sal," must have pleased the author. She was pleased even more with what John Greenleaf Whittier, to whom she had sent a copy, said about it-so pleased, indeed, that she had to tell the readers of the New Northwest. Portions of Whittier's letter were printed in the same month that the patronizing review ap- peared in Overland Monthly, in the issue of the New Northwest for December, 1871, under the heading "Letter from Belle W. Cooke."
Dear Friend:-I received a sweet, kind letter from John G. Whittier the other day, so quaint and Quakerish, in which he says:
I have recently re-read thy book, and find much in it to assure me that its author has a gift of song and that her heart is in the right place, full of sweet home loves. I like particularly "The Dirge" in the long poem, and I like "My Friend", "Autumn Birds", "VWind of the Sea", "Violets", "Patience" and "Forbidden Fruit". I only wish I had seen thy book before making up a collection of "Children's Poems", which is in press. There are two or three nice bits of rhyme which would have found a place there.. . . I like thee for thinking of thy mother in publishing thy book. I am sure she will be proud of her distant child's verses.
Fame is of small comfort to any one. If our writings give pleasure to our dear friends-the select few-we need not care for the great world outside.
How true is this! And yet it must be something great to be loved and read with delight all over one's country as he is. Dear old man! May he live long to bless the world with his ripe, mature thoughts and writings! I need not tell you I prize his letter very highly. I feel as though I could stand two or three more such criticisms as those of the Golden Era and Salem Mercury after receiving this from Whittier.
I have sold all my books that I have here, and am obliged to send to San Francisco for fifteen of those left there to fill out my orders. So you see my book has proved a success -though perhaps a small one. "Small crafts should not trust
