12: 11: 85.
My dear Mr. Symonds,
I am shortly going to bring out a Selection of the Best Sonnets of this Century (including a lengthy Introductory Essay on the Sonnet as a vehicle of poetic thought, and on its place and history in English Literature)—and I should certainly regard it as incomplete if your fine sonnet-work were unrepresented. I am giving an average of two to each writer of standing, but in your case I have allowed for five. This is both because I have a genuine admiration for your sonnet-work in the main, and because I think that you have never been done full justice to as a poet—though of course you have met with loyal recognition in most of those quarters where you would most value it....
I have taken great pleasure in the preparation of the little book, and I think that both poetically and technically it will be found satisfactory. My main principles in selection have been (1) Structural correctness. (2) Individuality, with distinct poetic value. (3) Adequacy of Sonnet-Motive.
I hope that you are hard at work—not neglecting the shyest and dearest of the muses—? Is there any chance of your being in London in the late Spring? I hope so.
Sincerely yours,
William Sharp.
In the preparation of the volume he received several interesting communications from well-known English sonnet writers from which I select four. The first is from the Irish poet Aubrey de Vere; in the second Mr. George Meredith answers a question concerning his volume of sequent poems, Modern Love:
Curragh Chase, Adare,
Dec. 5, 1885.