The following note is worthy to be transcribed, showing, as it does, the generosity of his nature at a time when he had nothing to give away but ideas.
"My dear Friend,—Will you think it worth your while to transcribe the enclosed? These pages I have corrected and enlarged. Some of them you have never seen. They have occupied more of my time and trouble, and are now more complete, than anything you have favored me by reading. I hope you will be pleased. I care less about others.... I hope you will get something for these articles, and keep it. I am richer by several crowns than you suspect, and I must scramble to the kingdom of Heaven, to which a full pocket, we learn, is an impediment.
"Ever truly yours,
W. S. L."
The manuscripts contained the two conversations between Homer and Laertes which two years ago were published in the "Heroic Idyls." I did not put them to the use desired by their author. Though my copies differ somewhat from the printed ones, it is natural to conclude that Landor most approved of what was last submitted to his inspection, and would not desire to be seen in any other guise. The publicity of a note prefixed to one of these conversations, however, is warranted.
"It will be thought audacious, and most so by those who know the least of Homer, to represent him as talking so familiarly. He must often have done it, as Milton and Shakespeare did. There is homely talk in the 'Odyssey.'
"Fashion turns round like Fortune. Twenty years hence, perhaps, this conversation of Homer and Laertes, in which for the first time Greek domestic manners have been represented by any modern poet, may be recognized and approved.
"Our sculptors and painters frequently take their subjects from antiquity; are our poets never to pass beyond the mediæval? At our own doors we listen to the affecting 'Song of the Shirt'; but some few of us, at the end of it, turn back to catch the 'Song of the Sirens.'
"Poetry is not tied to chronology. The Roman poet brings Dido and Æneas together,—the historian parts them far asunder. Homer may or may not have been the contemporary of Laertes. Nothing is idler or more dangerous than to enter a labyrinth without a clew."
At last the time came when there were to be no more conversations, no more drives, with Walter Savage Landor. Summoned suddenly to America, we called upon him three or four days before our departure to say good by.