Thou knewest 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.
Certain remarks that have been made upon the character of _D'Arcy_ in
_Aylwin_ have rendered it an imperative--nay, a sacred--duty for the
author to seize an opportunity that may never occur again of saying
here a few words upon the subject.
It is universally acknowledged that characters in fiction are not
creations projected from the author's inner consciousness, but are
founded more or less upon characters that he was brought into contact
with in real life.
Mr. A. C. Benson, in his monograph on D. G. Rossetti, in _English Men
of Letters_, says, '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.'
Since the appearance of these words many people who take an
increasing interest in the most mysterious and romantic figure in the
artistic world of the mid-Victorian period, have urged the author to
tell them whether the portrait of Rossetti in _Aylwin_ is a true one,
or whether it is not idealized as certain cynical critics have
affirmed. Nothing but the dread of being charged with egotism has
prevented the author's stating publicly, and once for all, that the
portrait of Rossetti in _Aylwin_ showing him to be the creature of
varying moods, gay and even frolicsome at one moment, profoundly
meditative at the next, deeply dejected at the next, but always the
most winsome of men, is true to the life. It is more than hinted in
the story that _D'Arcy's_ melancholy was the result of the loss of
one he deeply loved. From such a loss it was that Rossetti's
melancholy moods resulted. There are documentary evidences of the
verisimilitude of the picture in every respect. Let one be given out
of many. There exists a pathetic record that has never yet been
published, by one who knew Rossetti--knew him with special
intimacy--the poet Swinburne--depicting the great tragedy which
darkened Rossetti's life--the loss of his wife.
It gives the only authorized account of that tragedy--a tragedy which
ever since the publication of William Bell Scott's _Autobiographical
Notes_ has been so grievously misunderstood and misrepresented. In
this narrative Swinburne tells how, when first introduced to
Rossetti, he himself was an Oxford undergraduate of twenty. He
records how he and Rossetti had lived on terms of affectionate
intimacy: shaped and coloured on Rossetti's side by the cordial
kindness and exuberant generosity which, to the last, distinguished
his recognition of younger men's efforts: on his (Swinburne's) part
by gratitude as loyal and admiration as fervent as ever strove and
ever failed to express 'all the sweet and sudden passion of youth
towards greatness in its elder.' He records how, during that year, he
had come to know, and to regard with little less than a brother's
affection, the noble lady whom Rossetti had recently married. He
records how on the evening of her terrible death, they all three had
dined together at a restaurant which Rossetti had been accustomed to
frequent. He records how next morning, on coming by appointment to
sit for his portrait, he heard that she had died in the night, under
circumstances which afterwards made necessary his (Swinburne's)
appearance and evidence at the inquest held on her remains. He dwells
upon the anguish of the widower, when next they met, under the roof
of the mother with whom he had sought refuge. He records how Rossetti
appealed to his friendship in the name of the dead lady's regard for
him--a regard such as she had felt for no other of Rossetti's
friends--to cleave to him in this time of sorrow, to come and keep
house with him as soon as a residence could be found.
Can there be a more convincing and a more beautiful testimony as to a
friend's sorrow and its cause?
Over and above the touching testimony of Swinburne, no one will deny
that if ever one man knew another too well to be his biographer, as
Mr. Benson says, the author of _Aylwin_ was that man with regard to
Rossetti. No one has ever ventured to challenge the assertion in the
article on Rossetti in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ that there was a
time when with the exception of his own family the poet-painter saw
scarcely any one save the writer of this book, whom he was never
tired of designating his friend of friends. There is no need to
multiply instances of this friendship, which has been enlarged upon
by Rossetti's brother, and by many others. Elizabeth Luther Gary, in
the best of all the books upon Rossetti, published by G. P. Putnam's
Sons two years after the first edition of _Aylwin_, speaks of
_D'Arcy_ as being 'the mouthpiece of Rossetti.'
It may be added that Rossetti's _Ballads and Sonnets_, published in
1882, were dedicated to the author in these words: 'To the Friend
whom my verse won for me, these few more pages are affectionately
inscribed.' When he drew his last breath at Birchington it was in
that friend's arms. It is necessary to dwell upon such facts as the
above to show how fully equipped is the author of _Aylwin_ for
understanding and depicting the great poet-painter, to whose memory
he addressed the sonnet at the head of this note.
As to the personality of Rossetti, to which Mr. Benson alludes, to
say that it was the one that stood out among the lives of the
Victorian poets is to state the case very feebly. It has been the
fortune of the delineator of D'Arcy to be thrown intimately across
several of the great poets of his time, not one of whom displayed a
personality so dominant as Rossetti's. Fine as is Rossetti's poetry
and fine as are his paintings, they but inadequately represent the
man. As to his personal fascination, among all the poets of England
we have no record of anything equal to it. It asserted itself not
only in relation to the pre-Raphaelite group, but in relation to all
other members of society with whom he was brought into contact. To
describe the magnetism of such a man is, of course, impossible. Much
has been written upon what is called the _demonic_ power in certain
individuals--the power of casting one's own influence over all
others. Napoleon's case is generally instanced as a typical one. But
Napoleon's demonic power was of a self-conscious kind. It would seem,
however, that there is another kind of demonic power--the power of
shedding quite unconsciously one's personality upon all brought into
contact with it. The demonic power of Rossetti, like that of _D'Arcy_
in this story, was quite unconscious. In Rossetti's presence, as in
_D'Arcy's_, it was impossible not to yield to this strange,
mysterious power. At the time when he was not so entirely reclusive
as he afterwards became, when he used to meet all sorts of people,
the author had many opportunities of noticing its effect upon others.
He has seen them try to resist it, and in vain. On a certain occasion
a very eminent man, much used to society, and much used to the
brilliant literary clubs of London, was quite cowed and silenced
before Rossetti. It is necessary to dwell upon these subtle
distinctions, because this is the D'Arcy who, as a critic has
remarked, 'is the real protagonist of _Aylwin_--although the reader
does not discover it until the very end of the story, where D'Arcy
is the character who unravels and explains all.' Without D'Arcy,
indeed, and the demonic power possessed by him, the story would have
no existence.
It is, of course, in the illustrated editions of _Aylwin_ that
D'Arcy's identification with Rossetti and his importance in the story
become specially manifest. On page 204 of the illustrated editions an
exact picture has been given by Rossetti's pupil, Dunn, of the famous
studio at 16 Cheyne Walk--the studio which will always be associated
with Rossetti's name. It has been immortalized by his friend, Dr.
Gordon Hake, in the following lines addressed to the author of
_Aylwin_ in the sonnet-sequence, _The New Day_:
Sitting with him, his tones as Petrarch's tender,
With many a speaking vision on the wall,
The fire, a-blaze, flashing the studio fender,
Closed in from London shouts and ceaseless brawl--
Twas you brought Nature to the visiting,
Till she herself seemed breathing in the room,
And Art grew fragrant in the glow of Spring
With homely scents of gorse and heather bloom.
Or sunbeams shone by many an Alpine fountain,
Fed by the waters of the forest stream;
Or glacier-glories in the rock-girt mountain,
Where they so often fed the poet's dream;
Or else was mingled the rough billow's glee
With cries of petrels on a sullen sea.
Again on page 393 of the same editions will be found Miss May
Morris's beautiful water colour of Kelmscott Manor, the country-house
jointly occupied by Rossetti and William Morris in which takes place
what has been called 'the crucial scene in _Aylwin_.'