having
such a natural leaning to their last work. Still, I may say honestly
to you, that I have a far more modest value for 'The Seraphim' than
your kindness suggests, and that I have seemed to myself to have a
clear insight into the fact that that poem was only borne up by the
minor poems published with it, from immediate destruction. There is a
want of unity in it which vexes me to think of, and the other faults
magnify themselves day by day, more and more, in my eyes. Therefore
it is not that I care _more_ for the 'Drama,' but I care less for 'The
Seraphim.' Both poems fall short of my aspiration and desire, but the
'Drama' seems to me fuller, freer and stronger, and worth the other
three times over. If it has anything new, I think it must be something
new into which I have lived, for certainly I wrote it sincerely and
from an inner impulse. In fact, I never wrote any poem with so much
sense of pleasure in the composition, and so rapidly, with continuous
flow--from fifty to a hundred lines a day, and quite in a glow of
pleasure and impulse all through. Still, you have not been used to see
me in blank verse, and there may be something in that. That the poem
is full of faults and imperfections I do not in the least doubt. I
have vibrated between exultations and despondencies in the correcting
and printing of it, though the composition went smoothly to an end,
and I am prepared to receive the bastinado to the critical degree, I
do assure you. The few opinions I have yet had are all to the effect
that my advance on the former publication is very great and obvious,
but then I am aware that people who thought exactly the contrary would
be naturally backward in giving me their opinion.... Indeed, I thank
you most earnestly. Truth and kindness, how rarely do they come
together! I am very grateful to you. It is curious that 'Duchess May'
is not a favorite of mine, and that I have sighed one or two secret
wishes towards its extirpation, but other writers besides yourself
have singled it out for praise in private letters to me. There has
been no printed review yet, I believe; and when I think of them, I
try to think of something else, for with no private friends among
the critical body (not that I should desire to owe security in such a
matter to private friendship) it is awful enough, this looking forward
to be reviewed. Never mind, the ultimate prosperity of the book lies
far above the critics, and can neither be mended nor ma