You make me happy with your loving thoughts and meanings towards
me. I have always thanked the good star which made us early
neighbors, in some sort, in time and space. And the beam is
twice warmed by your vigorous good-will, which has steadily kept
clear, kind eyes on me.
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* From an imperfect rough draft.
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It is good to be born in good air and outlook, and not less with
a civilization, that is, with one poet still living in the world.
O yes, and I feel all the solemnity and vital cheer of the
benefit.--If only the mountains of water and of land and the
steeper mountains of blighted and apathized moods would permit a
word to pass now and then. It is very fine for you to tax
yourself with all those incompatibilities. I like that Thor
should make comets and thunder, as well as Iduna apples, or
Heimdal his rainbow bridge, and your wrath and satire has all too
much realism in it, than that we can flatter ourselves by
disposing of you as partial and heated. Nor is it your fault
that you do a hero's work, nor do we love you less if we cannot
help you in it. Pity me, O strong man! I am of a puny
constitution half made up, and as I from childhood knew,--not a
poet but a lover of poetry, and poets, and merely serving as
writer, &c. in this empty America, before the arrival of the
poets. You must not misconstrue my silences, but thank me
for them all, as a true homage to your diligence which I love
to defend...
She* had such reverence and love for Landor that I do not know
but at any moment in her natural life she would have sunk in the
sea, for an ode from him; and now this most propitious cake is
offered to her Manes. The loss of the notes of Browning and of
Mazzini, which you confirm, astonishes me.
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* Margaret Fuller. The break in continuity is in the rough draft.
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