“_The memory of a love that has been cut short by death remains still fragrant though enfeebled_, _but no recollection of its past can keep sweet a love that has dried up and withered through accidents of time and life_.” _In the ordinary course Butler would have talked this Sonnet over with me at the time he wrote it_, _that is in January_, 1902; _he may even have done so_, _but I think not_. _From_ 2_nd_ _January_, 1902, _until late in March_, _when he left London alone for Sicily_, _I was ill with pneumonia and remember very little of what happened then_. _Between his return in May and his death in June I am sure he did not mention the subject_. _Knowing the facts that underlie the preceding poem I can tell why Butler called it an In Memoriam_; _not knowing the facts that underlie this poem I cannot tell why Butler should have called it an Academic Exercise_. _It is his last Sonnet and is dated_ “_Sund. Jan._ 12th 1902,” _within six months of his death_, _at a time when he was depressed physically because his health was failing and mentally because he had been_ “_editing his remains_,” _reading and destroying old letters and brooding over the past_. _One of the subjects given in the section_ “_Titles and Subjects_” _(ante_) _is_ “_The diseases and ordinary causes of mortality among friendships_.” _I suppose that he found among his letters something which awakened memories of a friendship of his earlier life—a friendship that had suffered from a disease_, _whether it recovered or died would not affect the sincerity of the emotions experienced by Butler at the time he believed the friendship to be virtually dead_. _I suppose the Sonnet to be an In Memoriam upon the apprehended death of a friendship as the preceding poem is an In Memoriam upon the apprehended death of a friend_.