Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell).djvu/44

 pleased to accede to my request, and thenceforth we remained on terms of friendship up to the time of his death.

"Why don't you bring out your poems in book form?" was naturally one of the first questions I put to him. Thereupon he explained that he thought it very unlikely that any publisher could be found who would risk money in publishing them, and that he had no means of paying for their publication himself, as most modern poets have to do. This led me to make an offer of such assistance as might be in my power to give him. At first I intended to take the entire risk of their publication upon myself, but my circumstances took rather an unfortunate turn about that time, and I was compelled, very much to my regret, to abandon the idea. Mr. Thomson then tried various publishers, most of whom told him frankly that there was no market for poetry, and that they could not undertake to publish for him. This was fair enough, and he had no ground for dissatisfaction with these gentlemen but it is not so easy to excuse a certain publisher, who, after making a definite promise to publish, and keeping him for some months in suspense, at last refused to fulfil his engagement. Whilst I am upon this subject, it will be well perhaps to relate the circumstances under which the poems were eventually published. It happened to occur to me in a fortunate moment that an application to Messrs. Reeves & Turner on Mr. Thomson's behalf might meet with success. I had already made an unsuccessful trial in another quarter, the gentleman to whom I proposed it valuing his respectability far too much to run any risk of forfeiting it by publishing anything so heterodox as "The City of Dreadful Night." Messrs.