already described the slow and interrupted growth, through seventeen years, of this her first, and indeed most important, work.
4. "The Lost Son, a Domestic Drama," and "Ballads," which appeared in 1871 in a volume entitled, "Fra Dolcino and Other Poems, by A. and L." (Smith and Elder). This drama, whose chief feature is the commemoration of a beloved personality in the past, was written very hurriedly, under trying circumstances.
5. "Elegies and Memorials" (Kegan Paul), 1890. Regarding the "Elegies," the first and most important of the pieces she contributed, I will here quote, out of the numerous tributes paid to it from various quarters, those of the two personal friends to whom it was sent in manuscript—George Meredith and Robert Browning. The first acknowledges it as follows:
"Box Hill, Dorking, April 9, 1876.
"The poem . . . . a moon-sketch; it has a breath of pure melody, coming of most tender feeling, with a certain haze proper to it, reminding me of a night scene by the sea . . . . a beautiful poem of, I fear, no fancied sentiment,
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