CHAPTER VI
SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY
1885 was a year of hard work. It was our desire that such work should be done that should eventually make it possible for my husband to devote himself exclusively to original work—perhaps in a year or two at most. Meanwhile the outlook was satisfactory and encouraging. He held the post of London Art-Critic to the Glasgow Herald, was on the staff of The Academy then under the Editorship of his good friend Mr. James Cotton; and he wrote for The Examiner, The Athenaeum and other weeklies.
On the appearance in The Athenaeum of his Review on Marius the Epicurean the author expressed his satisfaction in a letter:
2 Bradmore Road,
March 1, 1885.
My dear Sharp,
I have read your article in The Athenaeum with very real pleasure; feeling criticism, at once so independent and so sympathetic, to be a reward for all the long labours the book has cost me. You seem to me to have struck a note or criticism not merely pleasant but judicious; and there are one or two important points—literary ones—on which you have said precisely what I should have wished, and thought it important for me, to have said. Thank you sincerely for your friendly work! Also, for your letter, and promise of the other notices, which I shall look out for, and greatly value. I was much pleased also that Mrs. Sharp had been so much interested in my writing. It is always a sign to me that I have to some extent succeeded in my literary aim when I gain the approval of accomplished women.