hearts are happiest. 
 O'er all that flutter their wings and fly 
 A hawk is hovering in the sky — 
 To stay at home is best" 
 
 And when I do come, — as I really am going 
 to try very hard to do sometime, — I want 
 to find you — At Home. Wish you might 
 see my home — if for no other reason but 
 that the contrast would make your own so 
 much brighter — 'cause my home is in no 
 wise even worthy of the name. It's the 
 I 126 1 
 
place I never go to but when absolutely 
 forced to by the fear that if I don^t the out- 
 side world will know how really miserable 
 a place it is. — But I must back to my 
 adopted motto. — 
 
 "Whistle and hoe, 
 Sing as you go, 
 Shorten the row 
 By the songs you know!" 
 
 And you've got lots o* things to explain to 
 me — eh? Well, as to that, you need ex- 
 plain nothing whatever, for I am almost 
 certain that I know already everything you 
 would have me — and I like you all the 
 better for everything in your life. 
 
 But I am not at all a political sort o' fellow 
 — as you suspect from the "Drum" poem. 
 But I am at times a trifle patriotic. You 
 guessed the right side, though, when you 
 set me in among the Garfield guards. I 
 take no open part whatever, but like the 
 Republicans, simply, I think, because they 
 helped God to liberate the slaves. That is 
 the grand first principle. 
 1127 1 
 
I have sent you two or three papers re- 
 cently, — to your old Pittsburgh address, 
 — hope you'll get them, if you haven't al- 
 ready. I opened here some weeks ago to 
 a fine audience, and I think among the 
 papers sent you printed account of the suc- 
 cess of it. I anticipate a more fortimate 
 season than last, but of course may be 
 disappointed. However, I shall not moan 
 any more. 
 
 The magazine poems you say you have 
 not seen — neither have I. They have not 
 been published yet — though I look for them 
 next month. One in St. Nicholas^ and one 
 in Wide Awake. The first is simply non- 
 sense jingle, but the Wide Awake poem 
 (the first of two that they accepted, called 
 **The Land of Used-to-be"), I am sure you 
 will like. 
 
 And now I must close. I would like to 
 write more, but I just can't — I am so 
 tangled. You will know I always think 
 pages and pages more than I can tell you. 
 
 In your next you may tell me if you would 
 like a very flattering lithograph of this plain 
 face of mine, and if you do I will gladly send 
 
 1128 1 
 
it — even it is far from good-looking, but 
 it's got my tilt o' the head, and I'm vain of 
 that, and want you to see it. 
 As ever and always. 
 
 Your true friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, 
 November 19, 1880. 
 
 My dear good friend : — 
 
 Your last letter is best of all letters — it 
 is, and I'd like to devote hours and hours 
 to the answer it deserves, but have only 
 seconds now at command, and brief ones 
 too. 
 
 I am preparing for the road again, and 
 with some promise of better success than 
 I met with last season. Fact is, I really 
 think I'm going to make a little money. 
 Want you to pray for me anyhow — 'cause I 
 do so need it. I'm glad all the time that 
 you're at home — that's the place for little 
 girls, you know, and then, I might sometime 
 go way down there to see you, and it 'ud 
 be awful if you wasn't there — wouldn't it? 
 
 1129] 
 
I just say these words to wedge in with 
 the picture — and a thousand thanks for the 
 space you reserve for it — God bless you 
 and keep you smiling till I write. As ever, 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 March 15, 1881. 
 Dear friend Lizzie : — 
 
 I fear I have been really neglecting you a 
 little, but you must know how selfish I am, 
 and how feverish it makes me to be always 
 striving after so much and attaining so little. 
 This is all the word of excuse I will offer, 
 and I know you'll imderstand. 
 
 And I'm very glad indeed to think you 
 have missed me all this while. Truly, I 
 think such friends as we have grown to be 
 — so oddly, too, and never having seen each 
 other — are quite as necessary to each other 
 as they whose hands are often clasped, and 
 who sit face to face so many happy times, 
 forgetful of all things that ache and pain. 
 But we must still go on, I guess, each won- 
 dering if the other is as we have pictured to 
 f 130 1 
 
ourselves; and, if so, longing for, at least 
 a sight — a word — a touch. Perhaps, dear 
 little friend, this may be all the mutual joy 
 God has intended for us. I often think so, 
 and I often at such times try the comfort in 
 the old lines of Lowell's — and you must 
 speak them with me, with a trust so warm 
 and bright that I will find it still unfading on 
 your lips though I look not on your face till 
 Heaven is ours : — 
 
 "Of all the myriad moods of mind 
 
 That through the soul come thronging. 
 Which one was e'er so dear, so kind. 
 
 So beautiful as longing? 
 The things we long for, that we are 
 
 For one transcendent moment 
 Before the Present, poor and bare. 
 
 Can make its sneering coroment. 
 
 O would we know the heart's full scope 
 
 Which we are hourly wronging, 
 Our lives must climb from hope to hope 
 
 To realize our longing. — 
 To let the new life in, we know 
 
 Desire must ope the portal . . . 
 Perhaps the longing to be so 
 
 Helps make the soul immortal." — 
 
 Anyway, we must be glad, whatever 
 comes — whatever stays away. And, there, 
 
 [131 1 
 
now! that's enough of sorrowful specu- 
 lation. So be glad with me — or, rather, 
 affect to, and compel a gladness that with 
 patient humoring, at last will learn to love 
 you better all the time, and so abide with 
 you through every ill. And to start out 
 with, you must be glad to have me tell you 
 that your letters are just the opposite from 
 being *'imendurably monotonous," as, evi- 
 dently, in one of your "horribly blue moods" 
 you have been trying to persuade yourself. 
 And however ^^vain^^ you may acknowledge 
 yourself, I'm still vainer, don't you see? 
 And I'm going to positively forbid your read- 
 ing that misanthropic old Byron, whose dark 
 foreboding, cheerless mutterings you some- 
 times quote to me; and, instead, command 
 you to read my dear, rare, lovable Long- 
 fellow — who, however sad he gets, can 
 always see a glorious promise somewhere 
 on beyond. 
 
 I'm awful proud when you tell me of 
 meeting those who know me "as my works 
 have been," and am sure I would like Mr. 
 Douthitt as you so pleasantly describe him. 
 
 And here I am at the end of both my space 
 1132 1 
 
and time. Now will you just go on in fancy 
 with all the other pages I would like to write 
 to you — 'cause I do want to write many, 
 many more. And I want you, too, to just 
 go on with your drawing class — your 
 home-work — or, as the funny man in the 
 **Screaming Farce" would say, "Your do- 
 mestic avocations" — only finding time to 
 write me a little oftener than you do. 
 
 As ever and always, yours, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 ^ Indianapolis, 
 
 June 23, 1881 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 Seems to me like ages since I have written 
 to you, though I have not forgotten you for 
 an hour in all that time. I have been very, 
 very busy, and through much of the long 
 silence have been fretted and worried be- 
 yond measure. Now, however, I am glad 
 to tell you that all is untangling once more, 
 and my eYei-promising prospects are more 
 promising than ever in my life before. 
 1 133 1 
 
I am busy now, aside from the daily 
 drudge-work I cannot escape, elaborating 
 a scheme to get East the coming lecture 
 season. May not succeed, but am almost 
 assured that I will, and that, too, under the 
 most flattering circumstances. 
 
 Do not expect a letter this time. I can at 
 best but write a page or two, but you will 
 know, for all that, that I do the very all-in- 
 all in my power. Life and circumstance 
 have not been very friendly toward me for 
 a long, long while, but they are growing 
 gentler, I believe, all the time; and so 
 though not a pampered favorite of theirs by 
 any means, I can but feel that I am slowly 
 and surely ingratiating myself into their 
 higher favor. 
 
 Is there anything newer to tell you? I 
 am so ashamed at times writing to you of 
 nothing but myself — myself — Myself! 
 But you must forgive it all, siuce for years 
 my himger and ambition have made [me] 
 think of little else. I want to succeed — 
 I must, I could do such worlds of good 
 if I were rich — and that good, too, that I 
 positively owe to others. 
 (134 1 
 
The city here is very dull and stupid just 
 now. It is dry and harsh and parched. 
 There is no juice in it, and sometimes I 
 absolutely stifle. Is it well with my little 
 friend down there at her old home? You 
 think it a dull place sometimes, and the old 
 ache comes in your throat, I know — but 
 bless you, little friend, the world is ten times 
 worse, and it does jostle so! and O the thou- 
 sand and one little mean treacheries one 
 meets ! To escape them and ride over them 
 and trample them down — down — down 
 where they belong, one must have the 
 money-scepter in one's fist. Then be a 
 king indeed. 
 
 Will you always think kindly of me? — 
 True friends are so refreshing, being so rare. 
 You are my true friend and I am yours — in 
 fact — ^^Ever the best of friends — aint us 
 Pip?'' God bless you, and good-bye a little 
 while. 
 
 As ever, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 I will copy my last poem on next page for 
 you. — 
 
 1 135 ] 
 
BABY'S DYING 
 
 Baby's dying! 
 Do not stir : 
 
 Let her spirit lightly float 
 Through the sighing 
 Lips of her — 
 
 Still the murmur in the throat — 
 Let the moan of grief be curbed — 
 Baby must not be disturbed! 
 
 Baby's djdng! 
 Do not stir: 
 Let her pure life lightly swim 
 Through the sighing 
 Lips of her — 
 
 Out from us and up to Him — 
 Let her leave us with that smile — 
 Kiss and miss her after while! 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 June 22, '81. 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 August 9, 1881. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 Your last good letter has been neglected 
 for more than a week. I wanted to write 
 at once upon receipt of it, but could not pos- 
 sibly — I am so bothered and crowded 
 every way. It seems that the further on in 
 
 1136] 
 
life I get the greater my trials. This is not 
 as it should be, for one so fondly hopes (and 
 justly) that rest is somewhere on ahead, and 
 to find no rest whatever, but instead still 
 newer complications of tasks and trials is 
 most pathetic and disheartening, — isn't it? 
 In that particular I think our two experiences 
 must bear quite a likeness — only your 
 capacity of patience so exceeds my own that 
 I look upon you enviously, and would most 
 gladly exchange with you. 
 
 There is no new thing to tell you of, only 
 that there is a faint hope of my getting East 
 the coming season. I have just received 
 word from the Redpath Lyceum Bureau 
 that my name will be on their lists, and for 
 me to at once prepare my circular, and send 
 a circular containing my programme, press- 
 nities [press notices?] and personal letters 
 of favor and compliment from such celebri- 
 ties as Governors, Senators, Authors, etc., 
 as I may be able to interest in my behalf. 
 These will be headed by one from Mr. Bur- 
 dette, of the Hawkeyey who has already 
 been of vast service to me, and of whose 
 friendship I am assured for many reasons. 
 1137 1 
 
Of course I am anxious as to the result. 
 In the meantime, I am forced to be at other 
 work — not only verse-carpentering, but 
 editorial work as well — this latter being 
 more lucrative to me and satisfactory to the 
 public, but very trying indeed, since I take 
 no delight in it, but shrink from it with 
 almost positive aversion. 
 
 I write hurriedly. I can do but this. 
 When you told me you had scarce two let- 
 ters from me in a long year's time, I felt 
 justly rebiiked; but, my dear friend, could 
 you know my unfortunate temperament and 
 surroundings I know you would forgive me 
 without the asking. 
 
 God bless you and keep you always happy, 
 is the sincere prayer of 
 
 Your less fortunate friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 September 10, 1881. 
 Dear friend of mine : — 
 
 I can write you, in answer to your long, 
 good letter, but a few lines. Will you 
 [ 138 1 
 
understand? I am particularly busy, get- 
 ting in readiness for the coming lecture 
 season, — being, at last, nearing my ambi- 
 tion, and engaged by the Redpath Lyceum 
 Bureau, Boston, sponsored by Robt. J. Bur- 
 dette, "The Hawkey e Man." — Soon I will 
 forward you scheme of this season^s pro- 
 gramme. Till I get a breathing space I can 
 scarce hope to have a word for you. When 
 any promise of success, be sure I will let 
 you know. Everything with me is particu- 
 larly flattering and I am feverish with im- 
 patience, being starved for so long! 
 
 This is but a word. You must interpret 
 it. God bless you — me — all who so need 
 it. As ever and always, 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 P. S. — I am particularly engaged with 
 humorous editorial matter, which seems to 
 be taking well, and pays better than verse. 
 Hence more of it now than the latter. I 
 enclose specimen from today's issue. 
 
 [139 1 
 
Indianapolis, Ind., 
 December 13, 1881. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 Won't you tell me where you are, and how 
 you are, and what you are doing? Long 
 ago you said, if I were silent for a long time 
 you would know, without any explanation 
 from me, that I was too busy, and couldn't 
 write. I hope you have not forgotten, and 
 I hope too that all this time you have been 
 finding that excuse for me. I have been 
 working very hard indeed, and am glad to 
 tell you, as I think you will be glad to hear, 
 that my more than ordinary industry is 
 meeting with a more than ordinary reward. 
 I have been devoting nearly all my time 
 toward the lecture, and being now under 
 management as above [Redpath Lyceum 
 Bureau] and in splendid and ever-growing 
 favor with the bureau, my prospects are 
 very, very bright. 
 
 As yet, I have been filling Western en- 
 gagements only, but leave for the East the 
 latter part of this month, — my first engage- 
 ment, — in all probability at Tremont 
 Temple, Boston. 
 
 1140 1 
 
I have only time to tell you of my good 
 fortune, and to enclose to you a gruesome 
 little sketch that I happened upon not long 
 ago while *'on the road." 
 
 I will be particularly glad to have a word 
 from you, and you must so gratify me. 
 Address as always, and if not in the city here 
 when it arrives, it will be forwarded to me. 
 
 As ever, 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 
 Jan. 18, 1882. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 Well — I have been East, conquered, 
 and am back again, without the ghost of a 
 chance to stop and see you on the way. I 
 had hoped that I would have full leisure to 
 find you, either going or coming, but being 
 delayed in Boston some days, in order to 
 avail myself of Club invitations, it so hurried 
 me to make Western engagements, I hadn^t 
 a minute on the home-way when I started. 
 
 f 1411 
 
But I am to have other Eastern engage- 
 ments, and will hope then to find the oppor- 
 tunity so long denied. Fact is, I am becom- 
 ing just a trifle popular, and with a growing 
 tendency in that direction. I can't write 
 more now. I sent you papers. Did you 
 get them? They will tell you all my suc- 
 cesses, etc., etc. 
 
 As ever your friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 December 31, 1882. 
 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 I have forgotten nothing, as you seem to 
 think, — only it seems the last year with 
 me has been a long numb spell — an un- 
 ending lethargy, — however I have tried 
 to fancy it had any life in it, or one thrill of 
 glory left. Your memory has been with me 
 all the time — but I could do nothing to 
 deserve it — feeling and knowing you were 
 better without my friendship. Sometimes 
 I feel sure I am good, but the sensation is a 
 
 fl42l 
 
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rare one and as years go by it comes at 
 longer intervals and stays for briefer spells 
 — until, at last, I am left vainly crying, "Is 
 there a way to forget to think!" I am still 
 meeting with more and more success, but 
 that seems even more pitilessly pathetic 
 than the old-time agony of effort and hunger 
 for it. What is to become of it all I hardly 
 care — I am only stoically waiting for the 
 issue * 
 
 But I thank you more than I can tell you 
 for all your kindness to me, and envy you 
 for your great bravery and patience. Your 
 character in my eyes stands level with any 
 heroine of History. God loves you for it, 
 and protects and keeps you, as I pray He 
 may for all time from here to Heaven. 
 
 The beautiful vases came, but one was 
 broken — that one is me ! The other is 
 yourself, so it is very good to look upon, and 
 I have brought it home, where all my best 
 things are, together with your pictures — 
 and they gladden all the gloom of the old 
 home that needs them so. Soon I want to 
 send something of like worth to you, but 
 
 ♦The dots appear in the MS., — nothing has been omitted. 
 
 H43 1 
 
when and where I will find it I cannot guess 
 
 — but must count on your patience again. 
 Day after The New Yeary which I*m going 
 
 to try to love, I start for Ohio engagements 
 
 — Then for the East again ; and, if ever I 
 can come, I'll come to New Brighton again.* 
 
 Hoping that the New Year may be as good 
 to you as you have been to me, I am as ever, 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 J. W. Reley 
 
 January, 1883. 
 
 A Happy New Year! 
 
 Dear Little Girl:—- 
 
 Here on this glad New Year's Day comes 
 your beautiful gift. You are so very good 
 to me — so very, very good. I am all grati- 
 tude ; but that doesn't half express my feel- 
 ings ; and I fear I never can, as I would so 
 like to. God bless you always, and don't 
 
 ♦Mrs. Brunn {nee Kahle) says that sometime in 1882 
 Riley called on her, and that thereafter he made two more 
 calls, about a year apart. It may be inferred that at the first 
 meeting they were both more or less disillusioned, though 
 Riley's last letters are not without a tone of ardency, and he 
 seemed disinclined to break off their relationship. — Ed. 
 
 I 144 1 
 
let you die till I go on before to plan some 
 sweet surprise for you that Heaven had 
 never thought of without me. 
 
 I can only write this little page, but you 
 will know how everything is hurrying me. 
 As ever your true friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 February 10, 1883. 
 My dear friend : — 
 
 Your good letter meets me here, just as 
 I am returning from the far West, and how 
 glad I am to hear from you again! Now I 
 can explain to you my long silence since last 
 seeing you and promising to write. Your 
 address, which I then took down in pencil 
 hastily, I lost in some way, and never being 
 able to find or recall it, I of course could not 
 write — though over and over again I 
 wanted to. 
 
 There was something indefinable in your 
 manner (although you appeared quite happy 
 and content) that someway impressed me 
 with the belief that you were neither happy 
 nor pleased with the world or myself — and 
 1145] 
 
I have so much wanted to write and try to 
 make you cheerier. Now that your letter 
 and address is here, I can speak to you 
 again — though I cannot tell you with what 
 great delight and eagerness. You're a 
 noble, brave, good girl — the gentlest wo- 
 man, and the truest friend, so you must try 
 with me still to be hopeful and not believe 
 the world as worthless as it sometimes 
 seems. 
 
 Twice since I saw you last I have stopped 
 in Pittsburgh — but how could I hope to 
 find you? The disappointment made me 
 very miserable, dear friend, and yet at the 
 selfsame time you were doubtless thinking 
 I was forgetting you. As your friendship 
 is most loyal, so is mine. Always remember 
 this — and that there is a God and a most 
 merciful Father who loves His children all, 
 I am assured, and you must believe with me. 
 Of course we are tried here — so heavily 
 burdened and bowed down that we must 
 cry out sometimes, but always we may steal 
 off in the dark and nestle our wet .faces in 
 our pillows, fancying we are once more lean- 
 ing at the mother's knee, and that the dear 
 
 I 146 1 
 
old tender face is still above us, and the 
 warm sweet soothing hands are touching 
 hair and brow, and bringing back the simple, 
 childish faith inherited of her. God bless 
 us and make us stronger in this glad belief. 
 We must not be cast down. You have 
 always seemed so patient — so steadfast — 
 so abiding in your trust in the Good, that 
 now it would be terrible to see you anything 
 but just the same glad sermon of the woman 
 that you are. And if you, now, will promise 
 me to so strive to remain hopeful and strong 
 and glad, I will answer your request, and 
 promise you to give up the evil thing that 
 has been killing me. Shall we not strike 
 hands on this? Yes! 
 
 Your reference to your will touched me 
 very deeply. You must not think me so 
 helpless, my dear friend. You must not 
 make a child of me like that. I bless you 
 for your goodness, and the Christ-like kind- 
 liness of your interest, but you must make 
 me stronger — not weaker. May I come 
 and see you soon? I will be going East 
 again shortly, and would like so to see and 
 talk with you. Write me that you are 
 [147 1 
 
happier and stronger, and the world is bet- 
 ter and brighter all the time. As always, 
 
 Your true friend, 
 
 J. W. Riley 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 February 25, 1884. 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 Am home again for a brief time, but find 
 no letter from you, as I had hoped to find in 
 waiting. Why have you not written? Did 
 you not get my last in prompt answer to 
 yours mailed February 5th? 
 
 I have been, and still am, very busy, and 
 now can't tell you how pleased I would be 
 to hear some pleasant word of you. Please 
 write me here — and, if away, it will be 
 forwarded. 
 
 An after-dinner speech* — my very latest 
 attempt at anything approaching the liter- 
 ary — I enclose, hoping, my dear friend, 
 something in it will please you. 
 
 As ever, 
 
 J. W. RHEY 
 
 ♦Mrs. Brunn says she did not preserve this speech. 
 [148 1 
 
Greenfield, Ind., 
 June 26, 1884.* 
 Dear friend : — 
 
 I have been quite ill, and am now little 
 better, but improving. I am glad indeed 
 to get your little "Grandma" letter, but 
 can't tell by it whether you have moved 
 from or to 568 Fifth Ave., [Pittsburgh] and 
 have no letters of yours here that I may 
 refer to, to put me right. This is to tell you 
 only this, as I can only lie propped in bed 
 and have nothing in my head anyhow but 
 aches. I address and send this as I do 
 knowing that whether old or new address, 
 Mrs, Matthews will get it, and present to 
 you. 
 
 By the time I hear your reply I think I 
 will be real well again — then will write you 
 something worthier. Never you think the 
 sore-fingered grandboy forgets! 
 As ever, j ^ ^ 
 
 *Mrs. Brunn states that this letter was received shortly 
 after her marriage, and that she did not answer it. It was 
 the last letter she ever received from Riley. — Ed. 
 
 "The letter referred to in the first paragraph of this letter 
 of June 26th as my little 'grandma' letter volunteered some 
 advice respecting his one failing." — Signed statement by 
 Elizabeth Brunn, nee Kahle. 
 
 [149 1 
 
p. S. — This I wrote weeks ago and 
 thought I sent it to the office, but just now 
 I find it here — "I forget everything ,^^ I 
 should have said, instead of ending other 
 side as I did! 
 
 I do wonder if this will ever reach you. 
 Someway I*m afraid not. I have "so much 
 to do — so little done!" Almost ready to 
 cry out. Time seems utterly stagnant — 
 and my life and all, and everything! I go 
 about and I write some, but always I am 
 very tired and blue and hopeless. The 
 sun shines, but / don't. If you do get this, 
 write to me at once and do something, if 
 possible, to "chirk a fellow up!" 
 
 God bless you, my friend, and me, too! 
 
 As ever, 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 Greenfield, Ind., 
 June 26, 1884. 
 Mrs. Matthews : — 
 
 Having addressed our mutual friend, 
 Miss Kahle, through your care on former 
 occasions, and now being uncertain as to her 
 1150] 
 
present place and number, I ask you to 
 favor me by giving — or mailing to her — 
 the enclosed note. By so doing you will 
 place me under many obligations; and so 
 hoping, I am, 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 JAS. W. Riley 
 
 P. S. — If Miss Kahle is not with you, 
 and her address unknown, will you favor 
 me further by return of letter? 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 11511 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 It will be remembered that in Riley's 
 first poem written to Elizabeth Kahle (after- 
 wards Mrs. Brunn) he stated that he had 
 always known her, — 
 
 .... long before 
 God sprinkled stars upon the floor 
 Of Heaven and swept this soul of mine 
 So far beyond the reach of thine. 
 
 And those readers who believe in Spiritual- 
 ism will perhaps be interested in the fol- 
 lowing statement by Mrs. Brunn : — 
 
 "When James Whitcomb Riley had been 
 dead less than a year a seance was being 
 held by Professor Pierre L. A. O. Keeler 
 at the Boquet Street Spiritual Church, Oak- 
 land. I, being present, requested a mes- 
 sage from James Whitcomb Riley, this 
 message to be in verse, and the subject 
 to be *After Death.* I stated that I desired 
 this verse to end a book which I then con- 
 templated producing, using the letters I had 
 1153 1 
 
received from Riley as the ground work. 
 To that request I received the following 
 reply, written on a slate, but not in Riley's 
 autograph : — 
 
 As you might picture an angel 
 touching gently the harp strings at the 
 throne, so do your sweet contempla- 
 tions of me touch the harp strings of 
 my soul, and put me in harmonious 
 accord with all about me. I wish you 
 were with me. 
 
 If possible come here Sunday night 
 and I will give you through this me- 
 dium a fitting verse with which to close 
 *After Death.' 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 A week later — on the succeeding Sun- 
 day night — the following lines entitled 
 *After Death', were given in the form of 
 slate-writing [see facsimile], in Riley's own 
 autograph, as follows : — 
 
 'Tis after death — the mortal struggle 
 
 done, — 
 Tis after death — the new life just 
 
 begim, — 
 That rays effulgent from the Land of 
 
 Light 
 
 1154 1 
 

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Whose dawn ne*er knows the shadows 
 of a night, 
 
 Past distant suns whose dreamy mists 
 display 
 
 That winding belt we call the Milky 
 Way, 
 
 Shoot down the starry depths to thy 
 lone soul 
 
 And Hght its journey toward the on- 
 ward goal. 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 Later the following spirit message was 
 received from Riley and was published in 
 the Progressive Thinker, of February 9, 
 1918) in the Message Department, edited 
 by Pierre L. O. A. Keeler: — 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley. — I am here 
 today to take advantage of simply an- 
 other way to extend pleasant thoughts 
 to those on earth who are dear to me. 
 Today I come from the heights of the 
 supernal world to place at this sancti- 
 fied shrine a kindly tribute of memory 
 to a woman who in youth and maidenly 
 beauty I loved as dearly as my own 
 life. For this sweet soul my esteem, 
 respect and affection have never faded. 
 To know her is but to make one in- 
 cline to the noble and lofty. Please 
 
 1 155 1 
 
convey my tender thoughts to Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Brunn, of Pittsburgh, Pa. 
 
 About a year after the first message was 
 received at the Oakland Church the follow- 
 ing, written in pencil on the customary card 
 that is placed within the slate for lead pencil 
 messages, was transmitted through the 
 same medium by whom the first slate read- 
 ings were received, and read as follows : — 
 
 Dear One : Your tenderness of soul 
 comes to me immistakably. I have 
 never ceased to think of you, and have 
 seen you whenever there was a way to 
 do so. The sentiment of my young 
 heart I was at a loss to know how to 
 analyze in those days back in the 'gone 
 by.' Now I know they were the ech- 
 oes of the lone shafts that fell upon 
 me from your dear eyes and mind and 
 heart and soul. I loved you more 
 than I knew, and certainly more than 
 you knew. 
 
 I am unable to locate the poem you 
 spoke of, either in my memory or my 
 surroundings. When you come over 
 here, your mother will meet you first, 
 then I will. We recognize by instinct, 
 — intuition. Your own fertile brain 
 that could conceive such a book as you 
 
 1156 1 
 
have arranged can think of a better 
 title than I can. 
 
 I cannot think of anything I have 
 left unsaid or undone. All you can do 
 for my happiness is to keep on claim- 
 ing me as your own. Your book seems 
 to me complete. I rejoice that you 
 wrote me, — remembered 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 The statement in the foregoing in regard 
 to the 'poem' was in reply to a request from 
 me for the text of a poem entitled *To a 
 Poet,' which poem was sent him by me and 
 was the means of beginning our acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 The next statement was in reply to a 
 question as to how we should recognize our 
 friends over there. 
 
 The next statement is in response to a 
 declaration made by me of my intention to 
 write a book about him, which was to con- 
 tain the letters I had received from him. 
 
 The next communication of the spirit of 
 Mr. Riley was received through Mr. Roy 
 Holmyard, whose address is No. 5 Hedge- 
 row Lane, Clifton, Cincinnati, Ohio, and 
 1157 1 
 
was made known to me through a letter, 
 addressed to me by him, stating that at a 
 certain seance the spirit of Riley had ap- 
 peared, and among other things asked if 
 any one present knew Mrs. Elizabeth Brunn, 
 of Pittsbxirgh, Pa., and if there was not, to 
 please commimicate to her the following 
 message : — 
 
 There are memories embalmed in the 
 love of the heart 
 Which Uve on while existence doth 
 nm; 
 In the fondest of these hath my whole 
 life been part 
 Of the life of Elizabeth Brunn. 
 
 I think of no more evidential mes- 
 sage than to write the above verse and 
 to explain it by sa3ring that in my 
 youth I loved a yoimg and beautiful 
 girl whose image never faded, as did 
 other fancies and forms and events, 
 from my tender deceased heart and 
 hope and soul. Mrs. Brunn still lives 
 in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Lehigh Avenue, 
 as existing evidence of the truth of my 
 statement, which being a secret so far 
 as the world knows, will be an evi- 
 dence better than any I can give that 
 this is from 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 [158] 
 
In May, 1921, Professor Keeler trans- 
 mitted to me a spirit writing in pencil in the 
 autograph of James Whitcomb Riley, as 
 follows : — 
 
 Fair spirit-mate mine — 
 
 Elizabeth Kahle — 
 Whose pure soul divine 
 
 Heaven's heights could scale, 
 Though a thousand names had been 
 
 added to thine, 
 And a thousand great men led a bridal 
 
 line, — 
 And a thousand new joys like the sun*s 
 
 bright shine 
 Had fallen on thee, 
 
 Thou'd still be the one 
 Created for me 
 For Time's endless run. 
 
 Gentle one, you shall find a way in 
 this *after-land' to tell me much that 
 even now I cannot divine. I am not 
 reconciled to any thought, any bright 
 anticipation, other than meeting you. 
 Well said that this avenue seems to be 
 the only satisfactory one for me to 
 reach you. You cannot do for me, 
 dear; it is for me to do for youl You 
 cannot measure your earth stay. Don't 
 psychologize yourself into passing soon. 
 Earth denied us much; but heaven 
 
 1159] 
 
has observed the shortcoming and will 
 right it. 
 
 Where and how shalt thou earliest 
 meet me? 
 What are the words you first will 
 say? 
 By what name hast thou learned to 
 greet me? 
 James, just now, — But that other 
 day? 
 
 With the self-same sunlight upon us, 
 I am waiting, dear love, somewhere, 
 
 He you would honor, he that you wish 
 for. 
 Thy king, thy loved one 'over there.'* 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 The signature on this card is identical 
 with that on the slate-message, and in 
 about the center there is a pencil drawing 
 of two hearts pierced by an arrow. 
 
 I hereby declare that the facts set out in 
 these pages are true to the best of my belief 
 and recollection; that the slate-writing is 
 
 *As to what, if any, part Riley's spirit took in dictating these 
 lines, or any of the preceding verses, is a question upon which 
 the opinions of readers may differ; but certainly all must agree 
 that he could hardly have written such mediocre verse while 
 in his mortal state. — Ed. 
 
 [160] 
 
the original, and the message was trans- 
 mitted while the slate was being held in my 
 hands; that the pencil message in Riley's 
 autograph is as received; that the forty- 
 four letters and their accompaniments are 
 the originals received by me from James 
 Whitcomb Riley ; that they are in his auto- 
 graph, and that they have been in my pos- 
 session since their receipt; that none of 
 them have ever been published, and that 
 not more than ten people have ever read 
 the originals. 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Brunn 
 nee Elizabeth Kahle." 
 
 "Sworn to and subscribed before me this 
 25th day of August, 1921. 
 
 C. C. Allen, 
 Notary Public J' 
 
 11611 
 
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