A damsel weeps upon her emerald throne.
Life's ocean, breaking round thy senses' shore,
Struck golden song, as from the strand of Day:
For us the joy, for thee the fell foe lay--
Pain's blinking snake around the fair isle's core,
Turning to sighs the enchanted sounds that play
Around thy lovely island evermore.
Certain remarks that have been made upon the character of _D'Arcy_ in
_Aylwin_ have rendered it an imperative--nay, a sacred--duty for the
author to seize an opportunity that may never occur again of saying
here a few words upon the subject.
It is universally acknowledged that characters in fiction are not
creations projected from the author's inner consciousness, but are
founded more or less upon characters that he was brought into contact
with in real life.
Mr. A. C. Benson, in his monograph on D. G. Rossetti, in _English Men
of Letters_, says, 'It was for a long time hoped that Mr.
Watts-Dunton would give the memoir of his great friend to the world,
but there is such a thing as knowing a man too well to be his
biographer.
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