Letter from T. E. Brown, Clifton, to W. E. Henley, 1875 May 9 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying "I enclose copies of two poems. The original MSS had been so knocked about that I thought it better to copy them. So you are out of Hospital. I wish I could congratulate you upon being out of your trouble altogether. Your pluck and vigour under such circumstances utterly amaze me. But you have hope as a passion more than most men : and I do think that a passion so strong is as good as a prophecy. You will get all right. I can't doubt it. So the Hospital sonnets are severe, do I understand you? dry Amontillado. I rejoice in this; and shall be specially interested in the brooding of the new vat. The fact is it is no use preaching to poets; they go their way like the seasons, and the trees, and change as nature bids them, and when she bids them. But I believe the change to be a good sign. You had a good deal of must, and very luscious stuff too, to run off. Now we shall get a little nearer to a pure and final form;" saying he was on the Isle of Man recently and had some "fine rambles. It is a great joy to me to have this pet little special place of my own. I go round and round it just to see that it is all right and then fairly brood over it. It is a delicious little solitude at this time of the year . It flowers all over with gorse. I lay on a Westward beach the other day- all sun, blue and white pebbles, the most exquisitely delicate sea-weeds floating up languidly to a penultimate ripple, and out upon the water 2 greens, 2 blues and a purple. It was Sunday, and these were my Matins; tobacco was the incense; and I know that God blessed me from His inmost heart. I have renewed correspondence with Van Laun. Lest you should not know where he lives - I give his address 48 Lancaster Road, W. It is anxious enough that the very question you start in your letter viz. What is Scott's position among Novelists? was discussed by a friend and myself the other day - in the I. of Man. We had it out on the highest and loneliest moor in the Island. The result was a strong leaning towards the superiority of Scott. But much depends upon what we have a right to demand of a novelist. One thing I hold to be certain, and this is what I said upon the heather that morning 'Of two men who lift me to equal altitude, I prefer the one who does it with a long wave so prepared and gradual but inevitable that I hardly know what was done to me except by observing that I am nearer the stars, rather than the one who flings me up on one fierce foam-burst, from which I descend rapidly and gasping.