I grew very weary in the course of the long effort, and often very despairing. But there were omens of hope now and then; first, a letter from my dear eldest brother, the late W.T. Arnold, who died in 1904, leaving a record as journalist and scholar which has been admirably told by his intimate friend and colleague, Mr. (now Captain) C.E. Montague. He and I had shared many intellectual interests connected with the history of the Empire. His monograph on _Roman Provincial Administration_, first written as an Arnold Essay, still holds the field; and in the realm of pure literature his one-volume edition of Keats is there to show his eagerness for beauty and his love of English verse. I sent him the first volume in proof, about a year before the book came out, and awaited his verdict with much anxiety. It came one May day in 1889. I happened to be very tired and depressed at the moment, and I remember sitting alone for a little while with the letter in my hand, without courage to open it. Then at last I opened it. Warm congratulation--Admirable!--Full of character and color.... _Miss Bretherton_ was an intellectual exercise. This is quite a different affair, and has interested and touched me deeply, as I feel sure it will all the world. The biggest thing that--with a few other things of the same kind--has been done for years. Well!--that was enough to go on with, to carry me through the last wrestle with proofs and revision. But by the following November nervous fatigue made me put work aside for a few weeks, and we went abroad for rest, only to be abruptly summoned home by my mother's state. Thenceforward I lived a double life--the one overshadowed by my mother's approaching death, the other amid the agitation of the book's appearance and all the incidents of its rapid success.