ace--and _why_ I have a tendency moreover to
sift and measure any praise of yours and to separate it from the
superfluities, far more than with any other person's praise in the
world.

_Friday evening._--Shall I send this letter or not? I have been 'tra
'l si e 'l no,' and writing a new beginning on a new sheet even--but
after all you ought to hear the remote echo of your last letter ...
far out among the hills, ... as well as the immediate reverberation,
and so I will send it,--and what I send is not to be answered,
remember!

I read Luria's first act twice through before I slept last night, and
feel just as a bullet might feel, not because of the lead of it but
because shot into the air and suddenly arrested and suspended. It
('Luria') is all life, and we know (that is, the reader knows) that
there must be results here and here. How fine that sight of Luria is
upon the lynx hides--how you see the Moor in him just in the glimpse
you have by the eyes of another--and that laugh when the horse drops
the forage, what wonderful truth and character you have in
_that_!--And then, when _he_ is in the scene--: 'Golden-hearted Luria'
you called him once to me, and his heart shines already ... wide open
to the morning sun. The construction seems to me very clear
everywhere--and the rhythm, even over-smooth in a few verses, where
you invert a little artificially--but that shall be set down on a
separate strip of paper: and in the meantime I am snatched up into
'Luria' and feel myself driven on to the ends of the poet, just as a
reader should.

But _you_ are not driven on to any ends? so as to be tired, I mean?
You will not suffer yourself to be overworked because you are
'interested' in this work. I am so certain that the sensations in your
head _demand_ repose; and it must be so injurious to you to be
perpetually calling, calling these new creations, one after another,
that you must consent to be called _to_, and not hurry the next act,
no, nor any act--let the people have time to learn the last number by
heart. And how glad I am that Mr. Fox should say what he did of it ...
though it wasn't true, you know ... not exactly. Still, I do hold that
as far as construction goes, you never put together so much
unquestionable, smooth glory before, ... not a single entanglement for
the understanding ... unless 'the snowdrops' make an exception--while
for the undeniableness of genius it never stood out before your
readers more plainly