e
not surprised, for you know his task to be delicate and filled with
perils. "O frivolous mind of man, light ignorance!" As if yourself,
when you seek to explain some misunderstanding or excuse some apparent
fault, speaking swiftly and addressing a mind still recently incensed,
were not harnessing for a more perilous adventure; as if yourself
required less tact and eloquence; as if an angry friend or a suspicious
lover were not more easy to offend than a meeting of indifferent
politicians! Nay, and the orator treads in a beaten round; the matters
he discusses have been discussed a thousand times before; language is
ready-shaped to his purpose; he speaks out of a cut and dry vocabulary.
But you--may it not be that your defence reposes on some subtlety of
feeling, not so much as touched upon in Shakespeare, to express which,
like a pioneer, you must venture forth into zones of thought still
unsurveyed, and become yourself a literary innovator? For even in love
there are unlovely humours; ambiguous acts, unpardonable words, may yet
have sprung from a kind sentiment. If the injured one could read your
heart, you may be sure that he would understand and pardon; but, alas!
the heart cannot be shown--it has to be demonstrated in words. Do you
think it is a hard thing to write poetry? Why, that is to write
poetry, and of a high, if not the highest, order.

I should even more admire "the lifelong and heroic literary labours" of
my fellow-men, patiently clearing up in words their loves and their
contentions, and speaking their autobiography daily to their wives,
were it not for a circumstance which lessens their difficulty and my
admiration by equal parts. For life, though largely, is not entirely
carried on by literature. We are subject to physical passions and
contortions; the voice breaks and changes, and speaks by unconscious
and winning inflections; we have legible countenances, like an open
book; things that cannot be said look eloquently through the eye; and
the soul, not locked into the body as a dungeon, dwells ever on the
threshold with appealing signals. Groans and tears, looks and
gestures, a flush or a paleness, are often the most clear reporters of
the heart, and speak more directly to the hearts of others. The
message flies by these interpreters in the least space of time, and the
misunderstanding is averted in the moment of its birth. To explain in
words takes time and a just and patient hearing; and