first manhood, and that,
consequently, Rossetti would be a less censorious judge of his early
efforts at a later period of life, seemed to show that the writer
himself was no longer a young man. Further, I seemed to see that the
reviewer was not a professional critic, for his work displayed few of
the well-recognised trade-marks with which the articles of the literary
market are invariably branded. As a small matter one noticed the
somewhat slovenly use of the editorial _we_, which at the fag-end of
passages sometimes dropped into _I_. [Upon my remarking upon this to
Rossetti he remembered incidentally that a similar confounding of
the singular and plural number of the pronoun produces marvellously
suggestive effects in a very different work, _Macbeth_, where the kingly
_we_ is tripped up by the guilty _I_ in many places.] Rossetti wrote:

I am glad you liked the _Catholic World_ article, which I certainly view
as one of rare literary quality. I have not the least idea who is the
writer, but am sorry now I never wrote to him under cover of the editor
when I received it. I did send the _Dante and Circle_, but don't know
if it was ever received or reviewed. As you have the vols, of
_Fortnightly_, look up a little poem of mine called the _Cloud
Confines_, a few months later, I suppose, than the tale. It is one of my
favourites, among my own doings.

I noticed at this early period, as well as later, that in Rossetti's
eyes a favourable review was always enhanced in value if the writer
happened to be a stranger to him; and I constantly protested that a
friend's knowledge of one's work and sympathy with it ought not to be
less delightful, as such, than a stranger's, however less surprising,
though at the same time the tribute that is true to one's art without
auxiliary aids being brought to bear in its formation must be at once
the most satisfying assurance of the purity, strength, and completeness
of the art itself, and of the safe and enduring quality of the
appreciation. It is true that friends who are accustomed to our habit of
thought and manner of expression sometimes catch our meaning before we
have expressed it Not rarely, before our thought has reached that stage
at which it becomes intelligible to a stranger, a word, a look, or a
gesture will convey it perfectly and fully to a friend. And what goes on
between minds that exist in more or less intimate communion, goes on
to a greater degree within the individual min