Autograph letter signed : London, to [Henry K. Burnet], 1889 August 14.

Explaining the intended meaning of a passage from his poem "Before" ("In reply to your kind and considerate letter I have to say that what I intended, in the passage you mention, was a sort of personification of the conscience of the apparently successful culprit who would thence forward - after "sinning the whole sin" and freeing himself from the fear of an adversary's revenge, - seem to go through the rest of his career prosperously - to the world's eyes: while there would accompany him the consciousness that all the apparent success was but a mocking illusion, and the immediate immunity from punishment would only cause its aggravation").