* 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?