And there are few of us, surely, who do not possess, somewhere in their life, friends of the highest value whom they have barely known—met with once or twice perhaps, talked with, and for some reason not met again; but never lost sight of by heart and fancy. . . . Indeed, this is the meaning of that curious little poem of Whitman’s—‘Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me’—with its Emersonian readiness to part, ‘now we have met, we are safe;’ a very wise view of things, if our poor human weakness really wanted safety, and did not merely want ‘more’—indeed, like that human little boy, want ‘too much.’

Vernon Lee, ‘Other Friendships’

I began this letter in a different spirit from that in which I end it; I feel very black and angry within me, at you, at myself, at the absurd mockery of this impotent friendship of ours; ‘now we have met we are safe’—! indeed! absurd rubbish! What good has our meeting been, except a little foolish happiness and conceit of sympathy. . .

Vernon Lee, Letter to Mary Robinson, Feb. 19, 1881