Oct. 12, 1882.
Dear Sir,
I have neither drawing nor painting by Rossetti. I am sorry for it, for some of his work which I have seen elsewhere I have admired very much; nor (as far as I know) have I any letter from him, nor have I the slightest recollection of his being present when I was “reading the proof sheets of Maud.”
My acquaintance with him was in fact but an acquaintance, not an “intimacy,” though I would willingly have known something more of so accomplished an artist.
Wishing all success to your Memorial of him,
I am,
Faithfully yours,
A. Tennyson.
The book met with immediate success; it was recognised that the work was “one of no ordinary difficulty,” that the author “brought fairness and critical acumen to his task,” “truest enthusiasm and perseverance that nothing can daunt; that by reason of his friendship he had unusual insight into the history and work of Rossetti,” and “a critic of Art and a writer of poems he is thus further to be respected in what he has to say.” Only three letters are in my possession of the many he received from friends of his own, or of the dead poet; two are from Walter Pater with whom he had recently become acquainted: and the other from Christina Rossetti:
30 Torrington Square.