ersons, many living
at a distance, whom the poet did not know, became also in its way
a satisfaction. It was with him a matter of course, though never of
indifference, that his closer friends of both sexes were among its
members; it was one of real gratification that they included from
the beginning such men as Dean Boyle of Salisbury, the Rev. Llewellyn
Davies, George Meredith, and James Cotter Morison--that they enjoyed the
sympathy and co-operation of such a one as Archdeacon Farrar. But he had
an ingenuous pride in reading the large remainder of the Society's lists
of names, and pointing out the fact that there was not one among them
which he had ever heard. It was equivalent to saying, 'All these people
care for me as a poet. No social interest, no personal prepossession,
has attracted them to my work.' And when the unknown name was not only
appended to a list; when it formed the signature of a paper--excellent
or indifferent as might be--but in either case bearing witness to
a careful and unobtrusive study of his poems, by so much was the
gratification increased. He seldom weighed the intrinsic merit of such
productions; he did not read them critically. No man was ever more
adverse to the seeming ungraciousness of analyzing the quality of a
gift. In real life indeed this power of gratitude sometimes defeated its
own end, by neutralizing his insight into the motive or effort involved
in different acts of kindness, and placing them all successively on the
same plane.

In the present case, however, an ungraduated acceptance of the labour
bestowed on him was part of the neutral attitude which it was his
constant endeavour to maintain. He always refrained from noticing any
erroneous statement concerning himself or his works which might appear
in the Papers of the Society: since, as he alleged, if he once began to
correct, he would appear to endorse whatever he left uncorrected, and
thus make himself responsible, not only for any interpretation that
might be placed on his poems, but, what was far more serious, for
every eulogium that was bestowed upon them. He could not stand aloof as
entirely as he or even his friends desired, since it was usual with some
members of the Society to seek from him elucidations of obscure passages
which, without these, it was declared, would be a stumbling-block to
future readers. But he disliked being even to this extent drawn into
its operation; and his help was, I believe, less and less