Rossetti lies buried in Highgate Cemetery, with the following inscription: “To the dear memory of my husband, Gabriele Rossetti; born at Vasto d’Ammone in the Kingdom of Naples, 28th February 1783; died in London, 26th April 1854.” “He shall return no more nor see his native country.”—Jer. xxii. 10. “Now they desire a better country, that is an heavenly.”—Heb. xi. 16. “Ah Dio ajutami Tu.”
The concluding phrase formed the last emphatic words which Rossetti pronounced in a loud voice, in the evening of 25th April, after some hours of approximate loss of speech. The remains of my mother, my brother’s wife, and my sister Christina, are now interred in the same grave. Towards 1871 a proposal was pressed upon us for transporting my father’s remains to Italy, for ceremonial re-interment there; but the feeling of most members of the family was adverse, and the project was not carried out.
The tone of the versified Autobiography—which is a very genuine document of his character and feelings—shows pretty well what manner of man Gabriele Rossetti was; and in my Memoir of Dante Rossetti I have given some details as to family-life and personal habits. Here, therefore, I shall barely touch the fringe of the subject. It is not for me to spy out every infirmity in my father’s character; and, even were I to try to do so, I should find nothing worse to allege than a phase of self-esteem which at times trenched upon self-complacency, a disregard of externals in point of dress, etc., and an honourable (and, in the circumstances which affected himself in England and his family, a truly very requisite) habit of thriftiness which made him count the cost of every personal indulgence, while nothing expedient was stinted to his wife and children. I know him to have been diligent, indefatigable, upright, high-minded, affectionate, grateful, placable, eminently good-natured, vivacious, cheerful for the most part, friendly, companionable: whether patriotic I need not say. Our excellent friend Dr Adolf Heimann (Professor of German in University College), writing to my brother a letter of condolence on our father’s death, made the following observations, which I consider just:—“I have never seen a more devoted man of letters; endowed with some of the rarest gifts of a literary character, real love for literature, unworldliness, perseverance, and warmth of interest both in writing and reading at an advanced time of life. He might indeed have been a model to all of us. When I look at all the great scholars and men of science whom I have known, I do not remember one who was so little satisfied with show as your father, who was so content with a comparatively humble situation, and so wonderfully patient in times of affliction.”
FRANCES, MARIA, AND CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
From a Photograph
C. 1855.
In person Gabriele Rossetti was barely up to middle height, fleshy and full in contour until his health failed. His eyes were dark and expressive, and did not alter when his sight was damaged; his brow fine and well-rounded; his nose, though not specially large, more than commonly prominent, with wide nostrils. His mouth was pleasant and nicely moulded, with a winning smile, and on occasion a laugh of the heartiest.