A subject overwrought, like the sermon of a Calvin, must verge on the
satanic. The poem of “Sister Helen” escapes this only through the pangs
of hate being mollified in every verse by the despairing, heart-broken
utterance of a refrain addressed to the Virgin Mother, and poured out
in the agony of a once-religious, still-believing, soul, wailing with a
bitterness which nothing can soften—an eternal hatred of her seducer;
nothing short of seeing him in the flames of hell,—willing herself to
suffer in them a torment that is only less than her thirst of revenue.
That she should breathe forth all this in a subdued voice of sorrow in
the ear of the blessed Mary Mother is almost too touching for perusal;
yet the pathos of the situation is even further enhanced by the tender
and sad replies she gives to her innocent little brother, from whom she
struggles to conceal, almost vainly, the anguish of her heart and its
wicked aim. The refrains, for the most part full, are not always equal
to the occasion, but might easily have been so rendered by so feeling a
writer.
Of course the time must come when the poetry of England is melted down
and merged into an anthology, and it is probable that the “Sister Helen,”
as being the strongest emotional poem, as yet, in the language, will be
among the most lasting works, and escape dissolution for a long time to
come; perhaps will survive all change. And here a very remarkable fact
thrusts itself before the mind; a representative one, which is that if
Rossetti had written not another line besides this poem, his genius would
have appeared all the greater: for lesser work is a fatal commentary on
greater.
All suffer from this comparison with themselves except Gray, who wrote so
little; and even he, after his Elegy, is scarcely saved the self-reproach.
Rossetti, in his writings, did not exercise much imagination, and none
of the philosophic kind, by means of which the idea ascends, metaphor
above metaphor, as high as the perspective of thought can attain. He did
not look to musical sonance in his metre and his choice of words. He did
not realize that love, to be acceptable in verse to the higher orders of
mind, must be spiritual and chaste, that when carnal we possess it only
in common with the beasts of the field. He could not have put on canvas
the scenery of his fifth sonnet for exhibition, except in contravention
of Lord Campbell’s Act.
From what I have read of his sonnets in his first edition, the vehicle of
expression which such composition should formulate was beyond his reach.
Above all other forms it demands the philosophic imagination, which
scarcely any poet has enjoyed, because its possessors revert to science,
as being within their compass, and as subject to higher reward. In
Rossetti’s sonnet the expression of the thought rises no higher than its
first statement, it has no grand climacteric. His imagination, in fact,
was introspective rather than retrospective, and was scarcely prospective
at all.
Rossetti was a charming companion: he spoke well and freely on all
subjects, literary and artistic, and with much knowledge of contemporary
writings. His studio was a favourite resort of men whose names were
on title pages, to whom he showed the work he had in progress; and,
to his intimate friends, he would sometimes read a poem in a rich and
sonorous voice. He had a very just mind. When an author was discussed,
whatever might be said against him, he would insist on his merits being
remembered. From rivalship and its jealousies he was absolutely free, and
his hospitality was without limit. Above all, he was ready at all times
to serve a friend, and to exert his influence to that end.
Interesting as Rossetti must always be to a large section of society, I
have not considered myself justified in entering at any length on his
domestic life, intimately as at one time it was mixed up with my own.
Still, without impropriety, I may rest lightly on it, in such manner as
to contribute some touches towards the picture of a man whose influence
on art will last longer than the canvas on which his ideas are so
brilliantly spread. I, therefore, propose to myself the task of narrating
my visits to him, in Perthshire, and afterwards at Kelmscott, and at
Bognor.
One morning I visited him at Cheyne Walk, when I saw that the
restlessness of the past night had pursued him into daytime. Qualifying
his request with an expression of great regard, he asked me not to stay.
His medical attendants were consulting in another room: I joined them
there, and told them that my house at Roehampton was open to Rossetti if
they decided that he needed change.
On the same evening, in company with his brother and Mr. Madox Brown,
he came to Roehampton, and I remember well his saying, as he sat in my
quiet drawing-room, that he was enjoying what he had so long ceased
to feel, and that was peace. He sat up late in conversation with his
brother on various family matters, but his night was the most troubled
one that he had hitherto passed through. The next day he was visited by
his mother, and other members of his family, his medical attendant from
town preceding them. Miss Rossetti, the gifted author of “The Shadow of
Dante,” and her brother, took a walk with me in Richmond Park, while the
mother remained with her son.
Mr. Madox Brown joined us later, and the party left the invalid in the
evening.
But when the mind is restless, a sick man imagines there is relief to be
found in change, and, after a few days, Rossetti returned to town, not
to his own house, but to that of Madox Brown, where I saw him again, his
restlessness unrelieved.
He had a good friend in Mr. Graham, the member for Glasgow. That
gentleman rented two sporting seats in Perthshire, and he placed them
at the disposal of Rossetti, who then went to Scotland. But he soon
moved from one of these mansions to Stobbs Castle, the other, a place
belonging to Lady Willouby de Eresby. While there he felt the want of
my assistance, and urgently requested that I would leave without delay.
I had a garden-party for the next day from London; this I left to my
housekeeper and sons to conduct, and went by the next train.
W. B. Scott and Madox Brown, two faithful friends, were at the castle,
ministering to their brother artist. My son George, who had finished his
terms at Oxford, and had no present engagement, was there too, and I
found all so far satisfactory that Rossetti was contented, enjoying the
quiet which was not to be found in his own home.
Stobbs Hall is an ancient inheritance of the Drummonds, a solitude on the
heights over-reaching the Tay, with a parapet wall and a Dutch garden,
in which is a sundial erected on masonry, which might have been there
before the invention of clocks. Below and to the right is a fine reach of
the river; on the opposite side is a vast plain of cornfield, planted at
intervals, and stretching on northwards to the forest and Grampian hills.
On that side, the lords Mansfield enjoy the salmon fisheries; their lands
extending eastward to Scone Palace. The two families take it by turns to
fish both sides of the river.
Any one wishing to read an account of this scenery in poetic form, can
turn to a sonnet called “Rest,” in “New Symbols.”
Scott and Brown soon left the castle, a place with not too much furnished
accommodation. Over the mantelpiece, in the one sitting-room, hung a
framed set of verses by Drummond, the Scotch poet.
It was not very long before Rossetti’s occupation of the place came to a
close. He was fast improving in health; he took long walks, but without
any enjoyment of the scenery which was made romantic by water-fall and
splashed leaves, ever fresh, the elastic boughs bending under the weight
of a torrent. So far recovered, he desired to remain in Perthshire, but
still craved for the utmost solitude. In search of such a home I took the
train to Perth, visited St. Andrews, returned to Perth, and proceeded to
Crieff, where I remained for some days and scoured the environs. At last
it occurred to me to call on the leading practitioner, Dr. Gairdner, and
was directed by him to a farm-house two or three miles from the town,
on the river side. The house had every requirement, and was kept by a
lady-farmer, whose manner and person had every agreeable trait. On this,
I telegraphed to Rossetti and my son to follow me at once to Crieff, and
at the right time I met them at the station there, and we drove to the
new home.
It was a pleasant spot, with a walk into Crieff by the river-side, down
to a wilderness of waters. There was plenty of mountain scenery in view,
with pine forest to the summits, and lake not remote; not to forget the
sky-threading mists and the abundance of water from above. Descriptive of
this aspect is my sonnet called “Unrest.” Rossetti rapidly improved in
health, stumping his way over long areas of path and road, with his thick
stick in hand, but holding no intercourse with Nature. It was not long
before he summoned his assistant, with the implements of his art, and he
was once more happy.
At this time he made a chalk drawing of me, and one of my son.
The first of these was reproduced in a volume of sonnets, called by me,
“The New Day.”
The portrait of George was somewhat peculiar; the neck was outstretched,
and the expression was heightened by the face being free of hair, which
elicited from Latham one of his quaint remarks. He gazed at it for some
time with his head like a connoisseur’s on one side; then said, “Yes, a
South American slave-driver, who had returned to Portugal to be shaved.”
There are very few male portraits by Rossetti: the only three others are
one of Mr. Stillman; one of a youth, in his large picture of Dante’s
Dream; and one of Theodore Watts, which is a very good one, but more
vivacious than the original, and there is more of the military air than
was ever assumed by that peaceful citizen, which makes him look at least
a lieutenant-colonel.
As a domestic trait, I would mention that Rossetti was very hearty at all
times over his meals. He would wear out three knives and forks to my one;
and to me, whose breakfast seldom exceeded one cup of coffee, his plate
of bacon, surrounded by eggs that overlapped the rim, was amazing. I may
further truly say that he, not being a believer in physiological things,
did not regard tea as possessing the attributes of Totality.
While at this farm residence, he read with great eagerness and delight
the newly published life of Edmund Kean.
By a careful treatment of him I procured him good nights, effecting
this object chiefly by remaining at his bedside and draining my memory
of every anecdote I had ever heard, and relating to him every amusing
incident that I had encountered during life in my intercourse with the
world.
Finding him so well recovered, I left him in the hands of his assistant
and of my son, after an absence of many weeks.
Towards the end of the year—it was 1872—Rossetti, with my son, left
Scotland and proceeded to Kelmscott Manorhouse, which he tenanted with
his friend Mr. Morris. I visited him there, and found him in good health
and spirits, after a journey spent, as I heard, with great joviality, the
travellers taking a third-class carriage to themselves. He was already
settled down to his art in a pleasant studio, loving to talk while he
painted; at other times deep in the works of Dumas. In the afternoon he
took vigorous walks in the meadows which one after another stretch out in
front of the mansion.
The next day we went over the house and grounds. It is an old place, with
its seven or rather twelve gables—such a sample of antiquity as you don’t
meet with often. The windows are square casements with stone mullions,
and the walls very thick. The garden has its yew-tree hedges, cut into
fantastic shapes. The river is flooded like a lake, so that old Thames
don’t know itself again. It is a most primitive village that surrounds
the place—a few scattered free-stone habitations, some ivy-covered. There
are no neighbours to interfere with the liberty of the subject.
George was a good boatman, and he often rowed me up the river, which
half-way was spanned by an elegant arched bridge, and bounded further
on by a weir. The scenery was very satisfying: on the left bank one
overlooked a gay meadow, the cattle crowding to the bank to stare us out
of sight; on the other side were lofty trees, while in midstream we had
often to cut our way through islands of weed. The memory of this and
of a later visit to the place was embodied in a poem, which I called
“Reminiscence,” in which the scenery lives.
I found opportunities of talking with Rossetti about Mr. Theodore Watts,
whose acquaintance I wished him to make more fully, for I had already
introduced them to each other. While leading a country life Watts had
not only acquired a knowledge of books, but had written poetry, and had
thought out many literary problems for himself.
The Manorhouse was adequately furnished, but some exquisite chalk
drawings, one especially, of female heads, gave it a charm. I thought
that no one ever could paint a woman’s eyes like Rossetti. There was a
softness, a delicacy, a life, a soul in them, never seen elsewhere but in
living beings, and that how rarely!
Rossetti was unwilling to separate himself from George, and I consented
to his retaining him as his secretary, for such a one was very necessary
to him at that time.
I saw Mr. Morris at Kelmscott, and afterwards in society; he was
inscrutable then, and has since been inscrutability in his career. W.
B. Scott was also there, and when I left it was with him. Like his
countrymen, he practised an exemplary carefulness in money matters, a
habit which makes every Scotchman well off. In the train he counted his
money with the dry remark, “One does not save anything by making a visit
to a friend!”
A letter from my son George, dated December 19, 1875, written at Aldwich
Lodge, Bognor, begins by a rejoicing to hear that I had accepted
Rossetti’s invitation to spend Christmas with him at the seaside.
I sometimes look at the bottom of an antique silver snuff-box, a
reservoir more than two hundred years old, the lid of elephant’s tooth,
and I read—
“T. G. H., from D. G. R., 1875.”
A memorial to me of better things than an old-fashioned Christmas
gathering.
And I use this snuff-reservoir every day; it affords me nasal recreation.
Snuff-taking did not go out with the pigtails, but it is on the wane; it
has given way to smoking: and diminished is the number of gifts, such
graceful objects for monarchs to present to men like myself—if they did
but know me!—of platinum or golden boxes set in diamonds. And would you
know the reason of my persistence in taking snuff? It not only wakes up
that torpor so prevalent between the nose and the brain, making the
wings of an idea uncurl like those of a new-born butterfly, but while
others sneeze, and run at the eyes and nose, my schneiderian membrane is
impervious to weather, or, to be explicit, I never take cold in my head.
Bath was my tarrying-place when Rossetti’s invitation came to me, and I
went to Bognor. The great poet-painter occupied a commodious villa and
grounds in a lane, west of the town, and near to the roughest bit of
beach on the Sussex coast.
Rossetti had packed his house. Mrs. Rossetti, the mother; Miss Maria and
Miss Christina, the sisters; Misses Polidori, who were the aunts; and
Watts, who was the friend, were there, together with my sons, Edmund and
Henry, for the festive week. The villa had good rooms; upstairs was a
gallery with bedchambers on both sides, and ending in a large apartment
which became a studio. There Rossetti worked, and liked to be read to
while he improved his canvas, till the afternoon, when he took a violent
walk over the boulders by the sea, towards Selsey Bay, among the ruined
wooden groynes which had become seaweed gardens, hideous of aspect, as if
invented and laid out by fish made man.
I walked with Rossetti daily over this penal shore, reflecting on absent
pleasure, he unconscious of present pain. He talked but little while his
feet crunched the boulders, and took no heed of the aspects of the scene,
but seemed to be stamping health out of what was left unused for the six
days’ creation.
Mrs. Rossetti was a sweet lady, and Christina, who still lives, a higher
poet than her brother, is of the noblest brand. The family, one and all,
are almost purely Italian. The father, a poet, was a Neapolitan; the
mother was a Tuscan, with some Scotch blood. Rossetti may be regarded,
not as English, but as one of those powerful leavens with which the
genius of one country sometimes ferments that of another, to give it a
new vitality.
Watts, who was now on terms of brotherly intimacy with him, bore him
through any passing difficulties that needed only better guidance than
his own.
That holiday was made cheerful, less perhaps by the host himself than by
his guests. In truth, I saw regretfully that Rossetti was much unstrung;
as so many do, even when in health, he got tired of his visitors, and ere
long the party dispersed.