d my stock.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Tuesday Evening
[Post-mark, December 10, 1845.]

It was right of you to write ... (now see what jangling comes of not
using the fit words.... I said 'right,' not to say 'kind') ... right
of you to write to me to-day--and I had begun to be disappointed
already because the post _seemed_ to be past, when suddenly the knock
brought the letter which deserves all this praising. If not 'kind' ...
then _kindest_ ... will that do better? Perhaps.

Mr. Kenyon was here to-day and asked when you were coming again--and
I, I answered at random ... 'at the end of the week--Thursday or
Friday'--which did not prevent another question about 'what we were
consulting about.' He said that he 'must have you,' and had written to
beg you to go to his door on days when you came here; only murmuring
something besides of neither Thursday nor Friday being disengaged days
with him. Oh, my disingenuousness!--Then he talked again of 'Saul.' A
true impression the poem has made on him! He reads it every night, he
says, when he comes home and just before he goes to sleep, to put his
dreams into order, and observed very aptly, I thought, that it
reminded him of Homer's shield of Achilles, thrown into lyrical whirl
and life. Quite ill he took it of me the 'not expecting him to like it
so much' and retorted on me with most undeserved severity (as I felt
it), that I 'never understood anybody to have any sensibility except
myself.' Wasn't it severe, to come from dear Mr. Kenyon? But he has
caught some sort of evil spirit from your 'Saul' perhaps; though
admiring the poem enough to have a good spirit instead. And do _you_
remember of the said poem, that it is there only as a first part, and
that the next parts must certainly follow and complete what will be a
great lyrical work--now remember. And forget 'Luria' ... if you are
better forgetting. And forget _me_ ... _when_ you are happier
forgetting. I say _that_ too.

So your idea of an unicorn is--one horn broken off. And you a
poet!--one horn broken off--or hid in the blackthorn hedge!--

Such a mistake, as our enlightened public, on their part, made, when
they magnified the divinity of the brazen chariot, just under the
thunder-cloud! I don't remember the _Athenaeum_, but can well believe
that it said what you say. The _Athenaeum_ admires only what gods, men
and columns reject. It applauds nothing but mediocr