"I am simply enchanted with the new book William Morris has printed for Wilfrid Blunt, 'The Love Lyrics and Songs of Proteus.'"
"Yes, I did like that one line in Christina Rossetti's poem:
"... half carol and half cry;
but the rest of it is not good enough for her."
"I have had many violets sent me this year, but far the most fragrant were a bunch left for me to-day with a card on which was written:
|
"Since one too strange to risk intrusion Would dare rebuke, nor meet confusion, Yet fain would—failing long to meet you— With gentle words and memories greet you, Sweet Mistress of the Triolet, Admit, I pray, a violet." |
"I am reading, or rather rereading Rossetti's sonnet sequence, 'The House of Life.' How unequal are the sonnets,—some of them so beautiful they fairly thrill one's soul with their charm, but others seem whimsical and far fetched. On the other hand, how glorious, how like a full chord of music is, for instance, 'The Heart's Compass,' and the sestet of 'Last Fire,' and that magnificent sonnet, 'The Dark Glass.'"
"I had a letter this morning from a far-off stranger who tells me that her heart keeps time to my poems.... I am expecting my beloved Mrs. Spofford to-day.... No sweeter soul than she lives on this earth."
"Recently I sent a rhyme called 'A Whisper to the Moon,' to The Independent, and in accepting it Bliss Carman writes: 'I like it, and that line
"'She is thy kindred, and fickle art thou,