I received some little while ago your post-card of 3 May, & felt obliged to you for having sent the books to Mr. Cozens, without waiting for actual receipt of the money—wh. , as before stated, is in my hands.1 The only reason why, contrary to my usual practice, I have so long delayed sending it on to you is that I have been looking out for any other stray subscriptions, promised but not yet paid, wh. c.d be sent along with Mr. Cozens's in a Bank-order—or, if more convenient, a P.O. order. On receipt of your card (other such subscriptions not making their appearance
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at present) I was intending to send C's money at once by P.O. order; but then, some little while ago now, Minto,2 the Editor of The Examiner, started in talk with me, of his own accord, the subject of the money that he owes for your article, & he proposed to send it round to me at once—wh. of course I approved. This again made me hold over the dispatching of the P.O. order for C.s money, but as yet, after all, no symptom of Minto's remittance appears. One of these days C.'s money will be properly sent off to you—accompanied, let us hope, by some other, but if not then by itself. I enter into all these tiresome details because an explanation of my delay is due to you: but I fear you will think them quite as bothering as the delay itself.
It is a goodish while ago—
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say 6 weeks—that I wrote to Dowden3 in Dublin, enquiring about those subscribers who volunteered thro him (not holding any direct communication with me), & who have not yet paid. Dowden has not yet replied to me: when he does so, it will behove me to look into the details of all the outstanding subscriptions, & get the affair finally closed.
Lately,—say 3 weeks ago—I received a letter from Australia, of wh. I enclose some extracts, along with the printed matter wh. accompanied it. I replied the other day, giving the writer Mr. Adams4 my last news of your health, & enclosing also a copy of my last circular (summer of 1876) regarding your new editions—not without some hope that some few Australians here & there may do themselves
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the good-service of ordering copies. Mr. A.'s wish for a copy of my "full Review" of you (as he terms it, meaning of course the introduction to the selection from your Poems wh. I published in 1868) has been attended to—the Publishers sending him a copy [I hardly thought there was any remaining] of the book. The tone of his letter is agreeable to me, & I hope it will be the same to you: his name had not previously been known to me.
Please remember me to Mrs. Gilchrist5—or us, I sh.d rather say. My wife received lately a letter from Mrs. G. to serve as an introduction for an American lady, Mrs. Edwards. To the latter my wife sent a card for a gathering at our house of a few friends on 14 June, & we had the
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pleasure of seeing Mrs. E. & her son accordingly. I was glad to hear from her a good account of the G.'s generally, tho she thinks Philadelphia is anything but a favourable field for the painting career of Herbert.6
I have by me a note written long ago (6 Jan?) by Foote,7 Editor of The Secularist, to say that, before receiving my then last note on the subject, he had sent on to you direct the subscription-money in his hands. This, I suppose, is all right, within your cognizance.
I enclose a note written to you by C.P. O'Conor,8 & shall without delay forward to you by post the vol. of his poems. In a note addressed to
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me he says: "Will you kindly tell Whitman that the writer is one of his ardent admirers, & that it was a rich treat to read in your American Poems those of Walt Whitman's production." I never met Mr. O'Conor: but he has addressed me from time to time about his little vol. of poems, & other such matters.
Not very long ago I received a letter from Mr. Marvin9 offering a prospect, rather more definite than hitherto, of your coming to look a little about you in England, & perhaps on the European Continent. I can but repeat my delight in this prospect, were it to be realized, & my wife's hope & my own that you will not, in such case, fail to give
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us some of your company in this house, Euston Sq. .
We have had a rather noticeable season here. Up to 2 June, nothing that was worthy the name even of Spring: then suddenly on 3 June hot summer, wh. continues till now—but less decidedly these 2 days.
I am interested in hearing that the Bostonians mean to cut us out—& we deserve it for our neglectful tardy stolidity—& erect a statue to our poet Shelley.
Believe me with all affection Truly Yours, W. M. Rossetti