[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], _Jan._ 2_nd_, 1886.
MY DEAR LOW,—_Lamia_ has come, and I do not know how to thank you, not
only for the beautiful art of the designs, but for the handsome and apt
words of the dedication. My favourite is ‘Bathes unseen,’ which is a
masterpiece; and the next, ‘Into the green recessed woods,’ is perhaps
more remarkable, though it does not take my fancy so imperiously. The
night scene at Corinth pleases me also. The second part offers fewer
opportunities. I own I should like to see both _Isabella_ and the _Eve_
thus illustrated; and then there’s _Hyperion_—O, yes, and _Endymion_! I
should like to see the lot: beautiful pictures dance before me by
hundreds: I believe _Endymion_ would suit you best. It also is in
faery-land; and I see a hundred opportunities, cloudy and flowery
glories, things as delicate as the cobweb in the bush; actions, not in
themselves of any mighty purport, but made for the pencil: the feast of
Pan, Peona’s isle, the ‘slabbed margin of a well,’ the chase of the
butterfly, the nymph, Glaucus, Cybele, Sleep on his couch, a farrago of
unconnected beauties. But I divagate; and all this sits in the bosom of
the publisher.
What is more important, I accept the terms of the dedication with a frank
heart, and the terms of your Latin legend fairly. The sight of your
pictures has once more awakened me to my right mind; something may come
of it; yet one more bold push to get free of this prisonyard of the
abominably ugly, where I take my daily exercise with my contemporaries.
I do not know, I have a feeling in my bones, a sentiment which may take
on the forms of imagination, or may not. If it does, I shall owe it to
you; and the thing will thus descend from Keats even if on the wrong side
of the blanket. If it can be done in prose—that is the puzzle—I divagate
again. Thank you again: you can draw and yet you do not love the ugly:
what are you doing in this age? Flee, while it is yet time; they will
have your four limbs pinned upon a stable door to scare witches. The
ugly, my unhappy friend, is _de rigueur_: it is the only wear! What a
chance you threw away with the serpent! Why had Apollonius no pimples?
Heavens, my dear Low, you do not know your business. . . .
I send you herewith a Gothic gnome for your Greek nymph; but the gnome is
interesting, I think, and he came out of a deep mine, where he guards the
fountain of tears. It is not always the time to rejoice.—Yours ever,