be a
churl indeed if I were not grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I
remember when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told him of
"the pang of gratified vanity" with which I had read it. The pang was
present again, but how much more sober and autumnal--like your volume.
Let me tell you a story, or remind you of a story. In the year of grace
something or other, anything between '76 and '78, I mentioned to you in
my usual autobiographical and inconsiderate manner that I was hard up.
You said promptly that you had a balance at your banker's, and could
make it convenient to let me have a cheque, and I accepted and got the
money--how much was it?--twenty or perhaps thirty pounds? I know
not--but it was a great convenience. The same evening, or the next day,
I fell in conversation (in my usual autobiographical and ... see above)
with a denizen of the Savile Club, name now gone from me, only his
figure and a dim three-quarter view of his face remaining. To him I
mentioned that you had given me a loan, remarking easily that of course
it didn't matter to you. Whereupon he read me a lecture, and told me how
it really stood with you financially. He was pretty serious; fearing, as
I could not help perceiving, that I should take too light a view of the
responsibility and the service (I was always thought too light--the
irresponsible jester--you remember. O, _quantum mutatus ab illo_!) If I
remember rightly, the money was repaid before the end of the week--or,
to be more exact and a trifle pedantic, the se'nnight--but the service
has never been forgotten; and I send you back this piece of ancient
history, _consule Planco_, as a salute for your dedication, and propose
that we should drink the health of the nameless one, who opened my eyes
as to the true nature of what you did for me on that occasion.

But here comes my Amanuensis, so we'll get on more swimmingly now. You
will understand perhaps that what so particularly pleased me in the new
volume, what seems to me to have so personal and original a note, are
the middle-aged pieces in the beginning. The whole of them, I may say,
though I must own an especial liking to--

"I yearn not for the fighting fate,
That holds and hath achieved;
I live to watch and meditate
And dream--and be deceived."

You take the change gallantly. Not I, I must confess. It is all very
well to talk of renunciation, and of course it has to be done. But, for
my part, give me a