NOTE UPON ROSSETTI'S PROSE
As we are now studying Rossetti's poetry in other hours, you may be
interested in some discussion of the merits of his prose--for this is
still, so far as the great public are concerned, almost an unknown
topic. The best of the painters of his own school, and the most
delicate poet of the Victorian period, Rossetti might also have become
one of the greatest prose writers of the century if he had seriously
turned to prose. But ill-health and other circumstances prevented him
from doing much in this direction. What he did do, however, is so
remarkable that it deserves to be very carefully studied. I do not
refer to his critical essays. These are not very remarkable. I refer
only to his stories; and his stories are great because they happen to
have exactly the same kind of merit that distinguishes his poetry. They
might be compared with the stories of Poe; and yet they are entirely
different, with the difference distinguishing all Latin prose fiction
from English fiction. But there is certainly no other story writer,
except Poe, with whose work that of Rossetti can be at all classed.
They are ghostly stories--one of them a fragment, the other complete.
Only two--and the outline of the third. The fragment is not less worthy
of attention because it happens to be a fragment--like the poet's own
"Bride's Prelude," or Coleridge's "Christabel," or Poe's "Silence." The
trouble with all great fragments, and the proof of their greatness, is
that we cannot imagine what the real ending would have been; and this
puzzle only lends additional charm to the imaginative effect. Of the
two consecutive stories, it is the fragment which has the greater merit.
The first story, called "Hand and Soul," has another interest besides
the interest of narrative. It contains the whole æsthetic creed of
Rossetti's school of painting,--a little philosophy of art that is well
worth studying. That is especially why I want to talk about it. The
so-called Pre-Raphaelite school of English painting, whereof Rossetti
was the recognized chief, were not altogether disciples of Ruskin. They
did not believe that art must have a religious impulse in order to be
great art; and they did not exactly support the antagonistic doctrine
of "Art for Art's Sake." They considered that absolute sincerity in
one's own conception of the beautiful, and wide toleration of all
æsthetic ideas, were axiomatic truths which it was necessary to accept
without reserve. They had no detestation for any school of art; they
practically banished prejudice from their little circle. I may add that
they were not indifferent to Japanese art, even at a time when it found
many enemies in London, and when the great Ruskin himself endeavoured
to help the prejudice against it. In that very time Rossetti was making
Japanese collections, and Burne-Jones and others were discovering new
methods by the help of this Eastern art.
Now the story of "Hand and Soul" is, in a small way, a history of man's
experience with Painting. It is supposed to be the story of a real
picture. The picture is only the figure of a woman in a grey and green
dress, very beautiful. But whoever looks at that picture for a minute
or two, suddenly becomes afraid--afraid in exactly the same way that
he would be on seeing a ghost. The picture could not have been painted
from imagination; that figure must have been seen by somebody; and yet
it could not have been a living woman! Then what could have been the
real story of that picture? Did the artist see a ghost; or did he see
something supernatural?
The answer to these questions is the following story. The artist who
painted that picture, four hundred years ago, was a young Italian of
immense genius, so passionately devoted to his art that he lived for
nothing else. At first he wished only to be the greatest painter of
his time; and that he became without much difficulty. He painted only
what he thought beautiful; and he painted beautiful faces that he saw
passing by in the street, and beautiful sunsets that he saw from his
window, and beautiful fancies that came into his mind. Everybody loved
his pictures; and princes made him great gifts of money.
Then a sudden remorse came to this painter, who was at heart a
religious man. He said to himself: "Here, God has given me the power to
paint beautiful things; and I have been painting only those beautiful
things which please the senses of men. Therefore I have been doing
wrong. Henceforward I will paint only things which represent eternal
truth, the things of Heaven."
After that he began to paint only religious and mystical pictures, and
pictures which common people could not understand at all. The people no
longer came to admire his work; the princes no longer paid him honour
or brought him gifts; and he became as one forgotten in the world.
Moreover, he found himself losing his power as an artist. And then, to
crown all his misfortunes, some of his most famous pictures were ruined
one day by the extraordinary incident of a church fight; for two great
Italian clans between whom a feud existed, happened to meet in the
church porch, and a blow was struck and swords were drawn--and there
was such killing that the blood of the fighters was splashed upon the
paintings on the wall.
When all these things had happened, the artist despaired. He became
weary of life, and thought of destroying himself. And while he was
thus thinking, there suddenly entered his room, without any sound, the
figure of a woman robed in green and grey; and she stood before him and
looked into his eyes. And as she looked into his eyes, an awe came upon
him such as he had never before known; and a great feeling of sadness
also came with the awe. But he could not speak, any more than a person
in a dream, who wants to cry out, and cannot make a sound. But the
woman spoke and said to him, "I am your own soul--that soul to whom you
have done so much wrong. And I have been allowed to come to you in this
form, only because you have never been of those men who make art merely
to win money. To win fame, however, you did not scruple; and that was
not altogether good, although it was not altogether bad. What was much
worse was the pride which turned you away from me--religious pride.
You wanted to do what God did not ask you to do--to work against your
own soul, and to cast away your love of beauty. Into me God placed the
desire of loveliness and the bliss of the charm of the world. Wherefore
then should you strive against His work? And what pride impelled you to
imagine that heaven needed the help of your art to teach men what is
good? When did God say to you, Friend, let me lean upon you, or I shall
fall down? No; it is by teaching men to seek and to love the beautiful
things in this beautiful world that you make their hearts better within
them--never by preaching to them with allegories that they cannot
understand; and because you have done this, you have been punished. Be
true to me, your own very soul; then you will do marvellous things. Now
paint a picture of me, just as I am, so that you may know that your
power of art is given back to you."
So the artist painted a picture of his own soul in the likeness of a
woman clad in green and grey; and all who see that picture even to-day
feel at once a great fear and a great charm, and find it hard to
understand how mortal man could have painted it.
That is the story of "Hand and Soul"; and it teaches a great deal of
everlasting truth. Assuredly the road to all artistic greatness is
the road of sincerity--truth to one's own emotional sense of what is
beautiful. And just to that degree in which the artist or poet allows
himself to be made insincere, either by desire of wealth and fame, or
by religious scruples, just to that extent he must fail. I have only
given a very slight outline of the tale; to give more might be to
spoil your pleasure of reading it.
The second story will not seem to you quite so original as the first,
though, to English minds, it probably seems stranger. It is a story
of pre-existence. Now, a very curious fact is that this idea of
pre-existence, expressed by Rossetti in many passages of his verse, as
well as in his prose story, did not come to him from Eastern sources
at all. He never cared for, and perhaps never read, any Oriental
literature. His idea regarding re-birth and the memory of past lives
belongs rather to certain strangely imaginative works of mediæval
literature, than to anything else. Even to himself they appeared
novel--something dangerous to talk about. Unless you understand this,
you will not be able to account for the curious thrill of terror that
runs through "St. Agnes of Intercession." The writer writes as if he
were afraid of his own thought.
The story begins with a little bit of autobiography, Rossetti telling
about his thoughts as a child, when he played at his father's knee on
winter evenings. Of course these memories did not appear as his own;
but as those of the painter supposed to tell the story. As a child this
painter was very fond of picture books. In the house there was one
picture book containing a picture of a saint--St. Agnes--which pleased
him in such a way that he could spend hours in contemplating it with
delight. But he did not know why. He grew up, was educated, became a
man and became a painter; and still he could not forget the charm of
the picture that had pleased him when a child. One day a young English
girl, a friend of his sister's, comes to the house on a visit. He
is greatly startled on seeing her, because her face is exactly like
the face of the saint in the picture book. He falls in love with her,
and they are engaged to be married. But before that time he paints
her portrait, and as her portrait happens to be the best work of the
kind that he ever did, he sends it to the Royal Academy to be put on
exhibition. Critics greatly praise the picture, but one of them remarks
that at Bologna in Italy there is a painting of St. Agnes that very
much resembles it. Upon this he goes to Italy to find the picture, and
does find it after a great deal of trouble. It is said to be the work
of a certain Angiolieri, who lived some four hundred years ago. Every
detail of the face proves to be exactly like that of the living face
which he painted in London. Being greatly startled by this discovery,
he examines the catalogue of paintings, which he bought at the door,
in order to find out whether there is anything else said in it about
the model from whom Angiolieri painted that St. Agnes. He cannot find
any information about the model; but he finds out that in another part
of the building there is a portrait of Angiolieri, painted by himself.
I think you know that many famous artists have painted portraits of
themselves. Greatly interested, he hurries to where the picture is
hanging, and finds, to his amazement, that the portrait of Angiolieri
is exactly like himself--the very image of him. Was it then possible
that, four hundred years before, he himself might have been Angiolieri,
and had painted that picture of St. Agnes?
A fever seizes upon him, one of those fevers only too common in Italy.
While he is still under its influence, he dreams a dream. He is in a
picture gallery; and on the wall he sees Angiolieri's painting hanging
up; and there is a great crowd looking at it. In that crowd he sees his
betrothed, leaning upon the arm of another man. Then he feels angrily
jealous, and says to the strange man, tapping him on the shoulder,
"Sir, I am engaged to that lady!" Then the man turns round; and as he
turns round, his face proves to be the face of Angiolieri, and his
dress is the costume of four hundred years ago, and he says, "She is
not mine, good friend--but neither is she thine." As he speaks his face
falls in, like the face of a dead man, and becomes the face of a skull.
From this dream we can guess the conclusion which the author intended.
On returning to England, when the painter attempted to speak of what
he had seen and learned, his family believed him insane, and forbade
him to speak on the subject any more. Also he was warned that should
he speak of it to his betrothed, the marriage would be broken off.
Accordingly, though he obeys, he is placed in a very unhappy position.
All about him there is the oppression of a mystery involving two lives;
and he cannot even try to solve it--cannot speak about it to the person
whom it most directly concerns.... And here the fragment breaks.
If this admirable story had been finished, the result could not have
been more impressive than is this sudden interruption. We know that
Rossetti intended to make the betrothed girl also the victim of a
mysterious destiny; but he did not intend, it appears, to elucidate
the reason of the thing in detail. That would have indeed destroyed
the shadowy charm of the recital. While the causes of things remain
vague and mysterious, the pleasurable fear of the unknown remains
with the reader. But if you try to account for everything, at once
the illusion vanishes, and the art becomes dead. It seems to me that
Rossetti has given in this unfinished tale a very fine suggestion of
what use the old romances still are. It was by careful study of them,
combined with his great knowledge of art, that he was able to produce,
both in his poetry and in his prose, the exquisite charm of reality
in unreality. Reading either, you have the sensation of actually
seeing, touching, feeling, and yet you know that the whole thing is
practically impossible. No art of romance can rise higher than this.
And speaking of that soul-woman, whose portrait was painted in the
former story, reminds me of an incident in Taine's wonderful book "De
l'Intelligence," which is _à propos._ It is actually on record that a
French artist had the following curious hallucination:
He was ill, from overwork perhaps, and opening his eyes after a
feverish sleep, he saw a beautiful lady seated at his bedside, with one
hand upon the bed cover, and he said to himself, "This is certainly an
illusion caused by my nervous condition. But how beautiful an illusion
it is! And how wonderfully luminous and delicate is that hand! If
I dared only put my hand where it is, I wonder what would happen.
Probably the whole thing would vanish at once, and I should lose the
pleasure of looking at it."
Suddenly, as if answering his thought, a voice as clear as the voice
of a bird said to him, "I am not a shadow; and you can take my hand
and kiss it if you like." He did lift the lady's hand to his lips
and felt it, and then he entered into conversation with her. The
conversation continued until interrupted by the entrance of the doctor
attending the patient. This is the record of an extraordinary case of
double consciousness--the illusion and the reason working together in
such harmony that neither in the slightest degree disturbed the other.
Rossetti's figures, whether of the Middle Ages or of modern times, seem
also like the results of a double consciousness. We can touch them and
feel them, although they are ghosts.
As I said before, he might have been one of the greatest of romantic
story tellers had he turned his attention in that direction and kept
his health. No better proof of this could be asked for than the
printed plans of several stories which he never had time to develop.
He collected the material from the study of Old French and Old Italian
poets chiefly; but that material, when thrown into the crucible of his
imagination, assumed totally novel and strange forms. I may tell you
the outline of one story by way of conclusion. It was a beautiful idea;
and it is a great regret that it could not have been executed in the
author's lifetime:
One day a king and his favourite knight, while hunting in a forest,
visited the house of a woodcutter, or something of that kind, to ask
for water--both being very thirsty. The water was served to them by
a young girl of such extraordinary beauty that both the king and the
knight were greatly startled. The knight falls in love with the maid,
and afterwards asks the king's leave to woo her. But when he comes to
woo, he finds out that the maid has become enamoured of the king, whom
she does not know to be the king. She says that, unless she can marry
him she will never become a wife. The king therefore himself goes to
her to plead for his friend. "I cannot marry you," he says, "because
I am married already. But my friend, who loves you very much, is not
married; and if you will wed him I shall make him a baron and confer
upon him the gift of many castles."
The young girl to please the king accepts the knight; a grand wedding
takes place at the king's castle; and the knight is made a great
noble, and is gifted with many rich estates. Then the king makes this
arrangement with the bride: "I will never visit you or allow you to
visit me, because we love each other too much. But, once every year,
when I go to hunt in the forest with your husband, you shall bring me a
cup of water, just as on the first day, when we saw you."
After this the king saw her three times;--that is to say, in three
successive years she greeted him with the cup of water when he went
hunting. In the fourth year she died, leaving behind her a little
daughter.
The sorrowing husband carefully brought up the little girl--or, at
least caused her to be carefully brought up; but he never presented her
to the king, or spoke of her, because the death of the mother was a
subject too painful for either of them to talk about.
But when the girl was sixteen years old, she looked so exactly like
her mother, that the father was startled by the resemblance. And he
thought, "To-morrow I shall present her to the king." And to his
daughter he said, "To-morrow I am going to hunt with the king. When
we are on our way home, we shall stop at a little cottage in the
wood--the little cottage in which your mother used to live. Do you then
wait in the cottage, and when the king comes, bring him a cup of water,
just as your mother did."
So next day the king and his baron approached the cottage after their
hunt; and the king was greatly astonished and moved by the apparition
of a young girl offering him a cup of water--so strangely did she
resemble the girl whom he had seen in the same place nearly twenty
years before. And as he took the cup from her hand, his heart went out
toward her, and he asked his companion, "Is this indeed the ghost of
her?--or another dear vision?" But before the companion could make any
answer--lo! another shadow stood between the king and the girl; and
none could have said which was which, so exactly each beautiful face
resembled the other--only the second apparition wore peasant clothes.
And she that wore the clothes of a peasant girl kissed the king as
he sat upon his horse, and disappeared. And the king immediately, on
receiving that kiss and returning it, fell forward and died.
This is a vague, charming romance indeed, for some one to take up and
develop. Of course the figure in the peasant clothes is the spirit
of the mother of the girl. There are many pretty stories somewhat
resembling this in the old Japanese story books, but none quite the
same; and I venture to recommend anybody who understands the literary
value of such things to attempt a modified version of Rossetti's
outline in Japanese. Some things would, of course, have to be changed;
but no small changes would in the least affect the charm of the story
as a whole.
In conclusion, I may observe that the object of this little lecture has
not been merely to interest you in the prose of Rossetti, but also to
quicken your interest in the subject of romance in general. Remember
that no matter how learned or how scientific the world may become,
romance can never die. No greater mistake could be made by the Japanese
student than that of despising the romantic element in the literature
of his own country. Recently I have been thinking very often that a
great deal might be done toward the development of later literature
by remodelling and reanimating the romance of the older centuries. I
believe that many young writers think chiefly about the possibility of
writing something entirely new. This is a great literary misfortune;
for the writing of something entirely new is scarcely possible for any
human being. The greatest Western writers have not become great by
trying to write what is new, but by writing over again in a much better
way, that which is old. Rossetti and Tennyson and scores of others made
the world richer simply by going back to the literature of a thousand
years ago, and giving it re-birth. Like everything else, even a good
story must die and be re-born hundreds of times before it shows the
highest possibilities of beauty. All literary history is a story of
re-birth--periods of death and restful forgetfulness alternating with
periods of resurrection and activity. In the domain of pure literature
nobody need ever be troubled for want of a subject. He has only to look
for something which has been dead for a very long time, and to give
that body a new soul. In romance it would be absurd to think about
despising a subject, because it is unscientific. Science has nothing
to do with pure romance or poetry, though it may enrich both. These are
emotional flowers; and what we can do for them is only to transplant
and cultivate them, much as roses or chrysanthemums are cultivated.
The original wild flower is very simple; but the clever gardener can
develop the simple blossom into a marvellous compound apparition,
displaying ten petals where the original could show but one. Now the
same horticultural process can be carried out with any good story
or poem or drama in Japan, just as readily as in any other country.
The romantic has nothing to gain from the new learning except in the
direction of pure art; the new learning, by enriching the language and
enlarging the imagination, makes it possible to express the ancient
beauty in a new and much more beautiful way. Tennyson might be quoted
in illustration. What is the difference between his two or three
hundred lines of wondrous poetry entitled "The Passing of Arthur," and
the earliest thirteenth or fourteenth century idea of the same mythical
event? The facts in either case are the same. But the language and
the imagery are a thousand times more forcible and more vivid in the
Victorian poet. Indeed, progress in belles-lettres is almost altogether
brought about by making old things conform to the imagination of
succeeding generations; and poesy, like the human race, of which it
represents the emotional spirit, must change its dress and the colour
of its dress as the world also changes.