beautiful land that now is spoiled. You who are young can never find 
what I have found." That 's an old song that has been played in many

tunes. Seton played it ofteio,t, doesn't make me sad any more than I 
regret there are no more, M.__,_ In Wyoming. What you found and what 
I can find may not be physically the same thing; still they are the same.

But even before we have to rely on second growth wilderness there still 
are great patches that match yours, particularly between here and the 
Artic sea. And I am less sad about the cantelope farmers in your 
wilderness than I am hopeful because I know the uplands I hunted around 
Ithaca will be wilder when I get back there again. 
Then I can find no strong hint in your series that perhaps the 
greatest unspoiled wilderness is the search for the Truth and that he 
who would seek this wilderness will find the trail just as untraveled Iaba

behind a white-footed mouse as behind a desert bighorn. Isn't it more 
for us to look at these horizons than to dell on the mistakes we have 
made in building a great land.          ?    '   - - ,           ' 
And another of these scattered thoughts. I, fn- one, gather 
the impression from some of your peices that man, particularly. the poor

brutes who work Opr the government, has spoiled the river Deltas and the

native fauna and the crane marshes in a dumb, stubborn, deliberate effort

to do always the wrong thing. You almost chide him for not having the 
vision you didn't have 20 years ago. After all, many of the things we 
do we do because we are men, the same as moles do whet they do because 
they are moles. True, we have thought, but thought takes time and 
maturity. We are just getting to the point where mature thought is 
guiding the manipulation of the land. This is a hope. If we always regret

what we have done, we must regret that we are men. It is only by 
accepting ourselves for VMVMMVIMMVV VVMM      what we are, the best of 
us and the wokt of us, that we can hold any hope for the future. 
I get most of these feelings from the last parts of Escuadilla and 
Marshland Elegy and for me the aloof sourness towards government workers,

expressed here/dominates the whole series. Perhaps I resent it because 
I worked for the government during the period considered in Marshland 
elegy; thus I know what you say is only partly true. Perhaps this 
explains my suggestion that you balance by taking your self back to the 
time when you were of the same brded. 
If there is anyone in the land who should have more hope for the 
future than regret for past mistakes it is you, for you have played the 
strongest hand in building that hope. I have seen it develops since I 
took my first course in Zoology 1; you must see it all the stroker. 
Roads in crane marshes, just like your call for men who have the vision 
to see the end of the last wolf in New Mexicolare mistakes we make because

we are men. Some of them have caused and will cause permanent losses; but

in general I think they are merely minor fluottet ions t in a curve that

swings strongly upward. Give your series some of this hope. You have 
done it well in  The 'Flambeau  but as I recall, this is not included in

the collection. 
These are thoughts that went through my head on reading some but nd 
all of your pieces last night. They may not be worth anything and probably

are far from reasonable; but at leatt you know what V      I thought. I only

hope that you won't overlook the real thread of the series in your 
enthusiasm for "literary effectsU. 
Lyle's paper is coming down under separate cover. 
q-*-( I