Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[246] your liberty in; and you have used them well to suffuse and flavor and poetize the story. And yet, I know not how it is, but the part which finds me most perfectly, and is, in fact, the most poetic poetry of all, is the prose-poem,—the nearly rhythmic transcription of the simple narrative matter of the gospels. Perhaps the true account of it may be that the handling is so delicately reverent, intruding so little of the poet's fine thinking and things, that the reverence incorporate promotes the words and lifts the ranges of the sentiment; so that when the reader comes out at the close, he finds himself in a curiously new kind of inspiration, born of modesty and silence.

I can easily imagine that certain chaffy people may put their disrespect on you for what I consider your praise. Had you undertaken to build the Christ yourself, as they would require of you, I verily believe it would have killed you, that is, made you a preacher.

With many thanks, I am yours,