* In the same private copy of the Poems the following explanatory passage was written over the much-discussed sonnet, entitled, The Monochord:--“That sublimated mood of the soul in which a separate essence of itself seems as it were to oversoar and survey it.” Neither the style nor the substance is characteristic of Rossetti, and though I do not at the moment remember to have met with the passage elsewhere, I doubt not it is a quotation. That quotation marks are employed is not in itself evidence of much moment, for Rossetti had Coleridge’s enjoyment of a literary practical joke, and on one occasion prefixed to a story in manuscript a long passage on noses purporting to be from Tristram Shandy, but which is certainly not discoverable in Sterne’s story. The next letter I shall quote appears to explain itself: There is a last point in your long letter which I have not noticed, though it interested me much: viz., what you say of your lecture on my poetry; your idea of possibly returning to and enlarging it would, if carried out, be welcome to me. I suppose ere long I must get together such additional work as I have to show--probably a good deal added to the old vol. (which has been for some time out of print) and one longer poem by itself. _The House of Life_, when next issued, will I trust be doubled in number of sonnets; it is nearly so already. Your writing that essay in one day, and the information as to subsequent additions, I noted, and should like to see the passage on _Jenny_ which you have not yet used, if extant. The time taken in composition reminds me of the fact (so long ago!) that I wrote the tale of _Hand and Soul_ (with the exception of an opening page or two) all in one night in December 1849, beginning I suppose about 2 A.M. and ending about 7. In such a case a landscape and sky all unsurmised open gradually in the mind--a sort of spiritual _Turner_, among whose hills one ranges and in whose waters one strikes out at unknown liberty; but I have found this only in nightlong work, which I have seldom attempted, for it leaves one entirely broken, and this state was mine when I described the like of it at the close of the story, ah! once again, how long ago! I have thought of including this story in next issue of poems, but am uncertain. What think you?