ALS signed “W. C. Bryant,” two pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 8, August 18, 1864. Handwritten letter on poetical matters, in part: "The public is the only true judge of poetry. The opinion of the great majority of readers, and not that of any individual, decides the question of poetic merit. The judgment of a poet, in cases like the one which you refer to me, is certainly no better—perhaps not so just—as that of a lover of poetry, of large reading and descriminating mind, and not an author. In asking one who writes poetry himself, what he thinks of yours, you run the risk of getting a polite answer when you may desire an outspoken one. I do not recollect having seen any verses of yours until I received the copy of the 'Real and Ideal,' which accompanied your not of the other day. The other copy, of which you speak, must have miscarried. Since you ask my opinion of what you have written I must frankly say, that your poems to not appear to me to possess such a degree of merit as to awaken the expectation that you will distinguish yourself in that walk of literature. They show a mind delighting in poetic imagery, fond of looking at the poetic side of things, and active in presenting it, in those forms of language which poetry has adopted. Yet I do not see in them those evidences, either of power or skill, which encourage the hope of success with the public." In fine condition, with much of the text underlined in an unknown hand.
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