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 presented the mere avenue to the end of saying them.  Therefore I cannot throw them out—­I cannot yield to the temptation even of pleasing you by doing so; I make a compromise with myself, and do not throw them out, and do not print the poem.  Now say nothing against this, my dear cousin, because I am obstinate, as you know, as you have good evidence for knowing.  I will not either alter or print it.  Then you have your manuscript copy, which you can cut into any shape you please as long as you keep it out of print; and seeing that the poem really does belong to you, having had its origin in your paraphrase of Schiller’s stanzas, I see a great deal of poetical justice in the manuscript copyright remaining in your hands.  For the rest I shall have quite enough to print and to be responsible for without it, and I am quite satisfied to let it be silent for a few years until either I or you (as may be the case even with me!) shall have revised our judgments in relation to it.