the mean time, however, he
carried them to Europe with him, and seems to have found their only
admirer in John Forster, who wrote to him in London: "Your tragedies are
very beautiful--beauty everywhere subduing and chastening the sadness;
the pictures of nature in delightful contrast to the sorrowful and
tragic violence of the laws; truth and unaffectedness everywhere. I
hardly know which I like best; but there are things in 'Giles Corey'
that have a strange attractiveness for me." Longfellow writes to Fields
from Vevey, September 5, 1868: "I do not like your idea of calling the
'Tragedies' sketches. They are not sketches, and only seem so at first
because I have studiously left out all that could impede the action. I
have purposely made them simple and direct." He later adds: "As to
anybody's 'adapting' these 'Tragedies' for the stage, I do not like the
idea of it at all. Prevent this if possible. I should, however, like to
have the opinion of some good actor--not a sensational actor--on that
point. I should like to have Booth look at them." Six weeks later,
having gone over to London to secure the copyright on these poems, he
writes: "I saw also Bandmann, the tragedian, who expressed the liveliest
interest in what I told him of the 'Tragedies.'" Finally he says, two
days later, "Bandmann writes me a nice letter about the 'Tragedies,' but
says they are not adapted to the stage. So we will say no more about
that, for the present."{97}

"Christus: A Mystery" appeared as a whole in 1872, for the first time
bringing together the three parts (I. "The Divine Tragedy;" II. "The
Golden Legend," and III. "The New England Tragedies"). "The Divine
Tragedy," which now formed the first part, was not only in some degree
criticised as forming an anti-climax in being placed before the lighter
portions of the great drama, but proved unacceptable among his friends,
and was often subjected to the charge of being unimpressive and even
uninteresting. On the other hand, we have the fact that it absorbed him
more utterly than any other portion of the book. He writes in his diary
on January 6, 1871, "The subject of 'The Divine Tragedy' has taken
entire possession of me, so that I can think of nothing else. All day
pondering upon and arranging it." And he adds next day, "I find all
hospitalities and social gatherings just now great interruptions." Yet
he has to spend one morning that week in Boston at a meeting of
stockholders; on another day