ver, I will enumerate a few of the more significant ones.

'Swinburne's _Tristram of Lyonesse_, 9/-, less dis., 6/9.'

All that this great poem of 'springtide passion with its fire and
flowers' meant to Narcissus and his 'Thirteenth Maid' in the morning of
their love, those that have loved too will hardly need telling, while
those who have not could never understand, though I spake with the
tongue of the poet himself. In this particular copy, which, I need
hardly say, does not rest upon N.'s shelves, but on another in a sweet
little bedchamber, there is a tender inscription and a sonnet which
aimed at acknowledging how the hearts of those young lovers had gone out
to that poet 'with mouth of gold and morning in his eyes.' The latter I
have begged leave to copy here:--

'Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us
A love like ours; what gift, whate'er it be,
Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me
Than paltry words a truth miraculous,
Or the poor signs that in astronomy
Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might?
Yet love would still give such, as in delight
To mock their impotence--so this for thee.

'This book for thee; our sweetest honeycomb
Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme,
Builded of gold, and kisses, and desire,
By that wild poet whom so many a time
Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire
Burnt speech up, and the wordless hour had come.'

'Meredith's _Richard Feverel_, 6/-, less dis., 4/6.'

Narcissus was never weary of reading those two wonderful chapters where
Lucy and Richard meet, and he used to say that some day he would beg
leave from Mr. Meredith to reprint at his own charges just those two
chapters, to distribute to all true lovers in the kingdom. It would be
hard to say how often he and his maid had read them aloud together, with
amorous punctuation--caresses for commas, and kisses for full-stops.

'Morris' _Sigurd the Volsung_, 12/-, less dis., 9/-.'

This book they loved when their love had grown to have more of earnest
purpose in it, and its first hysteric ecstasy had passed into the more
solemn ardours of the love that goes not with spring, but loves even
unto the winter and beyond. It is marked all through in pencil by
Narcissus; but on one page, where it opens easily, there are written
initials, in a woman's hand, against this great passage:--

'She said: "Thou shalt never unsay it, and thy heart is mine indeed: