"When you say it depends on me whether I will be looked upon as a real judicial authority by people of culture throughout the land, you fire me with ambition, but my springing flame is quenched by the realization that I am not cultured enough to rely on my judgment as a certainty, a finality, and that while I may feel that my intuitions are keen, they are apt to be warped by my strong emotions. I'll try. A very few persons are really my public, and I think how my letters will strike them, rather than how the world will receive them. I wonder how you will like my review of...? Much of the book is 'splendidly null,'—perfect enough in execution, but without that subtle something that sets the heart-chords quivering, and fills the eyes with tender dew; that subtle minor chord of being, to which we are all kin, by virtue of our own pain...."
Mrs. Moulton to Mr. Stedman
"... I am impatient to see your article on Browning. I am so struck by your calling him the greatest of love poets. I, too, have often thought something like that of him. If 'The Statue and the Bust' means anything, it means that Browning thought the Duke and the Lady were fools to let 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would.' But, au contraire, I think 'Pippa Passes' gives one the impression that he considers illegal love a great sin and the natural temptation to still greater sins. Don't you think so? I wish I could have a talk on social questions with you, for I think your ideas are more fixed, more developed in thought and less chaotic than mine...."
Mr. Whittier to Mrs. Moulton
Amesbury, 11th month, 9th, 1874.
My dear friend Louise Chandler Moulton: I thank thee from my heart for thy letter. I think some good angel must have prompted it, for it reached me when I needed it; needed to know that my words had not been quite in vain. And to know that they have been comfort or strength to thee is a cause for deep thankfulness. I do not put a very high estimate upon my writings, in a merely literary point of view, but it has been my earnest wish that they might at least help the world a little. I read thy notice of my book in the Tribune, in connection with Dr. Holmes' last volume, and while very grateful for thy praise, I was saddened by a feeling that I did not fully deserve it. In fact, I fear the world has treated me far better than I had any reason to expect; and I have been blessed with dear friends, whose love is about me like an atmosphere.
I have read the little poem enclosed in thy letter with a feeling of tenderest sympathy. God help us! The loneliness of life, under even the best circumstances, becomes at times appalling to contemplate. We are all fearfully alone; no one human soul can fully know another, and an infinite sigh for sympathy is perpetually going up from the heart of humanity. But doubtless this very longing is the pledge and prophecy and guarantee of an immortal destination. Perfect content is stagnation and ultimate death.
Why does thee not publish thy poems? Everywhere I meet people who have been deeply moved by them.