o, as you say, the lamp is trimmed behind
the wall--and the act of utterance is the evidence of foregone study
still more than it is the occasion to study. The deep interest with
which I read all that you had the kindness to write to me of yourself,
you must trust me for, as I find it hard to express it. It is sympathy
in one way, and interest every way! And now, see! Although you proved
to me with admirable logic that, for reasons which you know and
reasons which you don't know, I couldn't possibly know anything about
you; though that is all true--and proven (which is better than
true)--I really did understand of you before I was told, exactly what
you told me. Yes, I did indeed. I felt sure that as a poet you fronted
the future--and that your chief works, in your own apprehension, were
to come. Oh--I take no credit of sagacity for it; as I did not long
ago to my sisters and brothers, when I professed to have knowledge of
all their friends whom I never saw in my life, by the image coming
with the name; and threw them into shouts of laughter by giving out
all the blue eyes and black eyes and hazel eyes and noses Roman and
Gothic ticketed aright for the Mr. Smiths and Miss Hawkinses,--and hit
the bull's eye and the true features of the case, ten times out of
twelve! But _you_ are different. _You_ are to be made out by the
comparative anatomy system. You have thrown out fragments of _os_ ...
_sublime_ ... indicative of soul-mammothism--and you live to develop
your nature,--_if_ you live. That is easy and plain. You have taken a
great range--from those high faint notes of the mystics which are
beyond personality ... to dramatic impersonations, gruff with nature,
'gr-r-r- you swine'; and when these are thrown into harmony, as in a
manner they are in 'Pippa Passes' (which I could find in my heart to
covet the authorship of, more than any of your works--), the
combinations of effect must always be striking and noble--and you must
feel yourself drawn on to such combinations more and more. But I do
not, you say, know yourself--you. I only know abilities and faculties.
Well, then, teach me yourself--you. I will not insist on the
knowledge--and, in fact, you have not written the R.B. poem yet--your
rays fall obliquely rather than directly straight. I see you only in
your moon. Do tell me all of yourself that you can and will ... before
the R.B. poem comes out. And what is 'Luria'? A poem and not a drama?
I mean, a poem not in the