". . . You have been most generously kind to me; and I can truly say that I never yet fell from any friend who did not first fall from me. I thank you for the great honour you have done me by your offer to come up and look after me if I needed nursing. Fortunately it has not come to that yet.
"I have not seen Meredith's article[51]--I am so entirely cut off from the outside world."
When the Laureateship fell vacant Patmore wrote to the _Saturday Review_ proposing my mother's name. Francis wrote to him:--
"I think your _Saturday_ letter very felicitously put. But alas! small are the chances of any government acting on it. I fear the compliment to 'journalism' points too surely to Edwin Arnold. I have not received the Selections.[52] A. M. has only once in my life sent me a book of hers--her essays. I should indeed like to see the book. The selections in themselves must possess a peculiar interest for me; and the Preface I am most eager to read."
The appointment made, Francis again wrote to the point:--
"What a pity you could not uphold the dignity of the Laureateship in the eyes of Europe."
Patmore died in November, 1896. To Mrs. Patmore Francis wrote:--
"I am shocked and overcome to hear of your--and my--bereavement; there has passed away the greatest genius of the century, and from me a friend whose like I shall not see again; one so close to my own soul that the distance of years between us was hardly felt, nor could the distance of miles separate us. I had a letter from him but last Monday, and was hoping that I might shortly see him again. Now my hope is turned suddenly into mourning.
"The irrevocableness of such a grief is mocked by many words; these few words least wrong it. My friend is dead, and I had but one such friend.--Yours in all sympathy of sorrow,
At the same time he wrote to Palace Court:--
"DEAR WILFRID,--I send you my lodging account for the last two months.
"Of nothing can I write just now. You know what friends we had been these last two years. And I heard from him but the Monday before his death. There is no more to say, because there is too much more to say. Yours always,
"_P.S._--I am fearful about the _Athenæum_ project. I told Coventry I had altered the sub-title to prevent identification, lest the poem[53] should offend his friends; and since he did not dispute it, I conclude he took my view that it might give displeasure. To dwell on the harsher side of his character now has an ungracious air."