III.
(Blue-lined white paper, 8" x 5", four pages)
Attorney Generals Office.
Washington. Jan. 20, 1869.
James T. Fields.
>Dear Sir:
The package of February magazines sent on the 10th, arrived
safely yesterday. Accept my thanks. I am pleased with the
typographical appearance, correctness, &c. of my piece.
I enclose a piece, "Thou vast Rondure, swimming in
Space," of which I have to say to you as follows. It is to
appear in the April number of the London Fortnightly
Review.
—Having just received a note from the Editor of that Review,
Mr. Morley, in which he intimates that he has no objection to its
appearing simultaneously in America, I thought I would show it to
you. Very possibly you will not care anyhow to print a piece which
is to appear elsewhere. Should that, however, be no objection, and
should you consider the piece available for your purposes, the
price is $20. Of course it would have to go in your Number for
April. I reserve the right of printing in future book.
Respectfully, &c
Walt Whitman.
In 1861 James T. Fields took over the editing of the Atlantic
Monthly and in the issue of February, 1869 (XXIII, 199-203)
published Whitman's poem "Proud Music of the Sea-Storm." Apparently
Fields either did not care for "Thou vast Rondure" or did not
approve of publishing a poem appearing elsewhere, for he did not
include it in the Atlantic.
