Page:Poems Shore.djvu/34

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Memoir

ence a taste of that bewilderment in which his own printed pages occasionally involve even his most sworn devotees.[1] He failed, namely, to decipher the signature of his admirer. When at length the mystery had been cleared up there ensued an interesting intercourse of some years' duration between him and the two sisters.

After nine years they again changed their residence and for the last time. Orchard Poyle, near Taplow, was the first home owned by themselves, and here they lived together for fourteen years. During this period Louisa wrote nothing but desultory fragments of dramas and single scenes, and published nothing save a few pieces composed some years before, as contributions to a small joint-volume of "Elegies and Memorials," which appeared in 1890.[2]

Here I may be allowed to pause in order to give, if I can, some closer views of the character that had been maturing during the thirty-two years of dual life.

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  1. I am bound to acknowledge that this ingenious application of the incident was supplied by a friend.
  2. See the list of her published works appended to this Memoir.