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III.
(Blue-lined white paper, 8" x 5", four pages)
>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.
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.
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