
Some days ago came my parcel—many thanks—Mr. Grosart's books included. That for Mr. Graves had come previously—I have waited a few days expecting to hear from my brother (from Edinburgh) of the arrival of his copies, but it is sometimes his way to put off writing to me too long, & I have little doubt he has got the books safely.
Rossetti let me know from time to time any news of you that reached him, and I have to thank you for some newspapers now & again.

It was a real sorrow to us, dear friend, to hear of the loss of your little nephew
& name–sake. A friend of mine Harold Littledale watched
this summer by the side of a little sister (about twenty years younger than himself)
who died, and he told me that in the presence of death & with its consciousness
enveloping him it was words of yours which expressed the deepest truths of the hour
& the event. Littledale is President this year of our principal society of students—in
Trinity College, the Philosophical Society, & I believe his Opening address,
which is the event of the Session, is to be partly concerned with your poetry. It was a
great satisfaction to me this year also, to get a kind of confession or
self–revelation from one of the most promising men in my class of the really saving
& delivering power of your writings when he was lapsing in that lethargy &
cynicism which is one of the diseases of youth in our Old
World, if not in your New one—(but in both I shd suppose).
I have done too little this last summer. I copied out about 200 pp of verse, & am about to have them published. I will send you a copy,
but I doubt whether you will care for them—I don't claim to be an "Answerer"; but I
do assert a right to be one of the tribe of the singers—"eye–singer,
ear-singer, head–singer, sweet–singer, echo–singer, parlor–singer, love–singer, or
something else". And these have their place & raison d'être. Probably my next bit of work will be the
arranging for publication a volume of Essays on 19th
century writers, including Tennyson & Browning, Victor Hugo, & the Westminster
Article (somewhat altered) on your poetry.
You asked for O'Grady's address. I don't know it at this moment; but he would like to get your photograph (of which you spoke) & if you address it to my care he will get it.
I hope the cooler weather (after so hot a summer) may do your health good. We are all well.
Always affectionately yours Edward Dowden
