Part 11 (2/2)

”It has not done so perceptibly in recent years. I judge I've taken more chloral than any man whatever: Marshall says if I were put into a Turkish bath I should sweat it at every pore.”

There was something in his tone suggesting that he was even proud of the accomplishment. To me it was a frightful revelation, accounting entirely for what had puzzled and distressed me in his delusions already referred to. And now let me say that whilst it would have been on my part the most pitiful weakness (because the most foolish tearfulness of injuring a great man who was strong enough to suffer a good deal to be discounted from his strength), to attempt to conceal this painful side of Rossetti's mind, I shall not again allude to those delusions, unless it be to show that, coming to him with the drug which blighted half his life, they disappeared when it had been removed.

None may rightly say to what the use of that drug was due, or what was due to it; the sadder side of his life was ever under its shadow; his occasional distrust of friends: his fear of enemies: his broken health and shattered spirits, all came of his indulgence in the pernicious thing. When I remember this I am more than willing to put by all thought of the little annoyances, which to me, as to other immediate friends, were constantly occurring through that cause, which seemed at the moment so vexatious and often so insupportable, but which are now forgotten.

Next morning--(a clear autumn morning)--I strolled through the large garden at the back of the house, and of course I found it of a piece with what I had previously seen. A beautiful avenue of lime-trees opened into a gra.s.s plot of nearly an acre in extent. The trees were just as nature made them, and so was the gra.s.s, which in places was lying long, dry and withered under the sun, weeds creeping up in damp places, and the gravel of the pathway scattered upon the verges. This neglected condition of the garden was, I afterwards found, humorously charged upon Mr. Watts's ”reluctance to interfere with nature in her clever scheme of the survival of the fittest,” but I suspect it was due at least equally to the owner's personal indifference to everything of the kind.

Before leaving I glanced over the bookcase. Rossetti's library was by no means a large one. It consisted, perhaps, of 1000 volumes, scarcely more; and though this was not large as comprising the library of one whose reading must have been in two arts pursued as special studies, and each involving research and minute original inquiry, it cannot be considered noticeably small, and it must have been sufficient. Rossetti differed strangely as a reader from the man to whom in bias of genius he was most nearly related. Coleridge was an omnivorous general reader: Rossetti was eclectic rather than desultory. His library contained a number of valuable old works of more interest to him from their plates than letterpress. Of this kind were _Gerard's Herbal_ (1626), supposed to be the source of many a hint utilised by the Morris firm, of which Rossetti was a member; _Poliphili Hypnerotomachia_ (1467); Heywood's _History of Women_ (1624); _Songe de Poliphile_ (1561); Bonnard's _Costumes of 12th, 13th, and l4th Centuries; Habiti Antichi_ (of which the designs are said to be by t.i.tian)--printed Venice, (1664); _Cosmographia_, a history of the peoples of the world (1572); _Ciceronis Officia_ (1534), a blackletter folio, with woodcuts by Burgkmaier; _Jost Amman's Costumes_, with woodcuts coloured by hand; _Cento Novelle_ (Venice, 1598); Frances...o...b..rberino's _Doc.u.menti (d'Amore_ (Rome, 1640); _Decoda de t.i.tolivio_, a Spanish blackletter, without date, but probably belonging to the 16th century. Besides these were various vellum-bound works relating to Greek and Roman allegorical and mythological subjects, and a number of sc.r.a.p-books and portfolios containing photographs from nearly all the picture-galleries of Europe, but chiefly of the pictures of the early Florentine and Venetian schools, with an admixture of Spanish art. Of Michael Angelo's designs for the Sistine Chapel there was a fine set of photographs.

These did not make up a very complete ancient artistic library, but Rossetti's collection of the poets was more full and valuable. There was a pretty little early edition of Petrarch, which appeared to have been presented first by John Philip Kemble to Polidori (Rossetti's grandfather) in 1812; then in 1853 by Polidori to his daughter, Rossetti's mother, Frances Rossetti; and by her in 1870 to her son. A splendid edition (1552) of Boccaccio's _Decamerone_ contained a number of valuable marginal notes, chiefly by Rossetti, the first being as follows:

This volume contains 40 woodcuts besides many initial letters. The greater number, if not the whole, must certainly be by Holbein. I am in doubt as to the pictures heading the chapters, but think these most probably his, only following the usual style of such ill.u.s.trations to Boccaccio, and consequently more Italianised than the others. The initial letters present for the most part games of strength or skill.

There were various editions of Dante, including a very large folio edition of the _Commedia_, dated Florence, 1481, and the works of a number of Dante's contemporaries. Besides two or three editions of Shakspeare (the best being Dyce's, in 9 vols.), there were some of the Elizabethan dramatists. Coming to later poetry, I found a complete set of Gilfillan's _Poets_, in 45 vols. There was the curious little ma.n.u.script quarto (much like a s.h.i.+lling school-exercise book) labelled _Blake_, and this was, perhaps, by far the most valuable volume in the library. The contents and history of this book have already been given.

There were two editions of Gilchrist's _Blake_; complete (or almost complete) sets of the works of William Morris and A. C. Swinburne, inscribed in the authors' autographs--the copy of _Atalanta in Calydon_ being marked by the poet, ”First copy; printed off before the dedication was in type.” It may be remembered that Robert Brough translated Beranger's songs, and dedicated his volume in affectionate terms to Rossetti. The presentation copy of this book bore the following inscription:--”To D. G. Rossetti, meaning in my _heart_ what I have tried to say in print. Et. B. Brough. 1856.” There were also several presentation copies from Robert Browning, Coventry Patmore, W. B. Scott, Sir Henry Taylor, Aubrey de Vere, Tom Taylor, Westland Marston, F.

Locker, A. O'Shaughnessy, Sir Theodore Martin; besides volumes bearing the names of nearly every well-known younger writer of prose or verse.

Five volumes of _Modern Painters_, together with _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_ and the tract on _Pre-Raphaelitism_, bore the author's name and Rossetti's in Mr. Ruskin's autograph. There was a fine copy in ten volumes of Violet-le-Duc's _Dictionnaire de l'Architecture_, and also of the _Biographie Generale_ in forty-six volumes, besides several dictionaries, concordances, and the like. There was also a copy of Fitzgerald's _Calderon_. Rossetti seemed to be a reader of Swedenborg, as White's book on the great mystic testified; also to have been at one time interested in the investigation of the phenomena of Spiritualism.

Of one writer of fiction he must have been an ardent reader, for there were at least 100 volumes by Alexandre Dumas. German writers were conspicuously absent, Goethe's _Faust_ and Carlyle's translation of _Wilhelm, Meister_, being about the only notable German works in the library. Rossetti did not appear to be a collector of first editions, nor did it seem that he attached much importance to the mere outsides of his books, but of the insides he was master indeed. The impression left upon the mind after a rapid survey of the poet-painter's library was that he was a careful, but slow and thorough reader (as was seen by the marginal annotations which nearly every volume contained), and that, though very far from affected by bibliomania, he was not without pride in the possession of rare and valuable books.

When I left the house at a late hour that morning Rossetti was not yet stirring, and so some months pa.s.sed before I saw him again. If I had tried to formulate the idea--or say sensation--that possessed me at the moment, I think I should have said, in a word or two, that outside the air breathed freely. Within, the gloom, the mediaeval furniture, the bra.s.s censers, sacramental cups, lamps; and crucifixes conspired, I thought, to make the atmosphere heavy and unwholesome. As for the man himself who was the central spirit amidst these anachronistic environments, he had, if possible, attached me yet closer to himself by contact. Before this I had been attracted to him in admiration of his gifts: but now I was drawn to him, in something very like pity, for his isolation and suffering. Not that at this time he consciously made demand of much compa.s.sion, and least of all from me. Health was apparently whole with him, his spirits were good, and his energies were at their best. He had not yet known the full bitterness of the shadowed valley: not yet learned what it was to hunger for any cheerful society that would relieve him of the burden of the flesh. All that came later.

Rossetti was one of the most magnetic of men, but it was not more his genius than his unhappiness that held certain of his friends by a spell.

CHAPTER VIII.

It was characteristic of Rossetti that he addressed me in the following terms probably before I had left his house: for the letter was, no doubt, written in that interval of sleeplessness which he had spoken of as his nightly visitant:

I forgot to say--Don't, please, spread details as to story of _Rose Mary_. I don't want it to be stale or to get forestalled in the travelling of report from mouth to mouth. I hope it won't be too long before you visit town again,--I will not for an instant question that you would then visit me also.

Six months or more intervened, however, before I was able to visit Rossetti again. In the meantime we corresponded as fully as before: the subject upon which we most frequently exchanged opinions being now the sonnet.

By-the-bye [he says], I cannot understand what you say of Milton's, Keats's, and Coleridge's sonnets. The last, it is true, was _always_ poor as a sonnetteer (I don't see much in the _Autumnal Moon_). My own only exception to this verdict (much as I adore Coleridge's genius) would be the ludicrous sonnet on _The House that Jack built_, which is a masterpiece in its way. I should not myself number the one you mention of Keats's among his best half-dozen (many of his are mere drafts, strange to say); and cannot at all enter into your verdict on those of Milton, which seem to me to be every one of exceptional excellence, though a few are even finer than the rest, notably, of course, the one you name. Pardon an egotistic sentence (in answer to what you say so generously of _Lost Days_), if I express an opinion that _Known in Vain_ and _Still-born Love_ may perhaps be said to head the series in value, though _Lost Days_ might be equally a favourite with me if I did not remember in what but too opportune juncture it was wrung out of me. I have a good number of sonnets for _The House of Life_ still in MS., which I have worked on with my best effort, and, I think, will fully sustain their place. These and other things I should like to show you whenever we meet again. The MS. vol.

I proposed to send is merely an old set of (chiefly) trifles, about which I should like an opinion as to whether any should be included in the future.

I had spoken of Keats's sonnet beginning

To one who has been long in city pent,

with its exquisite last lines--

E'en like the pa.s.sage of an angel's tear That falls through the clear ether silently,

reminding one of a less spiritual figure--

Kings like a golden jewel Down a golden stair.

After his bantering me, as of old he had done, on the use of long and crabbed words, I hinted that he was in honour bound to agree at least with my disparaging judgment upon _Tetrachordon_, if only because of the use of words that would ”have made Quintillian stare.”

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