. . .However the walk repaid it. Oh, the larks yesterday! It was as warm as June, and Rossetti and Caine and myself went out and lay in the grass (at least I did) basking in the sun, looking down on the gleaming sea, and hearing these heavenly incarnate little joys sending thrills of sweetness, and vague pain through all my being. I seemed all a-quiver with the delight of it all. And the smell of the wrack! and the cries of the sea-birds! and the delicious wash of the incoming tide! Oh, dear me, I shall hate to go back to-morrow. Caine is writing a sonnet in your book, Watts is writing a review for the Athenæum, Rossetti is about to go on with painting his Joan of Arc, and I am writing the last lines of this note to you.”

Little did he dream as he shook hands with his host on the Monday morning that he was bidding a last farewell to his good friend.

Of that visit he wrote later:

“Of my most cherished m. . . Read More