by his intimate friend and colleague, Mr. (now Captain) C.E. Montague.
He and I had shared many intellectual interests connected with the
history of the Empire. His monograph on _Roman Provincial
Administration_, first written as an Arnold Essay, still holds the
field; and in the realm of pure literature his one-volume edition of
Keats is there to show his eagerness for beauty and his love of English
verse. I sent him the first volume in proof, about a year before the
book came out, and awaited his verdict with much anxiety. It came one
May day in 1889. I happened to be very tired and depressed at the
moment, and I remember sitting alone for a little while with the letter
in my hand, without courage to open it. Then at last I opened it.

Warm congratulation--Admirable!--Full of character and color....
_Miss Bretherton_ was an intellectual exercise. This is quite a
different affair, and has interested and touched me deeply, as I
feel sure it will all the world. The biggest thing that--with a few
other things of the same kind--has been done for years.

Well!--that was enough to go on with, to carry me through the last
wrestle with proofs and revision. But by the following November nervous
fatigue made me put work aside for a few weeks, and we went abroad for
rest, only to be abruptly summoned home by my mother's state.
Thenceforward I lived a double life--the one overshadowed by my mother's
approaching death, the other amid the agitation of the book's appearance
and all the incidents of its rapid success.

I have already told the story in the Introduction to the Library Edition
of _Robert Elsmere_, and I will only run through it here as rapidly as
possible, with a few fresh incidents and quotations. There was never any
doubt at all of the book's fate, and I may repeat again that, before Mr.