Remember Gypsy Heather?

Now Rhona sits beneath the tree

That shades our tent, alone and weeping;

And him, the 'Scollard,' him I see:

From bush to bush I see him creeping--

I see her mock him, see her run

And free his pony from the tether,

Who lays his ears in love and fun,

And gallops with her in the sun

Through lace the gossamers have spun,--

Gypsy Heather!

VI

Remember Gypsy Heather?

She reaches 'Rington Birches'; now,

Dismounting from the 'Scollard's' pony,

She sits alone with heavy brow,

Thinking, but not of hare or coney.

The hot sea holds each sight, each sound

Of England's golden autumn weather:

The Romanies now are sitting round

The tea-cloth spread on grassy ground;

Now Rhona dances heather-crowned,--

Gypsy Heather!

VII

Remember Gypsy Heather?

She's thinking of this withered spray

Through all the dance; her eyes are gleaming

Darker than night, yet bright as day,

While round her a gypsy shawl is streaming;

I see the lips--the upper curled,

A saucy rose-leaf, from the nether,

Whence--while the floating shawl is twirled,

As if a ruddy cloud were swirled--

Her scornful laugh at him is hurled,--

Gypsy Heather!

VIII

Remember Gypsy Heather?

In storm or calm, in sun or rain,

There's magic, Rhona, in the writing

Wound round these flowers whose purple stain

Dims the dear scrawl of Love's inditing:

Dear girl, this spray between the leaves

(Now fading like a draggled feather

With which the nesting song-bird weaves)

Makes every wave the vessel cleaves

Seem purple of heather as it heaves,--

Gypsy Heather!

IX

Remember Gypsy Heather?

Oh, Rhona! sights and sounds of home

Are everywhere; the skylark winging

Through amber cloud-films till the dome

Seems filled with love, our love, a-singing.

The sea-wind seems an English breeze

Bearing the bleat of ewe and wether

Over the heath from Rington Leas,

Where, to the hymn of birds and bees,

You taught me Romany 'neath the trees,--

Gypsy Heather!

Another reason that makes it necessary for me to touch upon the inland

part of East Anglia is that I have certain remarks to make upon what are

called 'the Omarian poems of Mr. Watts-Dunton.' Although, as I have

before hinted, St. Ives, being in Hunts, belongs topographically to the

East Midlands, its sympathies are East Anglian. This perhaps is partly

because it is the extreme east of Hunts, and partly because the mouth of

the Ouse is at Lynn: to those whom Mr. Norris affectionately calls St.

Ivians and Hemingfordians, the seaside means Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Cromer,

Hunstanton, and the towns on the Suffolk coast. The splendour of Norfolk

ale may also partly account for it. This perhaps also explains why the

famous East Anglian translator of Omar Khayyam would seem to have been

known to a few Omarians on the banks of the Ouse and Cam as soon as the

great discoverer of good things, Rossetti, pounced upon it in the penny

box of a second-hand bookseller. Readers of Mr. Watts-Dunton's obituary

notice of F. H. Groome in the 'Athenaeum' will recall these words:--

"It was not merely upon Romany subjects that Groome found points of

sympathy at 'The Pines' during that first luncheon; there was that

other subject before mentioned, Edward FitzGerald and Omar Khayyam.

We, a handful of Omarians of those antediluvian days, were perhaps

all the more intense in our cult because we believed it to be

esoteric. And here was a guest who had been brought into actual

personal contact with the wonderful old 'Fitz.' As a child of eight

he had seen him, talked with him, been patted on the head by him.

Groome's father, the Archdeacon of Suffolk, was one of FitzGerald's

most intimate friends. This was at once a delightful and a powerful

link between Frank Groome and those at the luncheon table; and when

he heard, as he soon did, the toast to 'Omar Khayyam,' none drank

that toast with more gusto than he. The fact is, as the Romanies

say, true friendship, like true love, is apt to begin at first

sight."

This is the poem alluded to: it is entitled, 'Toast to Omar Khayyam: An

East Anglian echo-chorus inscribed to old Omarian Friends in memory of

happy days by Ouse and Cam':--

CHORUS

In this red wine, where memory's eyes seem glowing,

And days when wines were bright by Ouse and Cam,

And Norfolk's foaming nectar glittered, showing

What beard of gold John Barleycorn was growing,

We drink to thee, right heir of Nature's knowing,

Omar Khayyam!

I

Star-gazer, who canst read, when Night is strowing

Her scriptured orbs on Time's wide oriflamme,

Nature's proud blazon: 'Who shall bless or damn?

Life, Death, and Doom are all of my bestowing!'

CHORUS: Omar Khayyam!

II

Poet, whose stream of balm and music, flowing

Through Persian gardens, widened till it swam--

A fragrant tide no bank of Time shall dam--

Through Suffolk meads, where gorse and may were blowing,--

CHORUS: Omar Khayyam!

III

Who blent thy song with sound of cattle lowing,

And caw of rooks that perch on ewe and ram,

And hymn of lark, and bleat of orphan lamb,

And swish of scythe in Bredfield's dewy mowing?

CHORUS: Omar Khayyam!

IV

'Twas Fitz, 'Old Fitz,' whose knowledge, farther going

Than lore of Omar, 'Wisdom's starry Cham,'

Made richer still thine opulent epigram:

Sowed seed from seed of thine immortal sowing.--

CHORUS: Omar Khayyam!

V

In this red wine, where Memory's eyes seem glowing,

And days when wines were bright by Ouse and Cam,

And Norfolk's foaming nectar glittered, showing

What beard of gold John Barleycorn was growing,

We drink to thee till, hark! the cock is crowing!

Omar Khayyam!

It was many years after this--it was as a member of another Omar Khayyam

Club of much greater celebrity than the little brotherhood of Ouse and

Cam--not large enough to be called a club--that Mr. Watts-Dunton wrote

the following well-known sonnet:--

PRAYER TO THE WINDS

On planting at the head of FitzGerald's grave two rose-trees whose

ancestors had scattered their petals over the tomb of Omar Khayyam.

"My tomb shall be on a spot where the north wind may strow roses upon

it."

OMAR KHAYYAM TO KWAJAH NIZAMI.

Hear us, ye winds! From where the north-wind strows

Blossoms that crown 'the King of Wisdom's' tomb,

The trees here planted bring remembered bloom,

Dreaming in seed of Love's ancestral rose,

To meadows where a braver north-wind blows

O'er greener grass, o'er hedge-rose, may, and broom,

And all that make East England's field-perfume

Dearer than any fragrance Persia knows.

Hear us, ye winds, North, East, and West, and South!

This granite covers him whose golden mouth

Made wiser ev'n the Word of Wisdom's King:

Blow softly over Omar's Western herald

Till roses rich of Omar's dust shall spring

From richer dust of Suffolk's rare FitzGerald.

I must now quote another of Mr. Watts-Dunton's East Anglian poems, partly

because it depicts the weird charm of the Norfolk coast, and partly

because it illustrates that sympathy between the poet and the lower

animals which I have already noted. I have another reason: not long ago,

that good East Anglian, Mr. Rider Haggard interested us all by telling

how telepathy seemed to have the power of operating between a dog and its

beloved master in certain rare and extraordinary cases. When the poem

appeared in the 'Saturday Review' (December 20, 1902), it was described

as 'part of a forthcoming romance.' It records a case of telepathy

between man and dog quite as wonderful as that narrated by Mr. Rider

Haggard:--

CAUGHT IN THE EBBING TIDE

The mightiest Titan's stroke could not withstand

An ebbing tide like this. These swirls denote

How wind and tide conspire. I can but float

To the open sea and strike no more for land.

Farewell, brown cliffs, farewell, beloved sand

Her feet have pressed--farewell, dear little boat

Where Gelert, {82} calmly sitting on my coat,

Unconscious of my peril, gazes bland!

All dangers grip me save the deadliest, fear:

Yet these air-pictures of the past that glide--

These death-mirages o'er the heaving tide--

Showing two lovers in an alcove clear,

Will break my heart. I see them and I hear

As there they sit at morning, side by side.

THE FIRST VISION

_With Raxton elms behind--in front the sea_,

_Sitting in rosy light in that alcove_,

_They hear the first lark rise o'er Raxton Grove_;

'_What should I do with fame_, _dear heart_?' _says he_.

'_You talk of fame_, _poetic fame_, _to me_

_Whose crown is not of laurel but of love_--

_To me who would not give this little glove_

_On this dear hand for Shakspeare's dower in fee_.

_While_, _rising red and kindling every billow_,

_The sun's shield shines_ '_neath many a golden spear_,

_To lean with you against this leafy pillow_,

_To murmur words of love in this loved ear_--

_To feel you bending like a bending willow_,

_This is to be a poet_--_this_, _my dear_!'

O God, to die and leave her--die and leave

The heaven so lately won!--And then, to know

What misery will be hers--what lonely woe!--

To see the bright eyes weep, to see her grieve

Will make me a coward as I sink, and cleave

To life though Destiny has bid me go.

How shall I bear the pictures that will glow

Above the glowing billows as they heave?

One picture fades, and now above the spray

Another shines: ah, do I know the bowers

Where that sweet woman stands--the woodland flowers,

In that bright wreath of grass and new-mown hay--

That birthday wreath I wove when earthly hours

Wore angel-wings,--till portents brought dismay?

THE SECOND VISION

_Proud of her wreath as laureate of his laurel_,

_She smiles on him_--_on him_, _the prouder giver_,

_As there they stand beside the sunlit river_

_Where petals flush with rose the grass and sorrel_:

_The chirping reed-birds_, _in their play or quarrel_,

_Make musical the stream where lilies quiver_--

_Ah_! _suddenly he feels her slim waist shiver_:

_She speaks_: _her lips grow grey_--_her lips of coral_!

'_From out my wreath two heart-shaped seeds are swaying_,

_The seeds of which that gypsy girl has spoken_--

'_Tis fairy grass_, _alas_! _the lover's token_.'

_She lifts her fingers to her forehead_, _saying_,

'_Touch the twin hearts_.' _Says he_, ''_Tis idle playing_':

_He touches them_; _they fall_--_fall bruised and broken_.

* * * * *

Shall I turn coward here who sailed with Death

Through many a tempest on mine own North Sea,

And quail like him of old who bowed the knee--

Faithless--to billows of Genesereth?

Did I turn coward when my very breath

Froze on my lips that Alpine night when he

Stood glimmering there, the Skeleton, with me,

While avalanches rolled from peaks beneath?

Each billow bears me nearer to the verge

Of realms where she is not--where love must wait.--

If Gelert, there, could hear, no need to urge

That friend, so faithful, true, affectionate,

To come and help me, or to share my fate.

Ah! surely I see him springing through the surge.

[The dog, plunging into the tide and striking

towards him with immense strength, reaches

him and swims round him.]

Oh, Gelert, strong of wind and strong of paw

Here gazing like your namesake, 'Snowdon's Hound,'

When great Llewelyn's child could not be found,

And all the warriors stood in speechless awe--

Mute as your namesake when his master saw

The cradle tossed--the rushes red around--

With never a word, but only a whimpering sound

To tell what meant the blood on lip and jaw.

In such a strait, to aid this gaze so fond,

Should I, brave friend, have needed other speech

Than this dear whimper? Is there not a bond

Stronger than words that binds us each to each?--

But Death has caught us both. 'Tis far beyond

The strength of man or dog to win the beach.

Through tangle-weed--through coils of slippery kelp

Decking your shaggy forehead, those brave eyes

Shine true--shine deep of love's divine surmise

As hers who gave you--then a Titan whelp!

I think you know my danger and would help!

See how I point to yonder smack that lies

At anchor--Go! His countenance replies.

Hope's music rings in Gelert's eager yelp!

[The dog swims swiftly away down the tide.

Now, life and love and death swim out with him!

If he should reach the smack, the men will guess

The dog has left his master in distress.

You taught him in these very waves to swim--

'The prince of pups,' you said, 'for wind and limb'--

And now those lessons, darling, come to bless.

ENVOY

(The day after the rescue: Gelert and I walking along the sand.)

'Twas in no glittering tourney's mimic strife,--

'Twas in that bloody fight in Raxton Grove,

While hungry ravens croaked from boughs above,

And frightened blackbirds shrilled the warning fife--

'Twas there, in days when Friendship still was rife,

Mine ancestor who threw the challenge-glove

Conquered and found his foe a soul to love,

Found friendship--Life's great second crown of life.

So I this morning love our North Sea more

Because he fought me well, because these waves

Now weaving sunbows for us by the shore

Strove with me, tossed me in those emerald caves

That yawned above my head like conscious graves--

I love him as I never loved before.

In these days when so much is written about the intelligence of the lower

animals, when 'Hans,' the 'thinking horse,' is 'interviewed' by eminent

scientists, the exploit of the Second Gelert is not without interest. I

may, perhaps, mention a strange experience of my own. The late Betts

Bey, a well-known figure in St. Peter's Port, Guernsey, had a fine black

retriever, named Caro. During a long summer holiday which we spent in

Guernsey, Caro became greatly attached to a friend, and Betts Bey

presented him to her. He was a magnificent fellow, valiant as a lion,

and a splendid diver and swimmer. He often plunged off the parapet of

the bridge which spans the Serpentine. Indeed, he would have dived from

any height. His intelligence was surprising. If we wished to make him

understand that he was not to accompany us, we had only to say, 'Caro, we

are going to church!' As soon as he heard the word 'church' his barks

would cease, his tail would drop, and he would look mournfully resigned.

One evening, as I was writing in my room, Caro began to scratch outside

the door, uttering those strange 'woof-woofs' which were his canine

language. I let him in, but he would not rest. He stood gazing at me

with an intense expression, and, turning towards the door, waited

impatiently. For some time I took no notice of his dumb appeal, but his

excitement increased, and suddenly a vague sense of ill seemed to pass

from him into my mind. Drawn half-consciously I rose, and at once with a

strange half-human whine Caro dashed upstairs. I followed him. He ran

into a bedroom, and there in the dark I found my friend lying

unconscious. It is well-nigh certain that Caro thus saved my friend's

life.

Chapter VIII

LONDON

BETWEEN Mr. Watts-Dunton and the brother who came next to him, before

mentioned, there was a very great affection, although the difference

between them, mentally and physically, was quite noticeable. They were

articled to their father on the same day and admitted solicitors on the

same day, a very unusual thing with solicitors and their sons. Mr.

Watts-Dunton afterwards passed a short term in one of the great

conveyancing offices in London in order to become proficient in

conveyancing. His brother did the same in another office in Bedford Row;

but he afterwards practised for himself. Mr. A. E. Watts soon had a

considerable practice as family solicitor and conveyancer. Mr. Hake

identifies him with Cyril Aylwin, but before I quote Mr. Hake's

interesting account of him, I will give the vivid description of Cyril in

'Aylwin':--

"Juvenile curls clustered thick and short beneath his wideawake. He

had at first struck me as being not much more than a lad, till, as he

gave me that rapid, searching glance in passing, I perceived the

little crow's feet round his eyes, and he then struck me immediately

as being probably on the verge of thirty-five. His figure was slim

and thin, his waist almost girlish in its fall. I should have

considered him small, had not the unusually deep, loud, manly, and

sonorous voice with which he had accosted Sinfi conveyed an

impression of size and weight such as even big men do not often

produce. This deep voice, coupled with that gaunt kind of cheek

which we associate with the most demure people, produced an effect of

sedateness . . . but in the one glance I had got from those watchful,

sagacious, twinkling eyes, there was an expression quite peculiar to

them, quite inscrutable, quite indescribable."

Cyril Aylwin was at first thought to be a portrait of Whistler, which is

not quite so outrageously absurd as the wild conjecture that William

Morris was the original of Wilderspin. Mr. Hake says:--

"I am especially able to speak of this character, who has been

inquired about more than any other in the book. I knew him, I think,

even before I knew Rossetti and Morris, or any of that group. He was

a brother of Mr. Watts-Dunton's--Mr. Alfred Eugene Watts. He lived

at Sydenham, and died suddenly, either in 1870 or 1871, very shortly

after I had met him at a wedding party. Among the set in which I

moved at that time he had a great reputation as a wit and humorist.

His style of humour always struck me as being more American than

English. While bringing out humorous things that would set a dinner

table in a roar, he would himself maintain a perfectly unmoved

countenance. And it was said of him, as 'Wilderspin' says of 'Cyril

Aylwin,' that he was never known to laugh." {88}

After a time Mr. Watts-Dunton joined his brother, and the two practised

together in London. They also lived together at Sydenham. Some time

after this, however, Mr. Watts-Dunton determined to abandon the law for

literature. The brothers migrated to Sydenham, because at that time Mr.

Watts-Dunton pursued music with an avidity and interest which threatened

for a time to interfere with those literary energies which it was now his

intention to exercise. At that time the orchestral concerts at the

Crystal Palace under Manns, given every morning and every afternoon, were

a great attraction to music lovers, and Mr. Watts-Dunton, who lived close

by, rarely missed either the morning or the afternoon concert. It was in

this way that he became steeped in German music; and afterwards, when he

became intimate with Dr. F. Hueffer, the musical critic of the 'Times,'

and the exponent of Wagner in Great Britain, he became a thorough

Wagnerian.

It was during this time, and through the extraordinary social attractions

of his brother, that Mr. Watts-Dunton began to move very much in London

life, and saw a great deal of what is called London society. After his

brother's death he took chambers in Great James Street, close to Mr.

Swinburne, with whom he had already become intimate. And according to

Mr. Hake, in his paper in 'T. P.'s Weekly' above quoted from, it was here

that he wrote 'Aylwin.' I have already alluded to his record of this

most interesting event:--

"I have just read," he says, "with the greatest interest the article

in your number of Sept. 18, 1903, called 'How Authors Work Best.'

But the following sentence in it set me reflecting: 'Flaubert took

ten years to write and repolish "Madame Bovary," Watts-Dunton twenty

years to write, recast, and conclude "Aylwin."' The statement about

'Aylwin' has often been made, and in these days of hasty production

it may well be taken by the author as a compliment; but it is as

entirely apocryphal as that about Scott's brother having written the

Waverley Novels, and as that about Bramwell Bronte having written

'Wuthering Heights.' As to 'Aylwin,' I happen to be in a peculiarly

authoritative position to speak upon the genesis of this very popular

book. If any one were to peruse the original manuscript of the story

he would find it in four different handwritings--my late father's,

and two of my brothers', but principally in mine.

Yet I can aver that it was not written by us, and also that its

composition did not take twenty years to achieve. It was dictated to

us."

Dr. Gordon Hake is mainly known as the 'parable poet,' but as a fact he

was a physician of extraordinary talent, who had practised first at Bury

St. Edmunds and afterwards at Spring Gardens, until he partly retired to

be private physician to the late Lady Ripon. After her death he left

practice altogether in order to devote himself to literature, for which

he had very great equipments. As 'Aylwin' touched upon certain subtle

nervous phases it must have been a great advantage to the author to

dictate these portions of the story to so skilled and experienced a

friend. The rare kind of cerebral exaltation into which Henry Aylwin

passed after his appalling experience in the Cove, in which the entire

nervous system was disturbed, was not what is known as brain fever. The

record of it in 'Aylwin' is, I understand, a literal account of a rare

and wonderful case brought under the professional notice of Dr. Hake.

As physician to Rossetti, a few years after the death of his beloved

wife, Dr. Hake's services must have been priceless to the poet-painter;

for, as is only too well known, Rossetti's grief for the death of his

wife had for some time a devastating effect upon his mind. It was one of

the causes of that terrible insomnia to relieve himself from which he

resorted to chloral, though later on the attacks upon him by certain foes

intensified the distressing ailment. The insomnia produced fits of

melancholia, an ailment, according to the skilled opinion of Dr. Hake,

more difficult than all others to deal with; for when the nervous system

has sunk to a certain state of depression, the mind roams over the

universe, as it were, in quest of imaginary causes for the depression.

This accounts for the 'cock and bull' stories that were somewhat rife

immediately after Rossetti's death about his having expressed remorse on

account of his ill-treatment of his wife. No one of his intimates took

the least notice of these wild and whirling words. For he would express

remorse on account of the most fantastic things when the fits of

melancholia were upon him; and when these fits were past he would smile

at the foolish things he had said. I get this knowledge from a very high

authority, Dr. Hake's son--Mr. Thomas St. E. Hake, before mentioned--who

knew Rossetti intimately from 1871 until his death, having lived under

the same roof with him at Cheyne Walk, Bognor and Kelmscott. After

Rossetti's most serious attack of melancholia, his relations and friends

persuaded him to stay with Dr. Hake at Roehampton, and it was there that

the terrible crisis of his illness was passed.

It is interesting to know that in the original form of 'Aylwin' the

important part taken in the development of the story by D'Arcy was taken

by Dr. Hake, under the name of Gordon, and that afterwards, when all

sorts of ungenerous things were written about Rossetti, D'Arcy was

substituted for Gordon in order to give the author an opportunity of

bringing out and showing the world the absolute nobility and charm of

Rossetti's character.

[Picture: A Corner in 'The Pines,' showing the Painted and Carved

Cabinet]

Among the many varieties of life which Mr. Watts-Dunton saw at this time

was life in the slums; and this was long before the once fashionable

pastime of 'slumming' was invented. The following lines in Dr. Hake's

'New Day' allude to the deep interest that Mr. Watts-Dunton has always

shown in the poor--shown years before the writers who now deal with the

slums had written a line. Artistically, they are not fair specimens of

Dr. Gordon Hake's verses, but nevertheless it is interesting to quote

them here:--

Know you a widow's home? an orphanage?

A place of shelter for the crippled poor?

Did ever limbless men your care engage

Whom you assisted of your larger store?

Know you the young who are to early die--

At their frail form sinks not your heart within?

Know you the old who paralytic lie

While you the freshness of your life begin?

Know you the great pain-bearers who long carry

The bullet in the breast that does not kill?

And those who in the house of madness tarry,

Beyond the blest relief of human skill?

These have you visited, all these assisted,

In the high ranks of charity enlisted.

That Mr. Watts-Dunton has retained his interest in the poor is shown by

the sonnet, 'Father Christmas in Famine Street,' which was originally

printed as 'an appeal' on Christmas Eve in the 'Athenaeum':--

When Father Christmas went down Famine Street

He saw two little sisters: one was trying

To lift the other, pallid, wasted, dying,

Within an arch, beyond the slush and sleet.

From out the glazing eyes a glimmer sweet

Leapt, as in answer to the other's sighing,

While came a murmur, 'Don't 'ee keep on crying--

I wants to die: you'll get my share to eat.'

Her knell was tolled by joy-bells of the city

Hymning the birth of Jesus, Lord of Pity,

Lover of children, Shepherd of Compassion.

Said Father Christmas, while his eyes grew dim,

'They do His bidding--if in thrifty fashion:

They let the little children go to Him.'

With this sonnet should be placed that entitled, 'Dickens Returns on

Christmas Day':--

A ragged girl in Drury Lane was heard to exclaim: 'Dickens dead?

Then will Father Christmas die too?'--June 9, 1870.

'Dickens is dead!' Beneath that grievous cry

London seemed shivering in the summer heat;

Strangers took up the tale like friends that meet:

'Dickens is dead!' said they, and hurried by;

Street children stopped their games--they knew not why,

But some new night seemed darkening down the street.

A girl in rags, staying her wayworn feet,

Cried, 'Dickens dead? Will Father Christmas die?'

City he loved, take courage on thy way!

He loves thee still, in all thy joys and fears.

Though he whose smile made bright thine eyes of grey--

Though he whose voice, uttering thy burthened years,

Made laughters bubble through thy sea of tears--

Is gone, Dickens returns on Christmas Day!

Let me say here, parenthetically, that 'The Pines' is so far out of date

that for twenty-five years it has been famous for its sympathy with the

Christmas sentiment which now seems to be fading, as this sonnet shows:--

THE CHRISTMAS TREE AT 'THE PINES.'

Life still hath one romance that naught can bury--

Not Time himself, who coffins Life's romances--

For still will Christmas gild the year's mischances,

If Childhood comes, as here, to make him merry--

To kiss with lips more ruddy than the cherry--

To smile with eyes outshining by their glances

The Christmas tree--to dance with fairy dances

And crown his hoary brow with leaf and berry.

And as to us, dear friend, the carols sung

Are fresh as ever. Bright is yonder bough

Of mistletoe as that which shone and swung

When you and I and Friendship made a vow

That Childhood's Christmas still should seal each brow--

Friendship's, and yours, and mine--and keep us young.

I may also quote from 'Prophetic Pictures at Venice' this romantic

description of the Rosicrucian Christmas:--

(The morning light falls on the Rosicrucian panel-picture called 'The

Rosy Scar,' depicting Christian galley-slaves on board an Algerine

galley, watching, on Christmas Eve, for the promised appearance of

Rosenkreutz, as a 'rosy phantom.' The Lover reads aloud the

descriptive verses on the frame.)

While Night's dark horses waited for the wind,

He stood--he shone--where Sunset's fiery glaives

Flickered behind the clouds; then, o'er the waves,

He came to them, Faith's remnant sorrow-thinned.

The Paynim sailors clustering, tawny-skinned,

Cried, 'Who is he that comes to Christian slaves?

Nor water-sprite nor jinni of sunset caves,

The rosy phantom stands nor winged nor finned.'

All night he stood till shone the Christmas star;

Slowly the Rosy Cross, streak after streak,

Flushed the grey sky--flushed sea and sail and spar,

Flushed, blessing every slave's woe-wasted cheek.

Then did great Rosenkreutz, the Dew-King speak:

'Sufferers, take heart! Christ lends the Rosy Scar.'

Chapter IX

GEORGE BORROW

IT was not until 1872 that Mr. Watts-Dunton was introduced to Borrow by

Dr. Gordon Hake, Borrow's most intimate friend.

The way in which this meeting came about has been familiar to the readers

of an autobiographical romance (not even yet published!) wherein Borrow

appears under the name of Dereham, and Hake under the name of Gordon.

But as some of these passages in a modified form have appeared in print

in an introduction by Mr. Watts-Dunton to the edition of Borrow's

'Lavengro,' published by Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co., in 1893, there will be

nothing incongruous in my quoting them here:--

"Great as was the difference in age between Gordon and me, there soon

grew up an intimacy between us. It has been my experience to learn

that an enormous deal of nonsense has been written about difference

of age between friends of either sex. At that time I do not think I

had one intimate friend of my own age except Rosamond, while I was on

terms of something like intimacy with two or three distinguished men,

each one of whom was certainly old enough to be my father. Basevi

was one of these: so was Lineham. I daresay it was owing to some

idiosyncrasy of mine, but the intimacy between me and the young

fellows with whom I was brought into contact was mainly confined to

matters connected with field-sports. I found it far easier to be

brought into relations of close intimacy with women of my own age

than with men. But as Basevi told me that it was the same with

himself, I suppose that this was not an eccentricity after all. When

Gordon and I were together it never occurred to me that there was any

difference in our ages at all, and he told me that it was the same

with himself.

One day when I was sitting with him in his delightful house near

Roehampton, whose windows at the back looked over Richmond Park, and

in front over the wildest part of Wimbledon Common, one of his sons

came in and said that he had seen Dereham striding across the common,

evidently bound for the house.

'Dereham!' I said. 'Is there a man in the world I should so like to

see as Dereham?'

And then I told Gordon how I had seen him years before swimming in

the sea off Yarmouth, but had never spoken to him.

'Why do you want so much to see him?' asked Gordon.

'Well, among other things I want to see if he is a true Child of the

Open Air.'

Gordon laughed, perfectly understanding what I meant. But it is

necessary here to explain what that meaning was.

We both agreed that, with all the recent cultivation of the

picturesque by means of watercolour landscape, descriptive novels,

'Cook's excursions,' etc., the real passion for Nature is as rare as

ever it was--perhaps rarer. It was, we believed, quite an affair of

individual temperament: it cannot be learned; it cannot be lost.

That no writer has ever tried to explain it shows how little it is

known. Often it has but little to do with poetry, little with

science. The poet, indeed, rarely has it at its very highest; the

man of science as rarely. I wish I could define it. In human

souls--in one, perhaps, as much as in another--there is always that

instinct for contact which is a great factor of progress; there is

always an irresistible yearning to escape from isolation, to get as

close as may be to some other conscious thing. In most individuals

this yearning is simply for contact with other human souls; in some

few it is not. There are some in every country of whom it is the

blessing, not the bane that, owing to some exceptional power, or to

some exceptional infirmity, they can get closer to 'Natura Benigna'

herself, closer to her whom we now call 'Inanimate Nature,' than to

brother, sister, wife, or friend. Darwin among English savants, and

Emily Bronte among English poets, and Sinfi Lovell among English

gypsies, showed a good deal of the characteristics of the 'Children

of the Open Air.' But in regard to Darwin, besides the strength of

his family ties, the pedantic inquisitiveness, the methodizing

pedantry of the man of science; in Emily Bronte, the sensitivity to

human contact; and in Sinn Lovell, subjection to the love

passion--disturbed, and indeed partially stifled, the native instinct

with which they were undoubtedly endowed. I was perfectly conscious

that I belonged to the third case of Nature-worshippers--that is, I

was one of those who, howsoever strongly drawn to Nature and to a

free and unconventional life, felt the strength of the love passion

to such a degree that it prevented my claiming to be a genuine Child

of the Open Air.

Between the true 'Children of the Open Air' and their fellows there

are barriers of idiosyncrasy, barriers of convention, or other

barriers quite indefinable, which they find most difficult to

overpass, and, even when they succeed in overpassing them, the

attempt is not found to be worth the making. For, what this kind of

Nature-worshipper finds in intercourse with his fellow-men is, not

the unegoistic frankness of Nature, his first love, inviting him to

touch her close, soul to soul--but another ego enisled like his

own--sensitive, shrinking, like his own--a soul which, love him as it

may, is, nevertheless, and for all its love, the central ego of the

universe to itself, the very Alcyone round whom all other

Nature-worshippers revolve like the rest of the human constellations.

But between these and Nature there is no such barrier, and upon

Nature they lavish their love, 'a most equal love' that varies no

more with her change of mood than does the love of a man for a

beautiful woman, whether she smiles, or weeps, or frowns. To them a

Highland glen is most beautiful; so is a green meadow; so is a

mountain gorge or a barren peak; so is a South American savannah. A

balmy summer is beautiful, but not more beautiful than a winter's

sleet beating about the face, and stinging every nerve into delicious

life.

To the 'Child of the Open Air' life has but few ills; poverty cannot

touch him. Let the Stock Exchange rob him of his bonds, and he will

go and tend sheep in Sacramento Valley, perfectly content to see a

dozen faces in a year; so far from being lonely, he has got the sky,

the wind, the brown grass, and the sheep. And as life goes on, love

of Nature grows, both as a cultus and a passion, and in time Nature

seems 'to know him and love him' in her turn.

Dereham entered, and, suddenly coming upon me, there was no

retreating, and we were introduced.

He tried to be as civil as possible, but evidently he was much

annoyed. Yet there was something in the very tone of his voice that

drew my heart to him, for to me he was the hero of my boyhood still.

My own shyness was being rapidly fingered off by the rough handling

of the world, but his retained all the bloom of youth, and a terrible

barrier it was; yet I attacked it manfully. I knew from his books

that Dereham had read but little except in his own out-of-the-way

directions; but then, unfortunately, like all specialists, he

considered that in these his own special directions lay all the

knowledge that was of any value. Accordingly, what appeared to

Dereham as the most striking characteristic of the present age was

its ignorance. Unfortunately, too, I knew that for strangers to talk

of his own published books, or of gypsies, appeared to him to be

'prying,' though there I should have been quite at home. I knew,

however, from his books that in the obscure English pamphlet

literature of the last century, recording the sayings and doings of

eccentric people and strange adventures, Dereham was very learned,

and I too chanced to be far from ignorant in that direction. I

touched on Bamfylde Moore Carew, but without effect. Dereham

evidently considered that every properly educated man was familiar

with the story of Bamfylde Moore Carew in its every detail. Then I

touched upon beer, the British bruiser, 'gentility nonsense,' and

other 'nonsense'; then upon etymology--traced hoity-toityism to

'toit,' a roof--but only to have my shallow philology dismissed with

a withering smile. I tried other subjects in the same direction, but

with small success, till in a lucky moment I bethought myself of

Ambrose Gwinett. There is a very scarce eighteenth century pamphlet

narrating the story of Ambrose Gwinett, the man who, after having

been hanged and gibbeted for murdering a traveller with whom he had

shared a double-bedded room at a seaside inn, revived in the night,

escaped from the gibbet-irons, went to sea as a common sailor, and

afterwards met on a British man-of-war the very man he had been

hanged for murdering. The truth was that Gwinett's supposed victim,

having been seized on the night in question with a violent bleeding

at the nose, had risen and left the house for a few minutes' walk in

the sea-breeze, when the press-gang captured him and bore him off to

sea, where he had been in service ever since. I introduced the

subject of Ambrose Gwinett, and Douglas Jerrold's play upon it, and

at once the ice between us thawed and we became friends.

We all went out of the house and looked over the common. It chanced

that at that very moment there were a few gypsies encamped on the

sunken road opposite to Gordon's house. These same gypsies, by the

by, form the subject of a charming sketch by Herkomer which appeared

in the 'Graphic.' Borrow took the trouble to assure us that they

were not of the better class of gypsies, the gryengroes, but

basket-makers. After passing this group we went on the common. We

did not at first talk much, but it delighted me to see the mighty

figure, strengthened by the years rather than stricken by them,

striding along between the whin bushes or through the quags, now

stooping over the water to pluck the wild mint he loved, whose

lilac-coloured blossoms perfumed the air as he crushed them, now

stopping to watch the water wagtails by the ponds.

After the stroll we turned back and went, at Dereham's suggestion,

for a ramble through Richmond Park, calling on the way at the

'Bald-Faced Stag' in Kingston Vale, in order that Dereham should

introduce me to Jerry Abershaw's sword, which was one of the special

glories of that once famous hostelry. A divine summer day it was I

remember--a day whose heat would have been oppressive had it not been

tempered every now and then by a playful silvery shower falling from

an occasional wandering cloud, whose slate-coloured body thinned at

the edges to a fringe of lace brighter than any silver.

These showers, however, seemed, as Dereham remarked, merely to give a

rich colour to the sunshine, and to make the wild flowers in the

meadows on the left breathe more freely. In a word, it was one of

those uncertain summer days whose peculiarly English charm was

Dereham's special delight. He liked rain, but he liked it falling on

the green umbrella (enormous, shaggy, like a gypsy-tent after a

summer storm) he generally carried. As we entered the Robin Hood

Gate we were confronted by a sudden weird yellow radiance, magical

and mysterious, which showed clearly enough that in the sky behind us

there was gleaming over the fields and over Wimbledon Common a

rainbow of exceptional brilliance, while the raindrops sparkling on

the ferns seemed answering every hue in the magic arch far away.

Dereham told us some interesting stories of Romany superstition in

connection with the rainbow--how, by making a 'trus'hul' (cross) of

two sticks, the Romany chi who 'pens the dukkerin can wipe the

rainbow out of the sky,' etc. Whereupon Gordon, quite as original a

man as Dereham, and a humourist of a rarer temper, launched out into

a strain of wit and whim, which it is not my business here to record,

upon the subject of the 'Spirit of the Rainbow' which I, as a child,

went out to find.

Dereham loved Richmond Park, and he seemed to know every tree. I

found also that he was extremely learned in deer, and seemed familiar

with every dappled coat which, washed and burnished by the showers,

seemed to shine in the sun like metal. Of course, I observed him

closely, and I began to wonder whether I had encountered, in the

silvery-haired giant striding by my side, with a vast umbrella under

his arm, a true 'Child of the Open Air.'

'Did a true Child of the Open Air ever carry a gigantic green

umbrella that would have satisfied Sarah Gamp herself?' I murmured to

Gordon, while Dereham lingered under a tree and, looking round the

Park, said in a dreamy way, 'Old England! Old England!'

It was the umbrella, green, manifold and bulging, under Dereham's

arm, that made me ask Gordon, as Dereham walked along beneath the

trees, 'Is he a genuine Child of the Open Air?' And then, calling to

mind the books he had written, I said: 'He went into the Dingle, and

lived alone--went there, not as an experiment in self-education, as

Thoreau went and lived by Walden Pond. He could enjoy living alone,

for the 'horrors' to which he was occasionally subject did not spring

from solitary living. He was never disturbed by passion as was the

Nature-worshipper who once played such selfish tricks with Sinfi

Lovell, and as Emily Bronte would certainly have been had she been

placed in such circumstances as Charlotte Bronte placed Shirley.'

'But the most damning thing of all,' said Gordon, 'is that umbrella,

gigantic and green: a painful thought that has often occurred to me.'

'Passion has certainly never disturbed his nature-worship,' said I.

'So devoid of passion is he that to depict a tragic situation is

quite beyond his powers. Picturesque he always is, powerful never.

No one reading an account of the privations of the hero of this story

finds himself able to realize from Dereham's description the misery

of a young man tenderly reared, and with all the pride of an East

Anglian gentleman, living on bread and water in a garret, with

starvation staring him in the face. It is not passion,' I said to

Gordon, 'that prevents Dereham from enjoying the peace of the

Nature-worshipper. It is Ambition! His books show that he could

never cleanse his stuffed bosom of the perilous stuff of ambition.

To become renowned, judging from many a peroration in his books, was

as great an incentive to Dereham to learn languages as to Alexander

Smith's poet-hero it was an incentive to write poetry.'

'Ambition and the green gamp,' said Gordon. 'But look, the rainbow

is fading from the sky without the intervention of gypsy sorceries;

and see how the ferns are changing colour with the change in the

light.'

But I soon found that if Dereham was not a perfect Child of the Open

Air, he was something better: a man of that deep sympathy with human

kind which the 'Child of the Open Air' must needs lack.

Knowing Dereham's extraordinary shyness and his great dislike of

meeting strangers, Gordon, while Dereham was trying to get as close

to the deer as they would allow, expressed to me his surprise at the

terms of cordial friendship that sprang up between us during that

walk. But I was not surprised: there were several reasons why

Dereham should at once take to me--reasons that had nothing whatever

to do with any inherent attractiveness of my own.

By recalling what occurred I can throw a more brilliant light upon

Dereham's character than by any kind of analytical disquisition.

Two herons rose from the Ponds and flew away to where they probably

had their nests. By the expression on Dereham's face as he stood and

gazed at them, I knew that, like myself, he had a passion for herons.

'Were there many herons around Whittlesea Mere before it was

drained?' I said.

'I should think so,' said he dreamily, 'and every kind of water

bird.'

Then, suddenly turning round upon me with a start, he said, 'But how

do you know that I knew Whittlesea Mere?'

'You say in one of your books that you played among the reeds of

Whittlesea Mere when you were a child.'

'I don't mention Whittlesea Mere in any of my books,' he said.

'No,' said I, 'but you speak of a lake near the old State prison at

Norman Cross, and that was Whittlesea Mere.'

'Then you know Whittlesea Mere?' said Dereham, much interested.

'I know the place that was Whittlesea Mere before it was drained,' I

said, 'and I know the vipers around Norman Cross, and I think I know

the lane where you first met that gypsy you have immortalized. He

was a generation before my time. Indeed, I never was thrown much

across the Petulengroes in the Eastern Counties, but I knew some of

the Hernes and the Lees and the Lovells.'

I then told him what I knew about Romanies and vipers, and also gave

him Marcianus's story about the Moors being invulnerable to the

viper's bite, and about their putting the true breed of a suspected

child to the test by setting it to grasp a viper--as he, Dereham,

when a child, grasped one of the vipers of Norman Cross.

'The gypsies,' said Dereham, 'always believed me to be a Romany. But

surely you are not a Romany Rye?'

'No,' I said, 'but I am a student of folk-lore; and besides, as it

has been my fortune to see every kind of life in England, high and

low, I could not entirely neglect the Romanies, could I?'

'I should think not,' said Dereham indignantly.

'But I hope you don't know the literary class among the rest.'

'Gordon is my only link to that dark world,' I said, 'and even you

don't object to Gordon. I am purer than he, purer than you, from the

taint of printers' ink.'

He laughed. 'Who are you?'

'The very question I have been asking myself ever since I was a child

in short frocks,' I said, 'and have never yet found an answer. But

Gordon agrees with me that no well-bred soul should embarrass itself

with any such troublesome query.'

This gave a chance to Gordon, who in such local reminiscences as

these had been able to take no part. The humorous mystery of Man's

personality had often been a subject of joke between him and me in

many a ramble in the Park and elsewhere. At once he threw himself

into a strain of whimsical philosophy which partly amused and partly

vexed Dereham, who stood waiting to return to the subject of the

gypsies and East Anglia.

'You are an Englishman?' said Dereham.

'Not only an Englishman, but an East Englishman,' I said, using a

phrase of his own in one of his books--'if not a thorough East

Anglian, an East Midlander; who, you will admit, is nearly as good.'

'Nearly,' said Dereham.

And when I went on to tell him that I once used to drive a genuine

'Shales mare,' a descendant of that same famous Norfolk trotter who

could trot fabulous miles an hour, to whom he with the Norfolk

farmers raised his hat in reverence at the Norwich horse fair; and

when I promised to show him a portrait of this same East Anglian mare

with myself behind her in a dogcart--an East Anglian dogcart; when I

praised the stinging saltness of the sea water off Yarmouth,

Lowestoft, and Cromer, the quality which makes it the best, the most

buoyant, the most delightful of all sea-water to swim in; when I told

him that the only English river in which you could see reflected the

rainbow he loved was 'the glassy Ouse' of East Anglia, and the only

place in England where you could see it reflected in the wet sand was

the Norfolk coast; and when I told him a good many things showing

that I was in very truth, not only an Englishman, but an East

Englishman, my conquest of Dereham was complete, and from that moment

we became friends.

Gordon meanwhile stood listening to the rooks in the distance. He

turned and asked Dereham whether he had never noticed a similarity

between the kind of muffled rattling roar made by the sea waves upon

a distant pebbly beach and the sound of a large rookery in the

distance.

'It is on sand alone,' said Dereham, 'that the sea strikes its true

music--Norfolk sand; a rattle is not music.'

'The best of the sea's lutes,' I said, 'is made by the sands of

Cromer.'"

These famous walks with Borrow (or Dereham, as he is called in the above

quotation) in Richmond Park and the neighbourhood, have been thus

described by the 'Gordon' of the story in one of the sonnets in 'The New

Day':--

And he the walking lord of gipsy lore!

How often 'mid the deer that grazed the park,

Or in the fields and heath and windy moor,

Made musical with many a soaring lark,

Have we not held brisk commune with him there,

While Lavengro, there towering by your side,

With rose complexion and bright silvery hair,

Would stop amid his swift and lounging stride

To tell the legends of the fading race--

As at the summons of his piercing glance,

Its story peopling his brown eyes and face,

While you called up that pendant of romance

To Petulengro with his boxing glory,

Your Amazonian Sinfi's noble story!

In the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' and in Chambers' 'Cyclopaedia of

English Literature,' and scattered through scores of articles in the

'Athenaeum,' I find descriptions of Borrow and allusions to him without

number. They afford absolutely the only portrait of that wonderful man

that exists or is ever likely to exist. But, of course, it is quite

impossible for me to fill my pages with Borrow when there are so many

more important figures waiting to be introduced. Still, I must find room

for the most brilliant little Borrow scene of all, for it will flush

these pages with a colour which I feel they need. Mr. Watts-Dunton has

been described as the most picturesque of all living writers, whether in

verse or in prose, and it is not for me to gainsay that judgment; but

never, I think, is he so picturesque as when he is writing about Borrow.

I am not quite clear as to where the following picture of gypsy life is

to be localized; but the scenery seems to be that of the part of England

where East Anglia and the Midlands join. It adds interest to the

incident to know that the beautiful gypsy girl was the prototype of Rhona

Boswell, and that Dereham is George Borrow. This also is a chapter from

the unpublished story before mentioned, which was afterwards modified to

be used in an introductory essay to another of Borrow's books:--

"It was in the late summer, just before the trees were clothed with

what Dereham called 'gypsy gold,' and the bright green of the foliage

showed scarcely a touch of bronze--at that very moment, indeed, when

the spirits of all the wild flowers that have left the commons and

the hedgerows seem to come back for an hour and mingle their

half-forgotten perfumes with the new breath of calamint, ground ivy,

and pimpernel. Dereham gave me as hearty a greeting as so shy a man

could give. He told me that he was bound for a certain camp of

gryengroes, old friends of his in his wandering days. In

conversation I reminded him of our previous talk, and I told him I

chanced at that very moment to have in my pocket a copy of the volume

of Matthew Arnold in which appears 'The Scholar-Gypsy.' Dereham said

he well remembered my directing his attention to 'The Scholar-Gypsy.'

After listening attentively to it, Dereham declared that there was

scarcely any latter-day poetry worth reading, and also that, whatever

the merits of Matthew Arnold's poem might be, from any supposed

artistic point of view, it showed that Arnold had no conception of

the Romany temper, and that no gypsy could sympathise with it, or

even understand its motive in the least degree. I challenged this,

contending that howsoever Arnold's classic language might soar above

a gypsy's intelligence, the motive was so clearly developed that the

most illiterate person could grasp it.

'I wish,' said Dereham, 'you would come with me to the camp and try

the poem upon the first intelligent gypsy woman we meet at the camp.

As to gypsy men,' said he, 'they are too prosaic to furnish a fair

test.'

We agreed, and as we were walking across the country Dereham became

very communicative, and talked very volubly upon gentility-nonsense,

and many other pet subjects of his. I already knew that he was no

lover of the aristocracy of England, or, as he called them, the

'trumpery great,' although in other regards he was such a John Bull.

By this time we had proceeded a good way on our little expedition.

As we were walking along, Dereham's eyes, which were as longsighted

as a gypsy's, perceived a white speck in a twisted old hawthorn-bush

some distance off. He stopped and said: 'At first I thought that

white speck in the bush was a piece of paper, but it's a

magpie,'--next to the water-wagtail, the gypsies' most famous bird.

On going up to the bush we discovered a magpie couched among the

leaves. As it did not stir at our approach, I said to him: 'It is

wounded--or else dying--or is it a tamed bird escaped from a cage?'

'Hawk!' said Dereham laconically, and turned up his face and gazed

into the sky. 'The magpie is waiting till the hawk has caught his

quarry and made his meal. I fancied he has himself been 'chivvied'

by the hawk, as the gypsies would say.'

And there, sure enough, beneath one of the silver clouds that

speckled the dazzling blue, a hawk--one of the kind which takes its

prey in the open rather than in the thick woodlands--was wheeling up

and up, trying its best to get above a poor little lark in order to

swoop at and devour it. That the magpie had seen the hawk and had

been a witness of the opening of the tragedy of the lark was evident,

for in its dread of the common foe of all well-intentioned and honest

birds, it had forgotten its fear of all creatures except the hawk.

Man, in such a crisis as this, it looked upon as a protecting friend.

As we were gazing at the bird a woman's voice at our elbows said,--

'It's lucky to chivvy the hawk what chivvies a magpie. I shall stop

here till the hawk's flew away.'

We turned round, and there stood a fine young gypsy woman, carrying,

gypsy fashion, a weakly child that in spite of its sallow and wasted

cheek proclaimed itself to be hers. By her side stood a young gypsy

girl. She was beautiful--quite remarkably so--but her beauty was not

of the typical Romany kind. It was, as I afterwards learned, more

like the beauty of a Capri girl.

She was bareheaded--there was not even a gypsy handkerchief on her

head--her hair was not plaited, and was not smooth and glossy like a

gypsy girl's hair, but flowed thick and heavy and rippling down the

back of her neck and upon her shoulders. In the tumbled tresses

glittered certain objects, which at first sight seemed to be jewels.

They were small dead dragonflies, of the crimson kind called

'sylphs.'

To Dereham these gypsies were evidently well known. The woman with

the child was one of the Boswells; I dare not say what was her

connection, if any, with 'Boswell the Great'--I mean Sylvester

Boswell, the grammarian and 'well-known and popalated gypsy of

Codling Gap,' who, on a memorable occasion, wrote so eloquently about

the superiority of the gypsy mode of life to all others, 'on the

accont of health, sweetness of air, and for enjoying the pleasure of

Nature's life.'

Dereham told me in a whisper that her name was Perpinia, and that the

other gypsy, the girl of the dragon-flies, was the famous beauty of

the neighbourhood--Rhona Boswell, of whom many stories had reached

him with regard to Percy Aylwin, a relative of Rosamond's father.

After greeting the two, Dereham looked at the weakling child with the

deepest interest, and said to the mother: 'This chavo ought not to

look like that--with such a mother as you, Perpinia.' 'And with such

a daddy, too,' said she. 'Mike's stronger for a man nor even I am

for a woman'--a glow of wifely pride passing over her face; 'and as

to good looks, it's him as has got the good looks, not me. But none

on us can't make it out about the chavo. He's so weak and sick he

don't look as if he belonged to Boswell's breed at all.'

'How many pipes of tobacco do you smoke in a day?' said I, looking at

the great black cutty pipe protruding from Perpinia's finely cut

lips, and seeming strangely out of place there.

'Can't say,' said she, laughing.

'About as many as she can afford to buy,' interrupted 'the beauty of

the Ouse,' as Rhona Boswell was called. 'That's all. Mike don't

like her a-smokin'. He says it makes her look like a old Londra

Irish woman in Common Garding Market.'

'You must not smoke another pipe,' said I to the mother--'not another

pipe till the child leaves the breast.'

'What?' said Perpinia defiantly. 'As if I could live without my

pipe!'

'Fancy Pep a-living without her baccy!' laughed Rhona.

'Your child can't live with it,' said I to Perpinia. 'That pipe of

yours is full of a poison called nicotine.'

'Nick what?' said Rhona, laughing. 'That's a new kind of nick. Why,

you smoke yourself!'

'Nicotine,' said I. 'And the first part of Pep's body that the

poison gets into is her breast, and--'

'Gets into my burk,' {112} said Perpinia. 'Get along wi' ye.'

'Yes.'

'Do it pison Pep's milk?' said Rhona.

'Yes.'

'That ain't true,' said Perpinia--'can't be true.'

'It is true,' said I. 'If you don't give up that pipe for a time,

the child will die, or else be a ricketty thing all his life. If you

do give it up, it will grow up to be as fine a gypsy as ever your

husband can be.'

'Chavo agin pipe, Pep!' said Rhona.

'Lend me your pipe, Perpinia,' said Dereham, in that

hail-fellow-well-met tone of his, which he reserved for the

Romanies--a tone which no Romany could ever resist. And he took it

gently from the woman's lips. 'Don't smoke any more till I come to

the camp and see the chavo again.'

'He be's a good friend to the Romanies,' said Rhona, in an appeasing

tone.

'That's true,' said the woman; 'but he's no business to take my pipe

out o' my mouth for all that.'

She soon began to smile again, however, and let Dereham retain the

pipe. Dereham and I then moved away towards the dusty high-road

leading to the camp, and were joined by Rhona. Perpinia remained,

keeping guard over the magpie that was to bring luck to the sinking

child.

It was determined now that Rhona was the very person to be used as

the test-critic of the Romany mind upon Arnold's poem, for she was

exceptionally intelligent. So instead of going to the camp, the

oddly assorted little party of three struck across the ferns, gorse,

and heather towards 'Kingfisher brook,' and when we reached it we sat

down on a fallen tree.

Nothing, as afterwards I came to know, delights a gypsy girl so much,

in whatever country she may be born, as to listen to a story either

told or read to her, and when I pulled my book from my pocket the

gypsy girl began to clap her hands. Her anticipation of enjoyment

sent over her face a warm glow.

Her complexion, though darker than an English girl's, was rather

lighter than an ordinary gypsy's. Her eyes were of an indescribable

hue; but an artist who has since then painted her portrait for me,

described it as a mingling of pansy purple and dark tawny. The

pupils were so large that, being set in the somewhat almond-shaped

and long-eyelashed lids of her race, they were partly curtained both

above and below, and this had the peculiar effect of making the eyes

seem always a little contracted and just about to smile. The great

size and deep richness of the eyes made the straight little nose seem

smaller than it really was; they also lessened the apparent size of

the mouth, which, red as a rosebud, looked quite small until she

laughed, when the white teeth made quite a wide glitter.

Before three lines of the poem had been read she jumped up and cried,

'Look at the Devil's needles! They're come to sew my eyes up for

killing their brothers.'

And surely enough a gigantic dragon-fly, whose body-armour of sky

blue and jet black, and great lace-woven wings, shining like a

rainbow gauze, caught the sun as he swept dazzling by, did really

seem to be attracted either by the wings of his dead brothers or by

the lights shed from the girl's eyes.

'I dussn't set here,' said she. 'Us Romanies call this 'Dragon-fly

Brook.' And that's the king o' the dragon-flies: he lives here.'

As she rose she seemed to be surrounded by dragon-flies of about a

dozen different species of all sizes, some crimson, some bronze, some

green and gold, whirling and dancing round her as if they meant to

justify their Romany name and sew up the girl's eyes.

'The Romanies call them the Devil's needles,' said Dereham; 'their

business is to sew up pretty girls' eyes.'

In a second, however, they all vanished, and the girl after a while

sat down again to listen to the 'lil,' as she called the story.

[Picture: A Letter Box on the Broads. (From an Oil Painting at 'The

Pines.')]

Glanville's prose story, upon which Arnold's poem is based, was read

first. In this Rhona was much interested. But when I went on to

read to her Arnold's poem, though her eyes flashed now and then at

the lovely bits of description--for the country about Oxford is quite

remarkably like the country in which she was born--she looked sadly

bewildered, and then asked to have it all read again. After a second

reading she said in a meditative way: 'Can't make out what the lil's

all about--seems all about nothink! Seems to me that the pretty

sights what makes a Romany fit to jump out o' her skin for joy makes

this 'ere gorgio want to cry. What a rum lot gorgios is surely!'

And then she sprang up and ran off towards the camp with the agility

of a greyhound, turning round every few moments, pirouetting and

laughing aloud.

'Let's go to the camp!' said Dereham. 'That was all true about the

nicotine--was it not?'

'Partly, I think,' said I, 'but not being a medical man I must not be

too emphatic. If it is true it ought to be a criminal offence for

any woman to smoke in excess while she is suckling a child.'

'Say it ought to be a criminal offence for a woman to smoke at all,'

growled Dereham. 'Fancy kissing a woman's mouth that smelt of stale

tobacco--pheugh!'"

After giving these two delightful descriptions of Borrow and his

environment, I will now quote Mr. Watts-Dunton's description of their

last meeting:--

'The last time I ever saw Borrow was shortly before he left London to

live in the country. It was, I remember well, on Waterloo Bridge,

where I had stopped to gaze at a sunset of singular and striking

splendour, whose gorgeous clouds and ruddy mists were reeling and

boiling over the West End. Borrow came up and stood leaning over the

parapet, entranced by the sight, as well he might be. Like most

people born in flat districts, he had a passion for sunsets. Turner

could not have painted that one, I think, and certainly my pen could

not describe it; for the London smoke was flushed by the sinking sun

and had lost its dunness, and, reddening every moment as it rose

above the roofs, steeples, and towers, it went curling round the

sinking sun in a rosy vapour, leaving, however, just a segment of a

golden rim, which gleamed as dazzlingly as in the thinnest and

clearest air--a peculiar effect which struck Borrow deeply. I never

saw such a sunset before or since, not even on Waterloo Bridge; and

from its association with 'the last of Borrow' I shall never forget

it.'

A TALK ON WATERLOO BRIDGE

THE LAST SIGHT OF GEORGE BORROW

We talked of 'Children of the Open Air,'

Who once on hill and valley lived aloof,

Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof

Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth fair,

Till, on a day, across the mystic bar

Of moonrise, came the 'Children of the Roof,'

Who find no balm 'neath evening's rosiest woof,

Nor dews of peace beneath the Morning Star.

We looked o'er London where men wither and choke,

Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and skies,

And lore of woods and wild wind-prophecies--

Yea, every voice that to their fathers spoke:

And sweet it seemed to die ere bricks and smoke

Leave never a meadow outside Paradise.

While the noble music of this double valediction in poetry and prose is

sounding in our ears, my readers and I, 'with wandering steps and slow,'

may also fitly take our reluctant leave of George Borrow.

Chapter X

THE ACTED DRAMA

IT was during the famous evenings in Dr. Marston's house at Chalk Farm

that Mr. Watts-Dunton was for the first time brought into contact with

the theatrical world. I do not know that he was ever closely connected

with that world, but in the set in which he specially moved at this time

he seems to have been almost the only one who was a regular playgoer and

first-nighter, for Rossetti's playgoing days were nearly over, and Mr.

Swinburne never was a playgoer. Mr. Watts-Dunton still takes, as may be

seen in his sonnet to Ellen Terry, which I shall quote, a deep interest

in the acted drama and in the acting profession, although of late years

he has not been much seen at the theatres. When, after a while, he and

Minto were at work on the 'Examiner' Mr. Watts-Dunton occasionally,

although I think rarely, wrote a theatrical critique for that paper. The

only one I have had an opportunity of reading is upon Miss Neilson--not

the Miss Julia Neilson who is so much admired in our day; but the

powerful, dark-eyed creole-looking beauty, Lilian Adelaide Neilson, who,

after being a mill-hand and a barmaid, became a famous tragedian, and

made a great impression in Juliet, and in impassioned poetical parts of

that kind. The play in which she appeared on that occasion was a play by

Tom Taylor, called 'Anne Boleyn,' in which Miss Neilson took the part of

the heroine. It was given at the Haymarket in February 1876. I do not

remember reading any criticism in which so much admirable writing--acute,

brilliant, and learned--was thrown away upon so mediocre a play. Mr.

Watts-Dunton's remarks upon Miss Neilson's acting were, however, not

thrown away, for the subject seems to have been fully worthy of them; and

I, who love the acted drama myself, regret that the actress's early death

in 1880, robbed me of the pleasure of seeing her. She was one of the

actresses whom Mr. Watts-Dunton used to meet on Sunday evenings at

Marston's, and I have heard him say that her genius was as apparent in

her conversation as in her acting. Miss Corkran has recently sketched

one of these meetings, and has given us a graphic picture of Mr.

Watts-Dunton there, contrasting his personal appearance with that of Mr.

Swinburne. They must indeed have been delightful gatherings to a lover

of the theatre, for there Miss Neilson, Miss Glyn, Miss Ada Cavendish,

and others were to be met--met in the company of Irving, Sothern, Hermann

Vezin, and many another famous actor.

That Mr. Watts-Dunton had a peculiar insight into histrionic art was

shown by what occurred on his very first appearance at the Marston

evenings, whither he was taken by his friend, Dr. Gordon Hake, who used

to tell the following story with great humour; and Rossetti also used to

repeat it with still greater gusto. I am here again indebted to his son,

Mr. Hake--who was also a friend of Dr. Marston, Ada Cavendish, and

others--for interesting reminiscences of these Marston evenings which

have never been published. Mr. Watts-Dunton at that time was, of course,

quite unknown, except in a very small circle of literary men and artists.

Three or four dramatic critics, several poets, and two actresses, one of

whom was Ada Cavendish, were talking about Irving in 'The Bells,' which

was a dramatization by a writer named Leopold Lewis of the 'Juif

Polonais' of Erckmann-Chatrian. They were all enthusiastically extolling

Irving's acting; and this is not surprising, as all will say who have

seen him in the part. But while some were praising the play, others were

running it down. "What I say," said one of the admirers, "is that the

motif of 'The Bells,' the use of the idea of a sort of embodied

conscience to tell the audience the story and bring about the

catastrophe, is the newest that has appeared in drama or fiction--it is

entirely original."

"Not entirely, I think," said a voice which, until that evening, was new

in the circle. They turned round to listen to what the dark-eyed young

stranger, tanned by the sun to a kind of gypsy colour, who looked like

William Black, quietly smoking his cigarette, had to say.

"Not entirely new?" said one. "Who was the originator, then, of the

idea?"

"I can't tell you that," said the interrupting voice, "for it occurs in a

very old Persian story, and it was evidently old even then. But

Erckmann-Chatrian took it from a much later story-teller. They adapted

it from Chamisso."

"Is that the author of 'Peter Schlemihl'?" said one.

"Yes," replied Mr. Watts-Dunton, "but Chamisso was a poet before he was a

prose writer, and he wrote a rhymed story in which the witness of a

murder was the sunrise, and at dawn the criminal was affected in the same

way that Matthias is affected by the sledge bells. The idea that the

sensorium, in an otherwise perfectly sane brain, can translate sights and

sound into accusations of a crime is, of course, perfectly true, and in

the play it is wonderfully given by Irving."

"Well," said Dr. Marston, "that is the best account I have yet heard of

the origin of 'The Bells.'"

Then the voice of one of the disparagers of the play said: "There you

are! The very core of Erckmann-Chatrian's story and Lewis's play has

been stolen and spoilt from another writer. The acting, as I say, is

superb--the play is rot."

"Well, I do not think so," said Mr. Watts-Dunton. "I think it a new and

a striking play."

"Will you give your reasons, sir?" said Dr. Marston, in that

old-fashioned courtly way which was one of his many charms.

"Certainly," said Mr. Watts-Dunton, "if it will be of any interest. You

recollect Coleridge's remarks upon expectation and surprise in drama. I

think it a striking play because I cannot recall any play in which the

entire source of interest is that of pure expectation unadulterated by

surprise. From the opening dialogue, before ever the burgomaster

appears, the audience knows that a murder has been committed, and that

the murderer must be the burgomaster, and yet the audience is kept in

breathless suspense through pure expectation as to whether or not the

crime will be brought home to him, and if brought home to him, how."

"Well," said the voice of one of the admirers of the play, "that is the

best criticism of 'The Bells' I have yet heard." After this the

conversation turned upon Jefferson's acting of Rip Van Winkle, and many

admirable remarks fell from a dozen lips. When there was a pause in

these criticisms, Dr. Marston turned to Mr. Watts-Dunton and said, "Have

you seen Jefferson in 'Rip van Winkle,' sir?"

"Yes, indeed," was the reply, "many times; and I hope to see it many more

times. It is wonderful. I think it lucky that I have been able to see

the great exemplar of what may be called the Garrick type of actor, and

the great exemplar of what may be called the Edmund Kean type of actor."

On being asked what he meant by this classification, Mr. Watts-Dunton

launched out into one of those wide-sweeping but symmetrical monologues

of criticism in which beginning, middle, and end, were as perfectly

marked as though the improvization had been a well-considered essay--the

subject being the style of acting typified by Garrick and the style of

acting typified by Robson. As this same idea runs through Mr.

Watts-Dunton's criticism of Got in 'Le Roi s'Amuse' (which I shall quote

later), there is no need to dwell upon it here.

"As an instance," he said, "of Jefferson's supreme power in this line of

acting, one might refer to Act II. of the play, where Rip mounts the

Catskill Mountains in the company of the goblins. Rip talks with the

goblins one after the other, and there seems to be a dramatic dialogue

going on. It is not till the curtain falls that the audience realizes

that every word spoken during that act came from the lips of Rip, so

entirely have Jefferson's facial expression and intonation dramatized

each goblin."

Between Mr. Watts-Dunton and our great Shakespearean actress, Ellen

Terry, there has been an affectionate friendship running over nearly a

quarter of a century. This is not at all surprising to one who knows

Miss Terry's high artistic taste and appreciation of poetry. Among the

poems expressing that friendship, none is more pleasing than the sonnet

that appeared in the 'Magazine of Art' to which Mr. Bernard Partridge

contributed his superb drawing of Miss Terry in the part of Queen

Katherine. It is entitled, 'Queen Katherine: on seeing Miss Ellen Terry

as Katherine in King Henry VIII':--

Seeking a tongue for tongueless shadow-land,

Has Katherine's soul come back with power to quell

A sister-soul incarnate, and compel

Its bodily voice to speak by Grief's command?

Or is it Katherine's self returns to stand

As erst she stood defying Wolsey's spell--

Returns with those vile wrongs she fain would tell

Which memory bore to Eden's amaranth strand?

Or is it thou, dear friend--this Queen, whose face

The salt of many tears hath scarred and stung?--

Can it be thou, whose genius, ever young,

Lighting the body with the spirit's grace,

Is loved by England--loved by all the race

Round all the world enlinked by Shakespeare's tongue!

With one exception I do not find any dramatic criticisms by Mr.

Watts-Dunton in the 'Athenaeum.' Indeed, I should not expect to find him

trenching upon the domain of the greatest dramatic critic of our time,

Mr. Joseph Knight. No one speaks with greater admiration of Mr. Knight

than his friend of thirty years' standing, Mr. Watts-Dunton himself; and

when an essay on 'King John' was required for the series of Shakespeare

essays to accompany Mr. Edwin Abbey's famous illustrations in 'Harper's

Magazine,' it was Mr. Knight whom Mr. Watts-Dunton invited to discuss

this important play. The exception I allude to is the criticism of

Victor Hugo's 'Le Roi s'Amuse,' which appeared in the 'Athenaeum' of

December 2, 1882.

The way in which it came about that Mr. Watts-Dunton undertook for the

'Athenaeum' so important a piece of dramatic criticism is interesting.

In 1882 M. Vacquerie, the editor of 'Le Rappel,' a relative of Hugo's,

and a great friend of Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Watts-Dunton, together with

other important members of the Hugo cenacle, determined to get up a

representation of 'Le Roi s'Amuse' on the jubilee of its first

representation, since when it had never been acted. Vacquerie sent two

fauteuils, one for Mr. Swinburne and one for Mr. Watts-Dunton; and the

two poets were present at that memorable representation. Long before the

appointed day there was on the Continent, from Paris to St. Petersburg,

an unprecedented demand for seats; for it was felt that this was the most

interesting dramatic event that had occurred for fifty years.

Consequently the editor of the 'Athenaeum' for once invited his chief

literary contributor to fill the post which the dramatic editor of the

paper, Mr. Joseph Knight, generously yielded to him for the occasion, and

the following article appeared:--

"Paris, November 23, 1882.

"I felt that the revival, at the Theatre Francais, of 'Le Roi

s'Amuse,' on the fiftieth anniversary of its original production,

must be one of the most interesting literary events of our time, and

so I found it to be. Victor Hugo was there, sitting with his arms

folded across his breast, calm but happy, in a stage box. He

expressed himself satisfied and even delighted with the acting. The

poet's appearance was fuller of vitality and more Olympian than ever.

Between the acts he left the theatre and walked about in the square,

leaning on the arm of his illustrious poet friend and family

connection, Auguste Vacquerie, to whose kindness I was indebted for a

seat in the fauteuils d'orchestre, which otherwise I should have

found to be quite unattainable, so unprecedented was the demand for

places. It is said that a thousand francs were given for a seat.

Never before was seen, even in a French theatre, an audience so

brilliant and so illustrious. I did not, however, see any English

face I knew save that of Mr. Swinburne, who at the end of the third

act might have been seen talking to Hugo in his box. Among the most

appreciative and enthusiastic of those who assisted at the

representation was the French poet, who perhaps in the nineteenth

century stands next to Hugo for intellectual massiveness, M. Leconte

de Lisle. And I should say that every French poet and indeed every

man of eminence was there.

Considering the extraordinary nature of the piece, the cast was

perhaps as satisfactory as could have been hoped for. Fond as is M.

Hugo of spectacular effects, and even of coups de theatre, no other

dramatist gives so little attention as he to the idiosyncrasies of

actors. It is easy to imagine that Shakespeare in writing his lines

was not always unmindful of an actor like Burbage. But in depicting

Triboulet, Hugo must have thought as little about the specialities of

Ligier, who took the part on the first night in 1832, as of the

future Got, who was to take it on the second night in 1882. And the

same may be said of Blanche in relation to the two actresses who

successively took that part. This is, I think, exactly the way in

which a dramatist should work. The contrary method is not more

ruinous to drama as a literary form than to the actor's art. To

write up to an actor's style destroys all true character-drawing;

also it ends by writing up to the actor's mere manner, who from that

moment is, as an artist, doomed. On the whole, the performance

wanted more glow and animal spirits. The Francois I of M.

Mounet-Sully was full of verve, but this actor's voice is so

exceedingly rich and emotional that the king seemed more poetic, and

hence more sympathetic to the audience, than was consistent with a

character who in a sense is held up as the villain of the piece. The

true villain, here, however, as in 'Torquemada,' 'Notre Dame de

Paris,' 'Les Miserables,' and, indeed, in all Hugo's characteristic

works, is not an individual at all, but Circumstance. Circumstance

placed Francis, a young and pleasure-loving king, over a licentious

court. Circumstance gave him a court jester with a temper which, to

say the least of it, was peculiar for such times as those.

Circumstance, acting through the agency of certain dissolute

courtiers, thrust into the king's very bedroom the girl whom he loved

and who belonged to a class from whom he had been taught to expect

subservience of every kind. The tragic mischief of the rape follows

almost as a necessary consequence. Add to this the fact that

Circumstance contrives that the girl Maguelonne, instead of aiding

her more conscientious brother in killing the disguised king at the

bidding of 'the client who pays,' falls unexpectedly in love with

him; while Circumstance also contrives that Blanche shall be there

ready at the very spot at the very moment where and when she is

imperatively wanted as a substituted victim;--and you get the entire

motif of 'Le Roi s'Amuse'--man enmeshed in a web of circumstance, the

motif of 'Notre Dame de Paris,' the motif of 'Torquemada,' and, in a

certain deep sense, perhaps the proper motif in romantic drama. For

when the vis matrix of classic drama, the supernatural interference

of conscious Destiny, was no longer available to the artist,

something akin to it--something nobler and more powerful than the

stage villain--was found to be necessary to save tragedy from sinking

into melodrama. And this explains so many of the complexities of

Shakespeare.

In the dramas of Victor Hugo, however, the romantic temper has

advanced quite as far as it ought to advance not only in the use of

Circumstance as the final cause of the tragic mischief, but in the

use of the grotesque in alliance with the terrible. The greatest

masters of the terrible-grotesque till we get to the German

romanticists were the English dramatists of the sixteenth and the

early portion of the seventeenth century, and of course by far the

greatest among these was Shakespeare. For the production of the

effect in question there is nothing comparable to the scenes in

'Lear' between the king and the fool--scenes which seem very early in

his life to have struck Hugo more than anything else in literature.

Outside the Elizabethan dramatists, however, there can be no doubt

that (leaving out of the discussion the great German masters in this

line) Hugo is the greatest worker in the terrible-grotesque that has

appeared since Burns. I need only point to Quasimodo and Triboulet

and compare them not merely with such attempts in this line as those

of writers like Beddoes, but even with the magnificent work of Mr.

Browning, who though far more subtle than Hugo is without his

sublimity and amazing power over chiaroscuro. Now, the most

remarkable feature of the revival of 'Le Roi s'Amuse,' and that which

made me above all other reasons desirous to see it, was that the

character of Triboulet was to be rendered by an actor of rare and

splendid genius, but who, educated in the genteel comedy of modern

France and also in the social subtleties of Moliere, seemed the last

man in Paris to give that peculiar expression of the romantic temper

which I have called the terrible-grotesque.

That M. Got's success in a part so absolutely unsuited to him should

have been as great as it was is, in my judgment, the crowning success

of his life. It is as though Thackeray, after completing 'Philip,'

had set himself to write a romance in the style of 'Notre Dame de

Paris,' and succeeded in the attempt. Yet the success of M. Got was

relative only, I think. The Triboulet was not the Triboulet of the

reader's own imaginings, but an admirable Triboulet of the Comedie

Francaise. Perhaps, however, the truth is that there is not an actor

in Europe who could adequately render such a character as Triboulet.

This is what I mean: all great actors are divisible into two groups,

which are by temperament and endowment the exact opposites of each

other. There are those who, like Garrick, producing their effects by

means of a self-dominance and a conservation of energy akin to that

of Goethe in poetry, are able to render a character, coldly indeed,

but with matchless verisimilitude in its every nuance. And there are

those who, like Edmund Kean and Robson, 'live' in the character so

entirely that self-dominance and conservation of energy are not

possible, and who, whensoever the situation becomes very intense,

work miracles of representation by sheer imaginative abandon, but do

so at the expense of that delicacy of light and shade in the entire

conception which is the great quest of the actor as an artist. And

if it should be found that in order to render Triboulet there is

requisite for the more intense crises of the piece the abandon of

Kean and Robson, and at the same time, for the carrying on of the

play, the calm, self-conscious staying power of Garrick, the

conclusion will be obvious that Triboulet is essentially an unactable

character. I will illustrate this by an instance. The reader will

remember that in the third act of 'Le Roi s'Amuse,' Triboulet's

daughter Blanche, after having been violated by the king at the

Louvre, rushes into the antechamber, where stands her father

surrounded by the group of sneering courtiers who, unknown both to

the king and to Triboulet, have abducted her during the night and set

her in the king's way. When the girl tells her father of the

terrible wrong that has been done to her, he passes at once from the

mood of sardonic defiance which was natural to him into a state of

passion so terrible that a sudden and magical effect is produced: the

conventional walls between him, the poor despised court jester, and

the courtiers, are suddenly overthrown by the unexpected operation of

one of those great human instincts which make the whole world kin:--

TRIBOULET (faisant trois pas, et balayant du geste tous les seigneurs

inter dits).

Allez-vous-en d'ici!

Et, si le roi Francois par malheur se hasarde

A passer pres d'ici, (a Monsieur de Vermandois) vous etes de sa

garde,

Dites-lui de ne pas entrer,--que je suis la.

M. DE PIENNE. On n'a jamais rien vu de fou comme cela.

M. DE GORDES (lui faisant signe de se retirer). Aux fous comme aux

enfants on cede quelque chose.

Veillons pourtant, de peur d'accident.

[Ils sortent.

TRIBOULET (s'asseyant sur le fauteuil du roi et relevant sa fille.)

Allons, cause.

Dis-moi tout. (Il se retourne, et, apercevant Monsieur de Cosse, qui

est reste, il se leve a demi en lui montrant la porte). M'avez-vous

en tendu, monseigneur?

M. DE COSSE (tout en se retirant comme subjugue par l'ascendant du

bouffon). Ces fous, cela se croit tout permis, en honneur!

[Il sort.

Now in reading 'Le Roi s'Amuse,' startling as is the situation, it

does not seem exaggerated, for Victor Hugo's lines are adequate in

simple passion to effect the dramatic work, and the reader feels that

Triboulet was wrought up to the state of exaltation to which the

lines give expression, that nothing could resist him, and that the

proud courtiers must in truth have cowered before him in the manner

here indicated by the dramatist. In literature the artist does not

actualize; he suggests, and leaves the reader's imagination free.

But an actor has to actualize this state of exaltation--he has to

bring the physical condition answering to the emotional condition

before the eyes of the spectator; and if he fails to display as much

of the 'fine frenzy' of passion as is requisite to cow and overawe a

group of cynical worldlings, the situation becomes forced and

unnatural, inasmuch as they are overawed without a sufficient cause.

That an actor like Robson could and would have risen to such an

occasion no one will doubt who ever saw him (for he was the very

incarnation of the romantic temper), but then the exhaustion would

have been so great that it would have been impossible for him to go

on bearing the entire weight of this long play as M. Got does. The

actor requires, as I say, the abandon characteristic of one kind of

histrionic art together with the staying power characteristic of

another. Now, admirable as is M. Got in this and in all scenes of

'Le Roi s'Amuse,' he does not pass into such a condition of exalted

passion as makes the retirement of the courtiers seem probable. For

artistic perfection there was nothing in the entire representation

that surpassed the scenes between Saltabadil and Maguelonne in the

hovel on the banks of the Seine. It would be difficult, indeed, to

decide which was the more admirable, the Saltabadil of M. Febvre or

the Maguelonne of Jeanne Samary.

AT THE THEATRE FRANCAIS

NOVEMBER 22, 1882

Poet of pity and scourge of sceptred crime--

Titan of light, with scarce the gods for peers--

What thoughts come to thee through the mist of years,

There sitting calm, master of Fate and Time?

Homage from every tongue, from every clime,

In place of gibes, fills now thy satiate ears.

Mine own heart swells, mine eyelids prick with tears

In very pride of thee, old man sublime!

And thou, the mother who bore him, beauteous France,

Round whose fair limbs what web of sorrow is spun!--

I see thee lift thy tear-stained countenance--

Victress by many a victory he hath won;

I hear thy voice o'er winds of Fate and Chance

Say to the conquered world: 'Behold my son!'

I may mention here that Mr. Watts-Dunton has always shown the greatest

admiration of the actor's art and the greatest interest in actors and

actresses. He has affirmed that 'the one great art in which women are as

essential as men--the one great art in which their place can never be

supplied by men--is in the acted drama, which the Greeks held in such

high esteem that AEschylus and Sophocles acted as stage managers and

show-masters, although the stage mask dispensed with much of the

necessity of calling in the aid of women.'

'Great as is the importance of female poets,' says Mr. Watts-Dunton, 'men

are so rich in endowment, that literature would be a worthy expression of

the human mind if there had been no Sappho and no Emily Bronte--no Mrs.

Browning--no Christina Rossetti. Great as is the importance of female

novelists, men again are so rich in endowment that literature would be a

worthy expression of the human mind if there had been no Georges Sand, no

Jane Austen, no Charlotte Bronte, no George Eliot, no Mrs. Gaskell, no

Mrs. Craigie. As to painting and music, up to now women have not been

notable workers in either of these departments, notwithstanding Rosa

Bonheur and one or two others. But, to say nothing of France, what in

England would have been the acted drama, whether in prose or verse,

without Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Hermann Vezin, Adelaide Neilson, Miss Glyn, in

tragedy; without Mrs. Bracegirdle, Kitty Clive, Julia Neilson, Ellen

Terry, Irene Vanbrugh and Ada Rehan in comedy?'

People who run down actresses should say at once that the acted drama is

not one of the fine arts at all. Mr. Watts-Dunton has often expressed

the opinion that there is in England a great waste of histrionic

endowment among women, owing to the ignorant prejudice against the stage

which even now is prevalent in England. 'An enormous waste of force,'

says he, 'there is, of course, in other departments of intellectual

activity, but nothing like the waste of latent histrionic powers among

Englishwomen.' And he supplies many examples of this which have come

under his own observation, among which I can mention only one.

'Some years ago,' he said to me, 'I was invited to go to see the

performance of a French play given by the pupils of a fashionable school

in the West End of London. Apart from the admirable French accent of the

girls I was struck by the acting of two or three performers who showed

some latent dramatic talent. I have always taken an interest in amateur

dramatic performances, for a reason that Lady Archibald Campbell in one

of her writings has well discussed, namely, that what the amateur actor

or actress may lack in knowledge of stage traditions he or she will

sometimes more than make up for by the sweet flexibility and abandon of

nature. The amateur will often achieve that rarest of all artistic

excellencies, whether in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, or

histrionics--naivete: a quality which in poetry is seen in its perfection

in the finest of the writings of Coleridge; in acting, it is perhaps seen

in its perfection in Duse. Now, on the occasion to which I refer, one of

these schoolgirl actresses achieved, as I thought, and as others thought

with me, this rare and perfect flower of histrionics; and when I came to

know her I found that she joined wide culture and an immense knowledge of

Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, and Moliere with an innate gift for

rendering them. In any other society than that of England she would have

gone on the stage as a matter of course, but the fatal prejudice about

social position prevented her from following the vocation that Nature

intended for her. Since then I have seen two or three such cases, not so

striking as this one, but striking enough to make me angry with

Philistinism.'

With this sympathy for histrionic art, it is not at all surprising that

Mr. Watts-Dunton took the greatest interest in the open-air plays

organized by Lady Archibald Campbell at Coombe. I have seen a brilliant

description of these plays by him which ought to have been presented to

the public years ago. It forms, I believe, a long chapter of an

unpublished novel. Turning over the pages of Davenport Adams's

'Dictionary of the Drama,' which every lover of the theatre must regret

he did not live to complete, I come accidentally upon these words: "One

of the most recently printed epilogues is that which Theodore

Watts-Dunton wrote for an amateur performance of Banville's 'Le Baiser'

at Coombe, Surrey, in August, 1889." And this reminds me that I ought to

quote this famous epilogue here; for Professor Strong in his review of

'The Coming of Love' in 'Literature' speaks of the amazing command over

metre and colour and story displayed in the poem. It is, I believe, the

only poem in the English language in which an elaborate story is fully

told by poetic suggestion instead of direct statement.

A REMINISCENCE OF THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS.

Epilogue for the open-air performance of Banville's 'Le Baiser, in

which Lady Archibald Campbell took the part of 'Pierrot' and Miss

Annie Schletter the part of the 'Fairy.'--Coombe, August 9, 1889.

TO PIERROT IN LOVE

The Clown whose kisses turned a Crone to a Fairy-queen

What dost thou here in Love's enchanted wood,

Pierrot, who once wert safe as clown and thief--

Held safe by love of fun and wine and food--

From her who follows love of Woman, Grief--

Her who of old stalked over Eden-grass

Behind Love's baby-feet--whose shadow threw

On every brook, as on a magic glass,

Prophetic shapes of what should come to pass

When tears got mixt with Paradisal dew?

Kisses are loved but for the lips that kiss:

Thine have restored a princess to her throne,

Breaking the spell which barred from fairy bliss

A fay, and shrank her to a wrinkled crone;

But, if thou dream'st that thou from Pantomime

Shalt clasp an angel of the mystic moon,

Clasp her on banks of Love's own rose and thyme,

While woodland warblers ring the nuptial-chime--

Bottom to thee were but a week buffoon.

When yonder fairy, long ago, was told

The spell which caught her in malign eclipse,

Turning her radiant body foul and old,

Would yield to some knight-errant's virgin lips,

And when, through many a weary day and night,

She, wondering who the paladin would be

Whose kiss should charm her from her grievous plight,

Pictured a-many princely heroes bright,

Dost thou suppose she ever pictured thee?

'Tis true the mischief of the foeman's charm

Yielded to thee--to that first kiss of thine.

We saw her tremble--lift a rose-wreath arm,

Which late, all veined and shrivelled, made her pine;

We saw her fingers rise and touch her cheek,

As if the morning breeze across the wood,

Which lately seemed to strike so chill and bleak

Through all the wasted body, bent and weak,

Were light and music now within her blood.

'Tis true thy kiss made all her form expand--

Made all the skin grow smooth and pure as pearl,

Till there she stood, tender, yet tall and grand,

A queen of Faery, yet a lovesome girl,

Within whose eyes--whose wide, new-litten eyes--

New-litten by thy kiss's re-creation--

Expectant joy that yet was wild surprise

Made all her flesh like light of summer skies

When dawn lies dreaming of the morn's carnation.

But when thou saw'st the breaking of the spell

Within whose grip of might her soul had pined,

Like some sweet butterfly that breaks the cell

In which its purple pinions slept confined,

And when thou heard'st the strains of elfin song

Her sisters sang from rainbow cars above her--

Didst thou suppose that she, though prisoned long,

And freed at last by thee from all the wrong,

Must for that kiss take Harlequin for lover?

Hearken, sweet fool! Though Banville carried thee

To lawns where love and song still share the sward

Beyond the golden river few can see,

And fewer still, in these grey days, can ford;

And though he bade the wings of Passion fan

Thy face, till every line grows bright and human,

Feathered thy spirit's wing for wider span,

And fired thee with the fire that comes to man

When first he plucks the rose of Nature, Woman;

And though our actress gives thee that sweet gaze

Where spirit and matter mingle in liquid blue--

That face, where pity through the frolic plays--

That form, whose lines of light Love's pencil drew--

That voice whose music seems a new caress

Whenever passion makes a new transition

From key to key of joy or quaint distress--

That sigh, when, now, thy fairy's loveliness

Leaves thee alone to mourn Love's vanished vision:

Still art thou Pierrot--naught but Pierrot ever;

For is not this the very word of Fate:

'No mortal, clown or king, shall e'er dissever

His present glory from his past estate'?

Yet be thou wise and dry those foolish tears;

The clown's first kiss was needed, not the clown,

By her, who, fired by hopes and chilled by fears,

Sought but a kiss like thine for years on years:

Be wise, I say, and wander back to town.

Recurring to the Marston gatherings, I reproduce here, from the same

unpublished story to which I have already alluded, the following

interesting account of them and of other social reunions of the like

kind.

"Many of those who have reached life's meridian, or passed it, will

remember the sudden rise, a quarter of a century ago, of Rossetti,

Swinburne, and William Morris--poets who seemed for a time to

threaten the ascendency of Tennyson himself. Between this galaxy and

the latest generation of poets there rose, culminated, and apparently

set, another--the group which it was the foolish fashion to call 'the

pre-Raphaelite poets,' some of whom yielded, or professed to yield,

to the influence of Rossetti, some to that of William Morris, and

some to that of Swinburne. Round them all, however, there was the

aura of Baudelaire or else of Gautier. These--though, as in all such

cases, nature had really made them very unlike each other--formed

themselves into a set, or rather a sect, and tried apparently to

become as much like each other as possible, by studying French

models, selecting subjects more or less in harmony with the French

temper, getting up their books after the fashion that was as much

approved then as contemporary fashions in books are approved now, and

by various other means. They had certain places of meeting, where

they held high converse with themselves. One of these was the

hospitable house, in Fitzroy Square, of the beloved and venerable

painter, Mr. Madox Brown, whose face, as he sat smiling upon his

Eisteddfod, radiating benevolence and encouragement to the unfledged

bards he loved, was a picture which must be cherished in many a

grateful memory now. Another was the equally hospitable house, in

the neighbourhood of Chalk Farm, where reigned the dramatist,

Westland Marston, and where his blind poet-boy Philip lived. Here

O'Shaughnessy would come with a glow of triumph on his face, which

indicated clearly enough what he was carrying in his

pocket--something connecting him with the divine Theophile--a letter

from the Gallic Olympus perhaps, or a presentation copy sent from the

very top of the Gallic Parnassus. It was on one of these occasions

that Rossetti satirically advised one of the cenacle to quit so poor

a language as that of Shakespeare and write entirely in French, which

language Morris immediately defined as 'nosey Latin.' It is a pity

that some literary veteran does not give his reminiscences of those

Marston nights, or rather Marston mornings, for the symposium began

at about twelve and went on till nearly six--those famous gatherings

of poets, actors, and painters, enlinking the days of Macready,

Phelps, Miss Glyn, Robert Browning, Dante Rossetti, and R. H. Horne,

with the days of poets, actors, and painters like Mr. Swinburne,

Morris, and Mr. Irving. Yet these pre-Raphaelite bards had another

joy surpassing even that of the Chalk Farm symposium, that of

assisting at those literary and artistic feasts which Rossetti used

occasionally to give at Cheyne Walk. Generosity and geniality

incarnate was the mysterious poet-painter to those he loved; and if

the budding bard yearned for sympathy, as he mostly does, he could

get quite as much as he deserved, and more, at 16 Cheyne Walk. To

say that any artist could take a deeper interest in the work of a

friend than in his own seems bold, yet it could be said of Rossetti.

The mean rivalries of the literary character that so often make men

experienced in the world shrink away from it, found no place in that

great heart. To hear him recite in his musical voice the sonnet or

lyric of some unknown bard or bardling--recite it in such a way as to

lend the lines the light and music of his own marvellous genius,

while the bard or bardling listened with head bowed low, so that the

flush on his cheek and the moisture in his eye should not be

seen--this was an experience that did indeed make the bardic life

'worth living.'"

Chapter X

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

Thou knowest that island, far away and lone,

Whose shores are as a harp, where billows break

In spray of music and the breezes shake

O'er spicy seas a woof of colour and tone,

While that sweet music echoes like a moan

In the island's heart, and sighs around the lake,

Where, watching fearfully a watchful snake,

A damsel weeps upon her emerald throne.

Life's ocean, breaking round thy senses' shore,

Struck golden song, as from the strand of Day:

For us the joy, for thee the fell foe lay--

Pain's blinking snake around the fair isle's core,

Turning to sighs the enchanted sounds that play

Around thy lovely island evermore.

I am now brought to a portion of my study which may well give me

pause--the relations between Mr. Watts-Dunton and Rossetti. The latest

remarks upon them are, I think, the best; they are by Mr. A. C. Benson in

his monograph on Rossetti in the 'English Men of Letters':--

"It would be impossible to exaggerate the value of his friendship for

Rossetti. Mr. Watts-Dunton understood him, sympathized with him, and

with self-denying and unobtrusive delicacy shielded him, so far as

any one can be shielded, from the rough contact of the world. It was

for a long time hoped that Mr. Watts-Dunton would give the memoir of

his great friend to the world, but there is such a thing as knowing a

man too well to be his biographer. It is, however, an open secret

that a vivid sketch of Rossetti's personality has been given to the

world in Mr. Watts-Dunton's well-known romance 'Aylwin,' where the

artist D'Arcy is drawn from Rossetti. . . . Though singularly

independent in judgment, it is clear that, at all events in the later

years of his life, Rossetti's taste was, unconsciously, considerably

affected by the critical preferences of Mr. Watts-Dunton. I have

heard it said by one {139} who knew them both well that it was often

enough for Mr. Watts-Dunton to express a strong opinion for Rossetti

to adopt it as his own, even though he might have combated it for the

moment. . . .

At the end of each part [of 'Rose Mary'] comes a curious lyrical

outburst called the Beryl-songs, the chant of the imprisoned spirits,

which are intended to weld the poem together and to supply

connections. It is said that Mr. Watts-Dunton, when he first read

the poem in proof, said to Rossetti that the drift was too intricate

for an ordinary reader. Rossetti took this to heart, and wrote the

Beryl-songs to bridge the gaps; Mr. Watts-Dunton, on being shown

them, very rightly disapproved, and said humorously that they turned

a fine ballad into a bastard opera. Rossetti, who was ill at the

time, was so much disconcerted and upset at the criticism, that Mr.

Watts-Dunton modified his judgment, and the interludes were printed.

But at a later day Rossetti himself came round to the opinion that

they were inappropriate. They are curiously wrought, rhapsodical,

irregular songs, with fantastic rhymes, and were better away. . . .

Then he began to settle down into the production of the single-figure

pictures, of which Mr. Watts-Dunton wrote that 'apart from any

question of technical shortcomings, one of Rossetti's strongest

claims to the attention of posterity was that of having invented, in

the three-quarter length pictures painted from one face, a type of

female beauty which was akin to none other, which was entirely new,

in short--and which, for wealth of sublime and mysterious suggestion,

unaided by complex dramatic design, was unique in the art of the

world."

[Picture: Pandora. Crayon by D. G. Rossetti at 'The Pines']

It is well known that Rossetti wished his life--if written at all--to be

written by Mr. Watts-Dunton, unless his brother should undertake it. It

is also well known that the brother himself wished it, but pressure of

other matters prevented Mr. Watts-Dunton from undertaking it. I expected

difficulties in approaching with regard to the delicate subject of his

relations with Rossetti, but I was not prepared to find them so great as

they have proved to be. When I wrote to him and asked him whether the

portrait of D'Arcy in 'Aylwin' was to be accepted as a portrait of

Rossetti, and when I asked him to furnish me with some materials and

facts to form the basis of this chapter, I received from him the

following letter:--

"MY DEAR MR. DOUGLAS,--I have never myself affirmed that D'Arcy was

to be taken as an actual portrait of Rossetti. Even if I thought

that a portrait of him could be given in any form of imaginative

literature, I have views of my own as to the propriety of giving

actual portraits of men with whom a novelist or poet has been brought

into contact. It is quite impossible for an imaginative writer to

avoid the imperious suggestions of his memory when he is conceiving a

character. Thousands of times in a year does one come across

critical remarks upon the prototypes of the characters of such great

novelists as Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, George Eliot,

George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, and the rest. And I believe that

every one of these writers would confess that his prominent

characters were suggested to him by living individuals or by

individuals who figure in history--but suggested only. And as to the

ethics of so dealing with friends and acquaintances I have also views

of my own. These are easily stated. The closer the imaginative

writer gets to the portrait of a friend, or even of an acquaintance,

the more careful must he be to set his subject in a genial and even a

generous light. It would be a terrible thing if every man who has

been a notable figure in life were to be represented as this or that

at the sweet will of everybody who has known him. Generous

treatment, I say, is demanded of every writer who makes use of the

facets of character that have struck him in his intercourse with

friend or acquaintance. I will give you an instance of this. When I

drew De Castro in 'Aylwin' I made use of my knowledge of a certain

individual. Now this individual, although a man of quite

extraordinary talents, brilliance, and personal charm, bore not a

very good name, because he was driven to live upon his wits. He had

endowments so great and so various that I cannot conceive any line of

life in which he was not fitted to excel--but it was his irreparable

misfortune to have been trained to no business and no profession, and

to have been thrown upon the world without means, and without useful

family connections. Such a man must either sink beneath the oceanic

waves of London life, or he must make a struggle to live upon his

wits. This individual made that struggle--he struck out with a

vigour that, as far as I know, was without example in London society.

He got to know, and to know intimately, men like Ruskin, G. F. Watts,

D. G. Rossetti, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, William Morris, Mr. Swinburne,

Sir Edward Burne Jones, Cruikshank, and I know not what important

people besides. When he was first brought into touch with the

painters, he knew nothing whatever of art; in two or three years, as

I have heard Rossetti say, he was a splendid 'connoisseur.' If he

had been brought up as a lawyer he must have risen to the top of the

profession. If he had been brought up as an actor he must, as I have

heard a dramatist say, have risen to the top. But from his very

first appearance in London he was driven to live upon his wits. And

here let me say that this man, who was a bitter unfriend of my own,

because I was compelled to stand in the way of certain dealings of

his, but whom I really could have liked if he had not been obliged to

live upon his wits at the expense of certain friends of mine, formed

the acquaintance of the great men I have enumerated, not so much from

worldly motives, as I believe, as from real admiration. But being

driven to live upon his wits, he had not sufficient moral strength to

afford a conscience, and the queerest stories were told--some of them

true enough--of his dealings with those great men. Whistler's

anecdotes of him at one period set many a table in a roar; and yet so

winsome was the man that after a time he became as intimate with

Whistler as ever. If he had possessed a private income, and if that

income had been carefully settled upon him, I believe he would have

been one of the most honest of men; I know he would have been one of

the most generous. His conduct to the late Treffry Dunn, from whom

he could not have expected the least return except that of gratitude,

was proof enough of his generosity. Of course to make use of so

strange a character as this was a great temptation to me when I wrote

'Aylwin.' But in what has been called my 'thumb-nail portrait of

him,' I treated the peccadilloes attributed to him in a playful and

jocose way. It would have been quite wrong to have painted otherwise

than in playful colours a character like this. Like every other man

and woman in this world, he left behind him people who believed in

him and loved him. It would have been cruel to wound these, and

unfair to the man; and yet because I gave only a slight suggestion of

his sublime quackery and supreme blarney, a writer who also knew

something about him, but of course not a thousandth part of what I

knew, said that I had tried my hand at depicting him in 'Aylwin,' but

with no great success. As a matter of fact, I did not attempt to

give a portrait of him: I simply used certain facets of his character

to work out my story, and then dismissed him. On the other hand,

where the character of a friend or acquaintance is noble, the

imagination can work more freely--as in the case of Philip Aylwin,

Cyril Aylwin, Wilderspin, Rhona Boswell, Winifred Wynne, Sinfi

Lovell. And as to Rossetti, whom I have been charged by certain

critics with having idealized in my picture of D'Arcy, all I have to

say on that point is this--that if the noble and fascinating

qualities which Rossetti showed had been leavened with mean ones I

should not, in introducing his character into a story, have

considered it right or fair or generous to dwell upon those mean

ones. But as a matter of fact, during my whole intercourse with him

he displayed no such qualities. The D'Arcy that I have painted is

not one whit nobler, more magnanimous, wide-minded, and generous,

than was D. G. Rossetti. As I have said on several occasions, he

could and did take as deep an interest in a friend's work as in his

own. And to benefit a friend was the greatest pleasure he had in

life. I loved the man so deeply that I should never have introduced

D'Arcy into the novel had it not been in the hope of silencing the

misrepresentations of him that began as soon as ever Rossetti was

laid in the grave at Birchington, by depicting his character in

colours as true as they were sympathetic. It has been the grievous

fate of Rossetti to be the victim of an amount of detraction which is

simply amazing and inscrutable. I cannot in the least understand why

this is so. It is the great sorrow of my life. There is a fatality

of detraction about his name which in its unreasonableness would be

grotesque were it not heartrending. It would turn my natural

optimism about mankind into pessimism were it not that another dear

friend of mine--a man of equal nobility of character, and almost of

equal genius, has escaped calumny altogether--William Morris. This

matter is a painful puzzle to me. The only great man of my time who

seems to have shared something of Rossetti's fate, is Lord Tennyson.

There seems to be a general desire to belittle him, to exaggerate

such angularities as were his, and to speak of that almost childlike

simplicity of character which was an ineffable charm in him as

springing from boorishness and almost from loutishness. On the other

hand, another great genius, Browning, for whom I had and have the

greatest admiration, seems to be as fortunate as Morris in escaping

the detractor. But I am wandering from Rossetti. I do not feel any

impulse to write reminiscences of him. Too much has been written

about him already--of late a great deal too much. The only thing

written about him that has given me comfort--I may say joy, is

this--it has been written by a man who knew him before I did, who

knew him at the time he lost his wife. Mr. Val Prinsep, R.A., has

declared that in Rossetti's relations with his wife there was nothing

whatever upon which his conscience might reasonably trouble him. I

do not remember the exact words, but this was the substance of them.

Mr. Val Prinsep is a man of the highest standing, and he knew

Rossetti intimately, and he has declared in print that Rossetti could

have had no qualms of conscience in regard to his relations with his

wife. This, I say, is a source of great comfort to me and to all who

loved Rossetti. That he was whimsical, fanciful, and at times most

troublesome to his friends, no one knows better than I do.

No one, I say, is more competent to speak of the whims and the

fancies and the troublesomeness of Rossetti than I am; and yet I say

that he was one of the noblest-hearted men of his time, and

lovable--most lovable."

It would be worse than idle to enter at this time of day upon the painful

subject of the "Buchanan affair." Indeed, I have often thought it is a

great pity that it is not allowed to die out. The only reason why it is

still kept alive seems to be that, without discussing it, it is

impossible fully to understand Rossetti's nervous illness, about which so

much has been said. I remember seeing in Mr. Watts-Dunton's essay on

Congreve in 'Chambers's Encyclopaedia' a definition of envy as the

'literary leprosy.' This phrase has often been quoted in reference to

the case of Buchanan, and also in reference to a recent and much more

ghastly case between two intimate friends. Now, with all deference to

Mr. Watts-Dunton, I cannot accept it as a right and fair definition. It

is a fact no doubt that the struggle in the world of art--whether poetry,

music, painting, sculpture, or the drama--is unlike that of the mere

strivers after wealth and position, inasmuch as to praise one man's

artistic work is in a certain way to set it up against the work of

another. Still, one can realize, without referring to Disraeli's

'Curiosities of Literature,' that envy is much too vigorous in the

artistic life. Now, whatever may have been the good qualities of

Buchanan--and I know he had many good qualities--it seems unfortunately

to be true that he was afflicted with this terrible disease of envy.

There can be no question that what incited him to write the notorious

article in the 'Contemporary Review' entitled 'The Fleshly School of

Poetry,' was simply envy--envy and nothing else. It was during the time

that Rossetti was suffering most dreadfully from the mental disturbance

which seems really to have originated in this attack and the cognate

attacks which appeared in certain other magazines, that the intimacy

between Mr. Watts-Dunton and Rossetti was formed and cemented. And it is

to this period that Mr. William Rossetti alludes in the following words:

"'Watts is a hero of friendship' was, according to Mr. Caine, one of my

brother's last utterances, easy enough to be credited."

That he deserved these words I think none will deny; and that the

friendship sprang from the depths of the nature of a man to whom the word

'friendship' meant not what it generally means now, a languid sentiment,

but what it meant in Shakespeare's time, a deep passion, is shown by what

some deem the finest lines Mr. Watts-Dunton ever wrote--I mean those

lines which he puts into the mouth of Shakespeare's Friend in 'Christmas

at the Mermaid,' lines part of which have been admirably turned into

Latin by Mr. E. D. Stone, {147} and published by him in the second volume

of that felicitous series of Latin translations,' Florilegium Latinum':--

'MR. W. H.'

To sing the nation's song or do the deed

That crowns with richer light the motherland,

Or lend her strength of arm in hour of need

When fangs of foes shine fierce on every hand,

Is joy to him whose joy is working well--

Is goal and guerdon too, though never fame.

Should find a thrill of music in his name;

Yea, goal and guerdon too, though Scorn should aim

Her arrows at his soul's high citadel.

But if the fates withhold the joy from me

To do the deed that widens England's day,

Or join that song of Freedom's jubilee

Begun when England started on her way--

Withhold from me the hero's glorious power

To strike with song or sword for her, the mother,

And give that sacred guerdon to another,

Him will I hail as my more noble brother--

Him will I love for his diviner dower.

Enough for me who have our Shakspeare's love

To see a poet win the poet's goal,

For Will is he; enough and far above

All other prizes to make rich my soul.

Ben names my numbers golden. Since they tell

A tale of him who in his peerless prime

Fled us ere yet one shadowy film of time

Could dim the lustre of that brow sublime,

Golden my numbers are: Ben praiseth well.

It seems to me to be needful to bear in mind these lines, and the

extremely close intimacy between these two poet-friends in order to be

able to forgive entirely the unexampled scourging of Buchanan in the

following sonnet if, as some writers think, Buchanan was meant:--

THE OCTOPUS OF THE GOLDEN ISLES

'WHAT! WILL THEY EVEN STRIKE AT ME?'

Round many an Isle of Song, in seas serene,

With many a swimmer strove the poet-boy,

Yet strove in love: their strength, I say, was joy

To him, my friend--dear friend of godlike mien!

But soon he felt beneath the billowy green

A monster moving--moving to destroy:

Limb after limb became the tortured toy

Of coils that clung and lips that stung unseen.

"And canst thou strike ev'n me?" the swimmer said,

As rose above the waves the deadly eyes,

Arms flecked with mouths that kissed in hellish wise,

Quivering in hate around a hateful head.--

I saw him fight old Envy's sorceries:

I saw him sink: the man I loved is dead!

Here we get something quite new in satire--something in which poetry,

fancy, hatred, and contempt, are mingled. The sonnet appeared first in

the 'Athenaeum,' and afterwards in 'The Coming of Love.' If Buchanan or

any special individual was meant, I doubt whether any man has a moral

right to speak about another man in such terms as these.

All the friends of Rossetti have remarked upon the extraordinary

influence exercised upon him by Mr. Watts-Dunton. Lady Mount Temple, a

great friend of the painter-poet, used to tell how when she was in his

studio and found him in a state of great dejection, as was so frequently

the case, she would notice that Rossetti's face would suddenly brighten

up on hearing a light footfall in the hall--the footfall of his friend,

who had entered with his latch-key--and how from that moment Rossetti

would be another man. Rossetti's own relatives have recorded the same

influence. I have often thought that the most touching thing in Mr. W.

M. Rossetti's beautiful monograph of his brother is the following extract

from his aged mother's diary at Birchington-on-Sea, when the poet is

dying:--

'March 28, Tuesday. Mr. Watts came down; Gabriel rallied

marvellously.

This is the last cheerful item which it is allowed me to record

concerning my brother; I am glad that it stands associated with the

name of Theodore Watts.'