Meredith's method was one of acceptance, of bird's song and of Burgundy. Thompson's method was of refusal because he was not hardy enough for one or the other. With that mixture of precision and involved evasion that was his habit, Meredith praised "Love in Dian's Lap," quoting the lines--
And on this lady's heart, looked you so deep, Poor Poetry has rocked himself to sleep; Upon the heavy blossom of her lips Hangs the bee Musing; nigh her lids eclipse Each half-occulted star beneath that lies; And in the contemplation of those eyes, Passionless passion, wild tranquillities.
The lady, too, was in the garden to hear.
In his written comments on _Poems_, Meredith had fastened on the misprinted passages as if they were evidences of the wilfulness of the poet, and he recalled these in talk, slow to relinquish an opportunity for his golden chaff. With the _Edinburgh_ praise of Thompson he proclaimed himself in agreement, writing (July 19, 1896) "I subscribe to the words on Francis Thompson's verse." But he also called Thompson turgid, on the eve of passing to the writing of his own ode on the French Revolution; _Sister Songs_ he had called at first sight a "voluntary."
He discovered no consecutive argument in _Sister Songs_; but for his banter he found an immediate opening; he invented a landlady for Thompson--Amelia Applejohn--to whom imaginary sonnets were addressed. He told how Amelia was summoned to Thompson's room to listen to the latest, rolling down her sleeves the while, and brushing the flour from her elbows.
After Thompson's death, Meredith wrote to W. M.:--
"DEAR MR. MEYNELL,--The love of all the Meynells, let all the Meynells know, is precious to me. And the book of the poems (_Selected Poems_) was very welcome, though a thought of the poet's broken life gives pain. What he might further have done hangs at the closing page. Your part in his history should help to comfort you. What we have of him is mainly due to the Meynell family.
"Our Portia I may suppose to be now in Italy, and Italy seems to me her natural home. For me, I drag on, counting more years and not knowing why. I have to have an arm when I would walk. I am humiliated by requiring at times a repetition of sentences. This is my state of old age. But my religion of life is always to be cheerful; though I see little of my friends, I live with them.--Ever to be counted yours,