[Expresses admiration for the new St. Nicholas magazine; offers for possible publication a prose sketch of Southern country life as it was 40 or 50 years ago, written by his mother, a lady of 68, "but bright- minded and alert"; says that the story describes, among other things, the mingling of white children with plantation Negroes.]

[Includes ALS on verso; asks Clark to write to Paul Hamilton Hayne ; says that they can not use the offered manuscript due to a large stock of already accepted material.]

[Includes penciled note "To Brainerd, 1878"; thanks him for acquainting him with the workings of the English magazine system; asks if [Theodore Dunton] Watts would refuse his " Sonnet " if he sent it to the editors of The Examiner or The Athenaeum ; says he is astonished that [Brainerd] is not English but a fellow country man; says he would like to send him a poem, dedicated to Oliver Wendell Holmes for his aid during the yellow fever pestilence, but has no copy; sends instead, [" Hiram Benner "], a poem by [ Henry Wadsworth] Longfellow ; describes the condition the country is in, the restlessness of the people, his own hopelessness in regard to the government, the country's desire to obtain recognition in Great Britain ; says he has given up the dream of ever visiting England ; asks if [Brainerd] is a permanent resident of London ; asks if he know Captain Randolph Hamilton ; expresses pleasure at [Brainerd's] kind words regarding " Muscadines . "]

[Includes printed copy of " The Decline of Faith "; talks about a volume of [his] poems to be published; says the volume is the handsomest and best illustrated book of the genre ever to have been issued in this country; says he is certain that the correspondent will share his joy; comments on [Henry Wadsworth] Longfellow 's death; says he has composed sonnets on the occasion at the request of Baldwin of New York ; says the sonnets fell short of his own expectations because of his ill health.]