naturally, sweetly, and generously, with no particular consciousness of
motive behind it at all.

July 18, 1889.

I have just heard of the sudden death of an old friend. Francis Willett
was a writer of some distinction, whose acquaintance I made in my first
years in London. He was a tall, slim man, dark of complexion, who would
have been called very handsome, if it had not been for a rather
burdened air that he wore. As it was, people tended rather to pity him,
and to speak of him as somewhat of a mystery. I never knew anything
about the background of his life. He must have had some small means of
his own, and he lived in rooms, in rather an out-of-the-way street near
Regent's Park. One used to see him occasionally in London, walking
rapidly, almost always alone, and very rarely I encountered him at
parties, always wearing a slightly regretful air, as though he were
wishing himself away. He wrote a good deal, reviewed books, and, I
suppose, contrived to make enough to live on by his pen. He once spoke
of himself as being in the happy position of being able to exist
without writing, but forced to purchase all small luxuries by work. He
published two or three books of short stories and sketches of travel,
delicate pieces of work, which had no great sale, but gave him a
recognised position among men of letters. I drifted into a kind of
friendship with him; we were members of the same club, and he sometimes
used to flutter shyly into my rooms like a great moth; but he never
asked me to his quarters.

I discovered that he had done well at Oxford, and also that he had
once, at all events, had considerable ambitions; but his health was not
strong, he was extremely sensitive, and very fastidious about the
quality of his work. I realised this on an occasion when he once
entrusted me with a MS., and asked me if I would give him an opinion,
as it was an experiment, and he did not feel sure of his ground; he
added that there was no hurry about it. I put the MS. away in a
despatch-box, and having at the time a press of work, I forgot about
it. He never asked me for it, and I did not happen to open the box
where it lay. Some months after I came upon it. I read it through, and
thought it a fine and delicate piece of work. I wrote to him,
apologising for my delay and speaking warmly of the piece, which was
one of those rather uncomfortable stories, which is not quite long
enough to make a book, and yet rather too long to put in