J. KILMER. * * * * * _To Shaemas O’Sheel_ Mahwah, N. J. My dear Shaemas-- Aline and I are heartily glad of the splendid fortune that has come to you and Blanche. I am sure you will enjoy Washington--it’s a very lovely city as I remember it--I was there for two days at the age of four. With love from Mayor Gaynor, Cale Young Rice, Alfred Noyes, Madison Cawein, B. Russell Hertz and Harriet Monroe, I am, Yours, JOYCE. * * * * * THE NEW YORK TIMES. February 12, 1916. Dear Shaemas: I have been thinking a good deal about you for the last day or so, and might therefore have known that a message from you was on its way. The Minaret is a fine adventure, and God knows Washington needs adventures more than any other city in the United States. There is some beautiful writing and some brave and direct thinking in the copies you sent me, and of course I enclose my subscription for a year. I’d support any enterprise of yours, so long as it wasn’t a scheme to make the Kaiser Mayor of Mahwah, New Jersey. I also enclose a poem, with my blessing. But why do you let your young collaborator--I suppose he is responsible--be so damned vindictive! No poet has any right in the world to knock the work of another poet who is honest. Vachel Lindsey is, in my opinion, a sincere artist, whose work sometimes--as in “The Chinese Nightingale”--glows with genius. That is of course only my own opinion--but it is not merely a matter of opinion, but a matter of absolute fact, that he is an honest man, consistently serving his ideal, earnestly endeavouring to express the beauty that is in him. And abuse is not what he should receive from his brother poet. However, go ahead, and good luck to you. But lay off the hammer! Poets have enough to suffer without being castigated by other poets. Keep out of jail, and give my love to Blanche and Patrick Wilhelm. Yours as always, JOYCE KILMER. * * * * * _To Louis Bevier, Jr._ NEW YORK TIMES. November 28, 1916. My dear Louis: