‘One who never turned his back but marched breast forward’

Abstract

Which did he prefer of the Asolando poems? I can scarcely say — only I know, that on the very last Sunday he was up, before the last, Fannie and I were alone (she had been unwell and was lying down), he came into the bedroom and had afternoon tea with us, and Fannie asked him to read to her — she wanted something from the new volume just coming out, she said. He fetched the proof-sheets and read Rephan, the Reverie, and finally the Epilogue — half ashamed that the latter might seem boastful;¹ as he read it, a cold feeling crept over me, though I said nothing, that those lines might be a real farewell to life — as they were.