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The Independent

251 Broadway,

New York.

March 21, 1891.

William A. Dickinson, Esq.,

Amherst, Mass.

My dear Sir: --

I write this letter to you altho I intend it equally

for Mrs. Dickinson. I have a letter in hand received this morning

from Miss Lavinia Dickinson in which she says:

"I wish simply to say that my sister gave her poems to

me, all of them, as I can prove if necessary; and that altho copies

of them have been given at different times to different persons,

they have been so given simply for private perusal or reading to

others, and not to pass the property in them, which is mine."

She also says that she has decided in view of her intention

to publish another volume at some time, "not to permit more of the

unpublished, unless quite occasionally, to appear in newspapers or

magazines at present. Certainly this cannot be done without my

consent." Certainly it will not be wise for me to be a party in

any family difference. It would have seemed to me impossible, in

view of your sister Emily's unwillingness to have her poems pub-

lished, that she could have given to her sister any such exclusive

right of property as is here claimed, and if she did not it would

have seemed to me that you had as much right as any one, and cer-

tainly that your wife had a right in those which were given to her,

and of which, I suppose, you did not know that Miss Lavinia Dickin-