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 Lamb" we were both aware of having got a glimpse of the writer's personality, such as volumes of her letters to John would not have yielded.

What lent an added zest to our interest in Miss Lamb's letters was the skilful manceuvres by which the writer sought to conceal her identity with the author of the poems—or again, the cool and impersonal tone in which she wrote of them. In reference to a set of Love Sonnets which John thinks particularly good, the "Love Sonnets of Constance," she wrote:

"My friend was averse to offering these as well as some of the other pieces for publication lest they should be thought to be autobiographical. But I made haste to remind her that, as she would never be identified as the author, it could make no possible difference what people might think."

"If that isn't a pretty bit of defiance," John said. "The worst of it is, it convinces me that the poems in question are autobiographical."