“Quis Desiderio . . .?” the second essay in this volume, was developed in 1888 from something in a letter from Miss Savage nearly ten years earlier.  On the 15th of December, 1878, in acknowledging this letter, Butler wrote: 

I am sure that any tree or flower nursed by Miss Cobbe would be the very first to fade away and that her gazelles would die long before they ever came to know her well.  The sight of the brass buttons on her pea-jacket would settle them out of hand.

There was an enclosure in Miss Savage’s letter, but it is unfortunately lost; I suppose it must have been a newspaper cutting with an allusion to Moore’s poem and perhaps a portrait of Miss Frances Power Cobbe—­pea-jacket, brass buttons, and all.

On the 10th November, 1879, Miss Savage, having been ill, wrote to Butler: 

I have been dipping into the books of Moses, being sometimes at a loss for something to read while shut up in my apartment.  You know that I have never read the Bible much, consequently there is generally something of a novelty that I hit on.  As you do know your Bible well, perhaps you can tell me what became of Aaron.  The account given of his end in Numbers XX is extremely ambiguous and unsatisfactory.  Evidently he did not come by his death fairly, but whether he was murdered secretly for the furtherance of some private ends, or publicly in a State sacrifice, I can’t make out.  I myself rather incline to the former opinion, but I should like to know what the experts say about it.  A very nice, exciting little tale might be made out of it in the style of the police stories in All the Year Round called “The Mystery of Mount Hor or What became of Aaron?” Don’t forget to write to me.

Butler’s people had been suggesting that he should try to earn money by writing in magazines, and Miss Savage was falling in with the idea and offering a practical suggestion.  I do not find that he had anything to tell her about the death of Aaron.  On 23rd March, 1880, she wrote: 

Dear Mr. Butler:  Read the subjoined poem of Wordsworth and let me know what you understand its meaning to be.  Of course I have my opinion, which I think of communicating to the Wordsworth Society.  You can belong to that Society for the small sum of 2/6 per annum.  I think of joining because it is cheap.

“The subjoined poem” was the one beginning:  “She dwelt among the untrodden ways,” and Butler made this note on the letter: 

To the foregoing letter I answered that I concluded Miss Savage meant to imply that Wordsworth had murdered Lucy in order to escape a prosecution for breach of promise.

Miss Savage to Butler.