ders
but writers of the learned languages, in Elizabeth's time and
afterwards--women of deeper acquirements than are common now in the
greater diffusion of letters; and yet where were the poetesses? The
divine breath which seemed to come and go, and, ere it went,
filled the land with that crowd of true poets whom we call the old
dramatists--why did it never pass, even in the lyrical form, over the
lips of a woman? How strange! And can we deny that it was so? I look
everywhere for grandmothers and see none. It is not in the filial
spirit I am deficient, I do assure you--witness my reverent love of
the grandfathers!

Seriously, I do not presume to enter into argument with you, and this
in relation to a critical paper which I admire in so many ways and
am grateful for in some; but is not the poet a different man from the
cleverest versifier, and is it not well for the world to be taught
the difference? The divineness of poetry is far more to me than either
pride of sex or personal pride, and, though willing to acknowledge the
lowest breath of the inspiration, I cannot the 'powder and patch.' As
powder and patch I may, but not as poetry. And though I in turn may
suffer for this myself--though I too (_anch' io_) may be turned out of
'Arcadia,' and told that I am not a poet, still, I should be content,
I hope, that the divineness of poetry be proved in my humanness,
rather than lowered to my uses.

But you shall not think me exclusive. Of poor L.E.L., for instance,
I could write with _more_ praiseful appreciation than you can. It
appears to me that she had the gift--though in certain respects she
dishonored the art--and her latter lyrics are, many of them, of great
beauty and melody, such as, having once touched the ear of a reader,
live on in it. I observe in your 'Life of Mrs. Hemans' (shall I tell
you how often I have read those volumes?) she (Mrs. H.) never appears,
in any given letter or recorded opinion, to esteem her contemporary.
The antagonism lay, probably, in the higher parts of Mrs. Hemans's
character and mind, and we are not to wonder at it.

It is very pleasant to me to have your approbation of the sonnets on
George Sand, on the points of feeling and lightness, on which all my
readers have not absolved me equally, I have reason to know. I am more
a latitudinarian in literature than it is generally thought expedient
for women to be; and I have that admiration for _genius_, which dear
Mr. Kenyon calls my 'immo