Speaking of publishers, please be very careful that there is nothing in the book you and Margaret wrote to offend, in the slightest degree. I would go so far as to say that if the spirit of the book is not obviously and definitely Catholic--readily so recognised by Catholic readers--it would grieve me to see it published with your name attached--grieve me deeply. I don’t want anyone to say of you, “There is nothing about that novel to show she is a Catholic.” I don’t think Catholic writers should spend their time writing tracts and Sunday-school books, but I think that the Faith should illuminate everything they write, grave or gay. The Faith is radiantly apparent in your last poems. It is in Tom Daly’s clowning as it is in his loftier moods. Of course anyone would rather write like Francis Thompson than like Swinburne. But I can honestly say that I’d rather write like John Ayscough than like William Makepiece Thackeray--infinitely greater artist though Thackeray be. You see, the Catholic Faith is such a thing that I’d rather write moderately well about it than magnificently well about anything else. It is more important, more beautiful, more necessary than anything else in life. You and I have seen miracles--let us never cease to celebrate them. You know that this is not the first fever of a convert’s enthusiasm--it is the permanent conviction of a man who prayed daily for months for the Faith before that grace was given him. The Faith has done wonderful things for you, but I think since I have been in France it has done more for me. It has carried me through experiences I could not otherwise have endured. I do not mean that it has kept me from fear--for I have no fear of death or wounding whatever. I mean that it has helped me to endure great and continued hardships. These hardships are now past--they belong to last December--but I cannot forget what made me live through them and bear myself like a man. Therefore--for this and a multitude of other reasons, among which let me put that it is my most earnest request--be zealous in using your exquisite talent in His service of Whom, I am glad to have said, Apollo was a shadow. If what you write does not clearly praise the Lord and his Saints and Angels, let it praise such types of Heaven as we know in our life--God knows they are numerous enough. Does this sound like the writing of the least desirable of your aunts? Forgive me if it does, and heed my request even if it seem unreasonable--the request, I mean, not to sign your name to the book if it is not Catholic in spirit. I can honestly offer “Trees” and “Main Street” to Our Lady, and ask her to present them, as the faithful work of her poor unskilled craftsman, to her Son. I hope to be able to do it with everything I write hereafter--and to be able to do this is to be a good poet.