Part 33 (2/2)
”Mary!” cried Edward one evening when ordering breakfast over-night for Rossetti, who was staying with them, ”let us have quarts of hot coffee, pyramids of toast, and mult.i.tudinous quant.i.ties of milk”; which to her meant all he intended. ”Dear Mary,” wrote Rossetti, ”please go and smash a brute in Red Lion pa.s.sage to-morrow. He had to send a big book, a sc.r.a.pbook, to Master Crabb, 34, Westbourne Place, Eaton Square, and he hasn't done it. I don't know his name, but his shop is dirty and full of account books. This book was ordered ten days ago, and was to have been sent home the next day _and was paid for_--so sit on him hard to-morrow and dig a fork into his eye, as I can't come that way to murder him myself.” From these hints she knew exactly what to say.
Her memory was excellent and sense of humour keen, so that some of the commissions on which she was sent gave her great enjoyment--as one day when Edward told her to take a cab and go to Mr. Watts at Little Holland House, and ask him for the loan of ”whatever draperies and any other old things he could spare,” and Mr. Watts, amused at the form of the request, sent her back with a parcel of draperies and an old pair of brown trousers, bidding her tell Mr. Jones those were the only ”old things” he could spare. This delighted Edward, and he detained Mary while he took down his ”Vasari” and read to her of the old Italian painter who had his breeches made of leather because they wore out so quickly; and then he professed to be grateful for Mr. Watts' gift, and said he would have the brown trousers made to fit him.
Mary wrote a good hand and spelled well, and would sit down and write with gravity such a note as the following, dictated to her by Edward.
”Mr. Bogie Jones' compts. to Mr. Price and begs to inform him he expects to be down for Commemoration and that he hopes to meet him, clean, well shaved, and with a contrite heart.” Morris' quick temper annoyed her, but she once prettily said, ”Though he was so short-tempered, I seemed so necessary to him at all times, and felt myself his man Friday.”
ELEPHANT [Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
My reading aloud to him began soon after our marriage, with Plutarch's ”Lives”--an old folio edition. Holland's translation of Pliny's ”Natural History” was also a treasure for the purpose, and the ”Arabian Nights”
were ever fresh. The description of ”Mrs. Gamp's apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn,” was read over and over again until I, but not he, was wearied for a time. These were all cla.s.sics admitting of no criticism, but some books were illuminated by commentary. For instance, the frequent comparison of Goethe with Shakespeare which G.H. Lewes makes in his ”Life of Goethe” grew tiresome to the hearer, who quietly asked me to read the word Elephant instead of Shakespeare next time it occurred, and the change proved refres.h.i.+ng. But there was a kind of book that he reserved for himself and never liked any one to read to him--”The Broad Stone of Honour” and ”Mores Catholici” are instances: they were kept in his own room, close to his hand, and often dipped into in wakeful nights or early mornings.
”Sillyish books both,” he once said, ”but I can't help it, I like them.”
And no wonder, for his youth lay enclosed in them.
MY FACES [Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
”Of course my faces have no expression in the sense in which people use the word. How should they have any? They are not portraits of people in paroxysms--paroxysms of terror, hatred, benevolence, desire, avarice, veneration, and all the 'pa.s.sions' and emotions that Le Brun and that kind of person find so _magnifique_ in Raphael's later work--mostly painted by his pupils and a.s.sistants, by the way. It is Winckelmann, isn't it, who says that when you come to the age of expression in Greek art you have come to the age of decadence? I don't remember how or where it is said, but of course it is true--can't be otherwise in the nature of things.”
”Portraiture,” he also said, ”may be great art. There is a sense, indeed, in which it is perhaps the greatest art of any. Any portraiture involves expression. Quite true, but expression of what? Of a pa.s.sion, an emotion, a mood? Certainly not. Paint a man or woman with the d.a.m.ned 'pleasing expression,' or even the 'charmingly spontaneous' so dear to the 'photographic artist,' and you see at once that the thing is a mask, as silly as the old tragic and comic mask. The only expression allowable in great portraiture is the expression of character and moral quality, not of anything temporary, fleeting, accidental. Apart from portraiture you don't want even so much, or very seldom: in fact you only want types, symbols, suggestions. The moment you give what people call expression, you destroy the typical character of heads and degrade them into portraits which stand for nothing.”
FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS [Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
The different stages of his children's lives were of profound interest to him, and as they grew up they found in him an elder brother as well as a father. As soon as Margaret was old enough she began to share and then almost entirely to take my post as reader-aloud in the studio.
Beside many other books she went through the whole of Thackeray twice in this way; d.i.c.kens was my special province. She and Edward had their own world of fun, and for her he invented a ”little language,” besides the most unheard-of names. I remember hearing him and Millais once talk to each other about their daughters, each boasting that he was the most devoted father. ”Ah, but _you_ don't take your daughter's breakfast up to her in bed,” said Edward, certain that the prize belonged to him.
Millais' triumphant ”Yes, I do!” left them only equal.
”ANNA KARENINA”
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
”Don't lend me any sad stories--no, not if they are masterpieces. I cannot afford to be made unhappy, and I suspect that book 'Anna Karenina'--I suspect it is Russian, and if it is I know what to expect, and I couldn't bear it. There would be a beautiful woman in it--all that is best in a woman, and she would be miserable and love some trumpery frip (as they do) and die of finding out she had been a fool--and it would be beautifully written and full of nature and just like life, and I couldn't bear it. These books are written for the hard-hearted, to melt them into a softer mood for once before they congeal again--as much music is written--not for poets but for stockjobbers, to wring iron tears from them for once; that is the use of sorrowful art, to penetrate the thick hide of the obtuse, and I have grown to be a coward about pain. I should like that Anna so much and be so sorry for her and wish I had been the man instead of that thing she would have--and it wouldn't be happy. Look! tells me it ends well and that the two lovers marry and are happy ever afterwards, and I'll read it gratefully--and I shall wait your answer.”
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