"Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high:
Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter,
When leaves fall and cold winds come."
But I will not bore you with comparisons. My upshot is that no one of the many who may rival him in some of his perfections, combine them all in one genius. In all these philosophizing days—who touches him in philosophy? From the simplest griefs and pleasures and humanity at its simplest—Macduff over the massacre of his wife and children—to all that the most delicate brain may search into and suffer, as Hamlet—or the ten thousand exquisite womanish thoughts of Portia, a creature of brain power and feminine fragility—
"By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world."
To C.T.G.
Greno House, Grenoside, Sheffield.
Aug. 3, 1880.
À propos of my affairs ... next year we might do something with some of my "small gems." Don't you like "Aldegunda" (Blind Man and Talking Dog)? D. does so much. Do you like the "Kyrkegrim turned Preacher," "Ladders to Heaven," and "Dandelion Clocks"?...
... As you know, these little things are the chief favourites with my more educated friends, whose kindness consoles me for the much labour I spend on so few words (The "Kyrkegrim turned Preacher" was "in hand" two years!!!), and I think their only chance would be to be so dressed and presented as to specially and downrightly appeal to those who would value the Art of the Illustrator, and perhaps recognize the refinement of labour with which the letter-press has been ground down, and clipped, and condensed, and selected—till, as it would appear to the larger buying-public, there is wonderfully little left you for your money!!...