Till the age of twenty-four he remained in Liverpool, earning his
living in a builder's office, lecturing, starting societies, working
as secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings,
and writing for the papers. His lectures on Shakespeare attracted the
attention of Lord Houghton, who expressed a desire to meet him. A
meeting was arranged at the house of Henry Bright (the H.A.B, of
Hawthorne); and the first thing that Lord Houghton, the biographer of
Keats, said when Hall Caine came into the room was: "You have the head
of Keats." He predicted that the young author would become a great
critic. Another of Hall Caine's lectures, delivered during this
period, "The Supernatural in Poetry," brought a long letter of eulogy
from Matthew Arnold. His lecture on Rossetti won him the friendship of
this great man, a correspondence ensued, and when Caine was
twenty-five years old, Rossetti wrote and asked him to come up to
London to see him. Caine went and was received most cordially.
[Illustration: BISHOP'S COURT, WHERE DAN MYLREA IN "THE DREMSTER" WAS
REARED.]
[Illustration: SIR W.L. DRINKWATER, THE PRESENT FIRST DREMSTER OF THE
ISLE OF MAN.
From a photograph by J. E. Bruton, Douglas, Isle of Man.]
"He met me on the threshold of his house," he relates, "with both
hands outstretched, and drew me into his studio. That night he read me
'The King's Tragedy.'"
During the evening Rossetti asked him to remove to London and invited
him to his house; at the same time--it may be to prepare him for their
common life--he showed him, to Caine's horror, what a slave he had
become to the chloral habit.
It was not until many months later that Hall Caine determined to
accept Rossetti's invitation, and went to share his monastic seclusion
in his gloomy London house. In the meanwhile, and in this Rossetti had
helped him by correspondence, he had edited for Elliot Stock an
anthology of English sonnets, which was published under the title of
"Sonnets of Three Centuries." For his work in connection with this
volume Hall Caine received no remuneration. Indeed, at this period in
his career the earnings of the writer who can to-day command the
highest prices in the market, were very small indeed. His average
income was two hundred and sixty pounds (thirteen hundred dollars),
and of this two hundred pounds was earned as a draughtsman. When he
went to live with Rossetti he had about fifty pounds (two hundred and
fifty dollars) of money saved, to which he was afterwards able to add
a sum of one hundred pounds, which Rossetti insisted on his accepting
as his commission on the sale of Rossetti's picture, "Dante's Dream."
It may be mentioned, to dispel certain misstatements, that this was
the only financial transaction which took place between the two
friends. His life in Rossetti's house was the life of a monk, seeing
nobody except Burne-Jones (whom, as Ruskin will have it, he resembles
closely), going nowhere and doing little. "I used to get up at noon,"
he says, "and usually spent my afternoon in walking about in the
garden. I did not see Rossetti till dinner-time, but from that hour
till three or four in the morning we were inseparable." It has been
stated that Caine owed much of his success in literature to Rossetti.
This is only partly true. His introduction to literary society in
London under Rossetti's wing was harmful rather than advantageous to
him, for it prejudiced people against him; and his connection with
Rossetti, which was that of a spiritual son with a spiritual father,
was misrepresented. He was spoken of as Rossetti's secretary, even as
Rossetti's valet. On the other hand, so young a man could not but
derive benefit from the society of so refined an artist, who had no
thought nor ambition outside his art. And, in a practical way,
Rossetti also benefited him. When he first came to Rossetti's house he
was under an engagement to deliver twenty-four lectures on "Prose
Fiction" in Liverpool, and in preparation of these lectures began
studying the English novelists.
[Illustration: KIRK MAUGHOLD, WHICH FIGURES IN "THE BONDMAN" AND "THE
MANXMAN."]
"One day Rossetti suggested that, instead of reading these novels
alone, I should read them aloud to him. From that day on, night after
night, for months and months, I used to read to him. I read Fielding
and Smollett, Richardson, Radcliffe, 'Monk' Lewis, Thackeray, and
Dickens, under a running fire of comment and criticism from Rossetti.
It was terrible labor, this reading for hours night after night, till
dawn came and I could drag myself wearily upstairs to bed. But it was
a very useful study, and this is indeed the debt which I owe to
Rossetti."
Rossetti died on Easter Day, 1882, at the seashore, near Margate, in
Hall Caine's arms. It shows the extent of their friendship that, the
bungalow being crowded that night, Caine readily offered to sleep in
the death-chamber. "It is Rossetti," he said.