The “Transcript” compares it with Clough’s. I delight in Clough, but I do not like comparisons of this kind. You strike different chords, and I believe that you have greater possibilities than he. What touches me especially is the high purity of emotion which is yet as human as it is holy. This is rare, even in great poetry. As I read some lines, it seemed as if my soul were weeping for joy at their beauty.
“Agathon” I wanted to read over again as soon as I had finished it. Indeed, I shall want to turn to it often, for a breath of the pure poetic ether. I do not know a greater poem of its kind since “Comus.” Page 42, and from 59 onward, Milton might have been proud to write. They appeal to all that nobler part of us that lives beneath the shows of things; and I am glad that so young a poet as you begins his song so nobly. I am proud, too, that you are a Beverly boy, as I am a Beverly woman. But for that, I might not have ventured to write so freely. I have not room to write all I want to say, but I must mention the “Christ Scourged,” which seems to me wonderful in its strength of sympathetic expression. It would give me great pleasure to meet you. If you are staying in town, I wish you would call here some evening.
In preparing a new edition of “Songs of Three Centuries,” she included among the additions, a poem by Dr. Solis-Cohen, “I Know that My Redeemer Liveth,” and also, “The Crowing of the Red Cock,” by Emma Lazarus. In the course of the correspondence, Dr. Solis-Cohen wrote so frankly, giving his feelings about Christ from an intelligent Jewish standpoint, that she answered in a similar vein, stating clearly her idea of the relations that should exist between the Jew and Christian. Dr. Solis-Cohen had written: “No professed Christian can exceed many Jews in love for the pure and lofty character of Jesus, and we can readily accept that character, as a manifestation of God in man, while we decline to accept the superstructure of the Church.”
_Dear Sir_,--The proof of your poem is just received,--and I have put your corrections away so carefully that I cannot at this moment lay my hand upon them; so I will ask you to correct the copy and send it to the printers as soon as convenient. I will tell them to wait for it.