because I felt they ought to know each other.

I wonder if you love to fill your books with flowers. It is a real
bookish delight, and they make such a pretty diary. My poets are full of
them, and they all mean a memory--old spring mornings, lost sunsets, walks
forgotten and unforgotten. Here a buttercup pressed like finely beaten
brass, there a great yellow rose--in my Keats; my Chaucer is like his old
meadows, 'ypoudred with daisie,' and my Herrick is full of violets. The
only thing is that they haunt me sometimes. But then, again, they bloom
afresh every spring. As Mr. Monkhouse sings:--

'Sweet as the rose that died last year is the rose that is born to-day.'

But I grow melancholy with an Englishman's afterthought, for I coined no
such reflections dreaming there in the wood. It is only on paper that one
moralises--just where one shouldn't.

My one or two regrets were quite practical--that I had not learnt botany
at school, and that the return train went so early.

WHITE SOUL

What is so white in the world, my love,
As thy maiden soul--
The dove that flies
Softly all day within thine eyes,
And nests within thine heart at night?
Nothing so white.

One has heard poets speak of a quill dropped from an angel's wing. That is
the kind of nib of which I feel in need to-night. If I could but have it
just for to-night only,--I would willingly bequeath it to the British
Museum to-morrow. As a rule I am very well satisfied with the particular
brand of gilt 'J' with which I write to the dictation of the Muse of Daily
Bread; but to-night it is different. Though it come not, I must make ready
to receive a loftier inspiration. Whitest paper, newest pen, ear
sensitive, tremulous; heart pure and mind open, broad and clear as the
blue air for the most delicate gossamer thoughts to wing through; and
snow-white words, lily-white words, words of ivory and pearl, words of
silver and alabaster, words white as hawthorn and daisy, words white as
morning milk, words 'whiter than Venus' doves, and softer than the down
beneath their wings'--virginal, saintlike, nunnery words.

It may be because I love White Soul that I think her the fairest blossom
on the Tree of Life, yet a child said of her to its mother, the other day:
'Look at White Soul's face--it is as though it were lit up from inside!'
Children, if they don't always tell the truth, seldom tell lies; and I
always think that the praise of chi