crifice of self-respect will make amends for a defective faculty,
nor _ought_ to make amends.

My conviction is that the _poetry of Christianity_ will one day be
developed greatly and nobly, and that in the meantime we are wrong,
poetically as morally, in desiring to restrain it. No, I never felt
repelled by any Christian phraseology in Cowper--although he is not a
favorite poet of mine from other causes--nor in Southey, nor even
in James Montgomery, nor in Wordsworth where he writes
'ecclesiastically,' nor in Christopher North, nor in Chateaubriand,
nor in Lamartine.

It is but two days ago since I had a letter--and not from a
fanatic--to reproach my poetry for not being Christian enough, and
this is not the first instance, nor the second, of my receiving such
a reproach. I tell you this to open to you the possibility of another
side to the question, which makes, you see, a triangle of it!

Can you bear with such a long answer to your letter, and forbear
calling it a 'preachment'? There may be such a thing as an awkward and
untimely introduction of religion, I know, and I have possibly
been occasionally guilty in this way. But for _my principle_ I must
contend, for it is a poetical principle _and more_, and an entire
sincerity in respect to it is what I owe to you and to myself. Try to
forgive me, dear Mr. Kenyon. I would propitiate your indulgence for me
by a libation of your own eau de Cologne poured out at your feet!
It is excellent eau de Cologne, and you are very kind to me,
but, notwithstanding all, there is a foreboding within me that my
'conventicleisms' will be inodorous in your nostrils.

[_Incomplete_.]

_To John Kenyon_
Tuesday [about March 1843].

My very dear Cousin,--I have read your letter again and again, and
feel your kindness fully and earnestly. You have advised me about the
poem,[74] entering into the questions referring to it with the warmth
rather of the author of it than the critic of it, and this I am
sensible of as absolutely as anyone can be. At the same time, I have a
strong perception rather than opinion about the poem, and also, if you
would not think it too serious a word to use in such a place, I have
a _conscience_ about it. It was not written in a desultory fragmentary
way, the last stanzas thrown in, as they might be thrown out, but with
a _design_, which leans its whole burden on the last stanzas. In fact,
the last stanzas were in my mind to say, and all the others presente