4 In describing the peaceful little lake among the trees you forgot yourself when the rabbit came to drink for after it
had drank enough you tell it went hastily to yonder dell and till now over that it was a safe place where that rabbit lived
I suppose the dell was where dogs did not like to go and its hollow log was so crooked that boys could not dislodge it with
a long stick - you began with a lake in the trees and finished with a rabbit in its hole Your poetry Mary is good consid-
ering your circumstances, and illegible and studying good poetry illegible some day write something with putting away in the
corner of your drawer to show to your cousins? etc. I would not spend much time in verse making but you can scarce spend too
much in cultivating a taste for the beauties sublimities of nature such time is not squandered as you say I hope illegible
this you have been on the old gray stone pencil in hand 69 1 Ind' Apr 22d My dear poet I read your lines carefully
but have not critise them much because I soon perceived that that a full criticism would occupy more pages than are in a grocers
ledger Upon the whole I am pleased to see the direction that your mind is taking I believe we have all at sometime been guilty
of poetry so called Even merchant matter of fact David when driving a brisk business in squirrel skin hickory roots? and in
colt calf exchange wrote love songs to Katie Cairns on a stump which his father doubted? meant he should rater be gra illegible
out by the roots. yes we all have rhymed but I never saw a rhym that a Muir had made that was worth half a reading