Meanwhile S. E. & Co. have been making their own proposals to you,
and you have replied not favourably, I am sorry to hear; but now
there is no reason why you should not have my homages, and I am just
as thankful for the Idylls, and love and admire them just as much, as
I did two months ago when I began to write in that ardour of claret
and gratitude. If you can't write for us you can't. If you can by
chance some day, and help an old friend, how pleased and happy I
shall be! This however must be left to fate and your convenience: I
don't intend to give up hope, but accept the good fortune if it
comes. I see one, two, three quarterlies advertised to-day, as all
bringing laurels to laureatus. He will not refuse the private
tribute of an old friend, will he? You don't know how pleased the
girls were at Kensington t'other day to hear you quote their father's
little verses, and he too I daresay was not disgusted. He sends you
and yours his very best regards in this most heartfelt and artless

(note of admiration)!
Always yours, my dear Alfred,
W. M. THACKERAY.


Naturally this letter gave Tennyson more pleasure than all the
converted critics with their favourable reviews. The Duke of Argyll
announced the conversion of Macaulay. The Master found Elaine "the
fairest, sweetest, purest love poem in the English language." As to
the whole, "The allegory in the distance GREATLY STRENGTHENS, ALSO
ELEVATES, THE MEANING OF THE POEM."

Ruskin, like some other critics, felt "the art and finish in these