crescent Arthur gave me. She must wear it because two of her dear
friends are in it, as it were. And I would like her to have oh!
such a blessed life, because I think her character is so full of
blessed things and symbols. ...

"I leave Arthur Balfour--Alfred's and my dear, deeply loved
friend, who has given me so many happy hours since I married, and
whose sympathy, understanding, and companionship in the deep sense
of the word has never been withheld from me when I have sought it,
which has not been seldom this year of my blessed Vita Nuova--I
leave him my Johnson. He taught me to love that wisest of men--and
I have much to be grateful for in this. I leave him, too, my
little ugly Shelley--much read, but not in any way beautiful; if
he marries I should like him to give his wife my little red enamel
harp--I shall never see her if I die now, but I have so often
created her in the Islands of my imagination--and as a Queen has
she reigned there, so that I feel in the spirit we are in some
measure related by some mystic tie."

Out of the many letters Alfred received, this is the one I liked
best:

HAWARDEN CASTLE,

April 27th, 1886. MY DEAR ALFRED,

It is a daring and perhaps a selfish thing to speak to you at a
moment when your mind and heart are a sanctuary in which God is
speaking to you in tones even more than usually penetrating and
solemn. Certainly it pertains to few to be chosen to receive such