Autograph letter signed : Dublin, to Cornelius Weygandt, 1907 May 27.

Commenting, at length, on an essay Weygandt has written on Russell which was published in the Sewanee Review and which appears to have been replete with proof reading errors and an article on Russell in Book News Monthly; commenting on a young James Joyce; referring first to the Book News Monthly essay, "All you say about Yeats I agree with though I would use the word 'narrative' rather than epic as indicating a future in which his best work might be done. The Book News article on myself I think is correct in its history but there might be some doubt about my funding the Hermetic Wing. I funded one but there was another rather brief-lived which I never attended but I believe the society I belonged to is the one sometimes referred to as starting transcendentalism in Ireland. There were in fact several societies of somewhat similar aims but the first historian rightly [illegible] that these ramifications were of little importance ran them all together as the Hermetic Society and made it meet in a back street whereas it had many homes. I think however you will be safe in following the tradition[;] it would be a pity to break up a picturesque legend. I think it is rather inaccurate to say that 'three out of every four' of my poems refer to preexistence. I don't think I touch on this more than a dozen times but it would be safe to say that I have never published more than one or two lyrics without direct reference in them to a spiritual existence. The Essayists paragraph missed one very remakable man 'John Eglington' [sic] who is our individualist[;] the lone thorn of Irish literature and many think our best thinker and prose essayist. I think his talent as an essayist a far finer one than Lionel Johnson's, Yeats', Gwynns or Moores and I think Yeats and Professor Dowden would agree with me. His best books are 'Two Essays on the Remnant' & 'Pebbles from the Brook.' Don't write about modern Irish literature & exclude 'John Eglington'. 'John Eglington' is the pen name of William K. Magee and Moore, Yeats, Dowden, myself and many others have the highest opinion of his power as an essayist. There is also a young poet named Joyce who has just published a little book of lyrics 'Chamber Music' which has a kind of Watteau like quality. He may come to be of importance;" setting forth, at length and in detail, his corrections and comments on Weygandt's essay on him in the Sewanee Review, commiserating with him on the poor proofreading and giving two examples of proofing errors to which his work was subjected; concluding, "I would like to write at more length but just now I never seem to have any time for anything and my pockets are filled with unanswered letters, and I am looking forward to a heavy week. Read John Eglington. He is our Thoreau, a suburban Thoreau. Standish J. O'Grady at his best is worth twenty Lady Gregorys as an interpreter of old Irish saga, She is a beautiful writer but OGrady has the big antique spirit which nobody else has in our time. Please excuse this scrappy hand note. I will look forward with interest to your book."