"Since writing the above, I have read Foscari and Cain. The former does not please me so highly as Sardanapalus. It has the fault of all those violent Venetian stories, being unnatural and improbable, and therefore, in spite of all your fine management of them, appealing but remotely to one's sympathies. But Cain is wonderful—terrible—never to be forgotten. If I am not mistaken, it will sink deep into the world's heart; and while many will shudder at its blasphemy, all must fall prostrate before its grandeur. Talk of Æschylus and his Prometheus!—here is the true spirit both of the Poet—and the Devil."
"February 9. 1822.
"Do not take it into your head, my dear B. that the tide is at all turning against you in England. Till I see some symptoms of people forgetting you a little, I will not believe that you lose ground. As it is, 'te veniente die, te, decedente,'—nothing is hardly talked of but you; and though good people sometimes bless themselves when they mention you, it is plain that even they think much more about you than, for the good of their souls, they ought. Cain, to be sure, has made a sensation; and, grand as it is, I regret, for many reasons, you ever wrote it. * * For myself, I would not give up the poetry of religion for all the wisest results that philosophy will ever arrive at. Particular sects and creeds are fair game enough for those who are anxious enough about their neighbours to meddle with them; but our faith in the Future is a treasure not so lightly to be parted with; and the dream of immortality (if philosophers will have it a dream) is one that, let us hope, we shall carry into our last sleep with us."[77]
"February 19. 1822.
"I have written to the Longmans to try the ground, for I do not think Galignani the man for you. The only thing he can do is what we can do, ourselves, without him,—and that is, employ an English bookseller. Paris, indeed, might be convenient for such refugee works as are set down in the Index Expurgatorius of London; and if you have any political catamarans to explode, this is your place. But, pray, let them be only political ones. Boldness, and even licence, in politics, does good,—actual, present good; but, in religion, it profits neither here nor hereafter; and, for myself, such a horror have I of both extremes on this subject, that I know not which I hate most, the bold, damning bigot, or the bold, annihilating infidel. 'Furiosa res est in tenebris impetus;'—and much as we are in the dark, even the wisest of us, upon these matters, a little modesty, in unbelief as well as belief, best becomes us. You will easily guess that, in all this, I am thinking not so much of you, as of a friend and, at present, companion of yours, whose influence over your mind (knowing you as I do, and knowing what Lady B. ought to have found out, that you are a person the most tractable to those who live with you that, perhaps, ever existed) I own I dread and deprecate most earnestly."[78]
"March 16. 1822.
"With respect to our Religious Polemics, I must try to set you right upon one or two points. In the first place, I do not identify you with the blasphemies of Cain no more than I do myself with the impieties of my Mokanna,—all I wish and implore is that you, who are such a powerful manufacturer of these thunderbolts, would not choose subjects that make it necessary to launch them. In the next place, were you even a decided atheist, I could not (except, perhaps, for the decision which is always unwise) blame you. I could only pity,—knowing from experience how dreary are the doubts with which even the bright, poetic view I am myself inclined to take of mankind and their destiny is now and then clouded. I look upon Cuvier's book to be a most desolating one in the conclusions to which it may lead some minds. But the young, the simple,—all those whose hearts one would like to keep unwithered, trouble their heads but little about Cuvier. You, however, have embodied him in poetry which every one reads; and, like the wind, blowing 'where you list,' carry this deadly chill, mixed up with your own fragrance, into hearts that should be visited only by the latter. This is what I regret, and what with all my influence I would deprecate a repetition of. Now, do you understand me?
"As to your solemn peroration, 'the truth is, my dear Moore, &c. &c.' meaning neither more nor less than that I give into the cant of the world, it only proves, alas! the melancholy fact, that you and I are hundreds of miles asunder. Could you hear me speak my opinions instead of coldly reading them, I flatter myself there is still enough of honesty and fun in this face to remind you that your friend Tom Moore—whatever else he may be,—is no Canter."