I have already, in the proper place in this volume, said how the story first struck me. Perhaps I had never before reading it seen quite so clearly the complete mission as well as enforced limitations of true art. All the many subtle gradations in the development of purpose were there beautifully pictured in a little creation that was charming in the full sense of a word that has wellnigh lost its charm. For all such as cried out against pursuits originating in what Keats had christened “the infant chamber of sensation,” and for all such as demanded that everything we do should be done to “strengthen God among men,” the story provided this answer: “When at any time hath He cried unto thee, saying, ‘My son, lend me thy shoulder, for I fall’?” The sonnet sent, and spoken of as having just been written (the letter bears post-mark February 1880), was the sonnet on the sonnet. It is throughout beautiful and in two of its lines (those depicting the dark wharf and the black Styx) truly magnificent. It appears most to be valued, however, as affording a clue to the attitude of mind adopted towards this form of verse by the greatest master of it in modern poetry. I think it is Mr. Pater who says that a fine poem in manuscript carries an aroma with it, and a sensation of music. I must have enjoyed the pleasure of such a presence somewhat frequently about this period, for many of the poems that afterwards found places in the second volume of ballads and sonnets were sent to me from time to time.