When I said that manner was more important than matter in poetry, I really meant that the true matter of poetry could only be expressed by the manner. I find the brilliant thinking and the deep feeling in Browning, but no true individuality--though of course his manner is marked enough. Another letter in the same year, to Campbell, after reading the proofs of my first book of verse, _Days and Nights_, contained a criticism which I thought, at the time, not less discouraging than the criticism of my _Browning_. It seems to me now to contain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about that particular book, and to allow for whatever I may have done in verse since then. The first letter addressed to me is a polite note, dated March 16, 1889, thanking me for a copy of my book, and saying 'I send herewith a little volume of my own, which I hope may please you in some of your idle moments.' The book was a copy of _Florilegium Amantis_, a selection of his own poems, edited by Dr. Garnett. Up to that time I had read nothing of Patmore except fragments of _The Angel in the House_, which I had not had the patience to read through. I dipped into these pages, and as I read for the first time some of the odes of _The Unknown Eros_, I seemed to have made a great discovery: here was a whole glittering and peaceful tract of poetry which was like a new world to me. I wrote to him full of my enthusiasm; and, though I heard nothing then in reply, I find among my books a copy of _The Unknown Eros_ with this inscription: 'Arthur Symons, from Coventry Patmore, July 23, 1890.' The date is the date of his sixty-seventh birthday, and the book was given to me after a birthday-dinner at his house at Hastings, when, I remember, a wreath of laurel had been woven in honour of the occasion, and he had laughingly, but with a quite naive gratification, worn it for a while at the end of dinner. He was one of the very few poets I have seen who could wear a laurel wreath and not look ridiculous. In the summer of that year I undertook to look after the _Academy_ for a few weeks (a wholly new task to me) while Mr. Cotton, the editor, went for a holiday. The death of Cardinal Newman occurred just then, and I wrote to Patmore, asking him if he would do an obituary notice for me. He replied, in a letter dated August 13, 1890: I should have been very glad to have complied with your request, had I felt myself at all able to do the work effectively; but my acquaintance with Dr. Newman was very slight, and I have no sources of knowledge about his life, but such as are open to all. I have never taken much interest in contemporary Catholic history and politics. There are a hundred people who could do what you want better than I could, and I can never stir my lazy soul to take up the pen, unless I fancy that I have something to say which makes it a matter of conscience that I should say it.