In the same first number appeared four of Emerson’s poems, printed in a group: “The Romany Girl,” “The Chartist’s Complaint,” “Days,” and “Brahma.” Emerson seems to have raised some question about this, for in the same letter Lowell writes: “About the poems I ought to say that when I spoke of printing all four I was perhaps greedy, and Mr. Underwood says we can’t afford it, reckoning each as a separate poem--which means giving $50 apiece for them. Forgive me for coming down into the kitchen thus, but as I got the magazine into the scrape I must get it out. My notion was that all the poems would be published at once in a volume, and that therefore it would be alike to you. I ought to have thought that you sent them for selection,--and I will never be so rapacious again till I have another so good chance. If I am to have only one, give me ‘Days.’ That is as limpid and complete as a Greek epigram. I quarrel, though, with one word ‘hypocritic,’ which I doubt does not give the very shade of meaning you intended. I think you did wish to imply _intentional_ taking-in? I will take the liberty to draw your notice to one or two things in the proofs (of the poems), leaving them to your own judgment entirely.... It is not often that a magazine carries such freight as your ‘Illusions.’... How about Mr. Thoreau?” It was not “Days” so much as “Brahma” that seized upon the imagination. Mr. Trowbridge, in his article on “The Author of Quabbin,” says it was “more talked about and puzzled over and parodied than any other poem of sixteen lines published within my recollection. ‘What does it mean?’ was the question readers everywhere asked; and if one had the reputation of seeing a little way into the Concord philosophy, he was liable at any time to be stopped on the street by some perplexed inquirer, who would draw him into the nearest doorway, produce a crumpled newspaper clipping from the recesses of a waistcoat pocket, and, with knitted brows, exclaim, ‘Here! you think you understand Emerson; now tell me what all this is about,--_If the red slayer think he slays_,’ and so forth.”