“We gathered wood flowers,—­some blue as the vein
   O’er Hero’s eyelid stealing, and some as white,
   In the clustering grass, as rich Europa’s hand
   Nested amid the curls on Jupiter’s forehead,
   What time he snatched her through the startled waves;—­
   Some poppies, too, such as in Enna’s meadows
   Forsook their own green homes and parent stalks,
   To kiss the fingers of Proserpina: 
   And some were small as fairies’ eyes, and bright
   As lovers’ tears!”

I wish I had room for three or four sonnets, the Robin Hood sonnets to Keats, and another on a picture of a lady.  Excuse the length of this letter, and read this: 

   “Sorrow hath made thine eyes more dark and keen,
      And set a whiter hue upon thy cheeks,—­
      And round thy pressed lips drawn anguish-streaks,
   And made thy forehead fearfully serene. 
   Even in thy steady hair her work is seen,
      For its still parted darkness—­till it breaks
      In heavy curls upon thy shoulders—­speaks
      Like the stern wave, how hard the storm hath been!

   “So looked that hapless lady of the South,
      Sweet Isabella! at that dreary part
   Of all the passion’d hours of her youth;
      When her green Basil pot by brother’s art
   Was stolen away; so look’d her pained mouth
      In the mute patience of a breaking heart!”

There let us leave him, the gay rhymer of prize-fighters and eminent persons—­let us leave him in a serious hour, and with a memory of Keats. {5}

ON VIRGIL

To Lady Violet Lebas.

Dear Lady Violet,—­Who can admire too much your undefeated resolution to admire only the right things?  I wish I had this respect for authority!  But let me confess that I have always admired the things which nature made me prefer, and that I have no power of accommodating my taste to the verdict of the critical.  If I do not like an author, I leave him alone, however great his reputation.  Thus I do not care for Mr. Gibbon, except in his Autobiography, nor for the elegant plays of M. Racine, nor very much for some of Wordsworth, though his genius is undeniable, nor excessively for the late Prof.  Amiel.  Why should we force ourselves into an affection for them, any more than into a relish for olives or claret, both of which excellent creatures I have the misfortune to dislike?  No spectacle annoys me more than the sight of people who ask if it is “right” to take pleasure in this or that work of art.  Their loves and hatreds will never be genuine, natural, spontaneous.

You say that it is “right” to like Virgil, and yet you admit that you admire the Mantuan, as the Scotch editor joked, “wi’ deeficulty.”  I, too, must admit that my liking for much of Virgil’s poetry is not enthusiastic, not like the admiration expressed, for example, by Mr. Frederic Myers, in whose “Classical Essays” you will find all that the advocates of the Latin singer can say for him.  These heights I cannot reach, any more than I can equal that eloquence.  Yet must Virgil always appear to us one of the most beautiful and moving figures in the whole of literature.