Does comely apply to the bride, or the bridegroom? As your opinion will be considered satisfactory to all, your reply will be considered a lasting favour.,
* * *
(1883)
I am an enthusiastic reader and admirer of your works, and have read those which I like especially, over and over again, in particular “Maud,” which I consider to be surpassingly fresh and beautiful—there is a sort of fascination about the poem to me ... but I really cannot understand the meaning of the end of it.
I should very much like to know whether it is intended to mean that Maud’s brother, “that curl’d Assyrian bull,” is slain by her lover: whether Maud is supposed to die of a broken heart, or does her lover come back, long after, presumably from the Russian war and marry her?
The remaining examples, in which respect is curiously blended with familiarity, are dated from the United States.
A lively boy of thirteen (1884) who loves “Nature and Poetry” shall here have precedence:
In the first place I wish to ask your pardon for bothering you with this letter, but I want to make a collection, or I mean get the autographs of 5 or 6 distinguished poets; and so I thought I would write and get yours if possible and then the minor ones may follow.
I have read most of your poems, and like them very much indeed, etc. etc.
(A biographical sketch follows, including a visit to England.) When we drove back from Stoke Pogis to Windsor we saw the deer in the Queen’s hunting grounds, and the tall, mighty oaks on each side of the road seemed to say, “This is an Earthly Paradise.”...