"Why—the Macmillan Company," I replied, somewhat abashed. "But—would you be interested in that?"
And then came the illuminating moment—I fear its radiance even affected the color of my cheeks when I thought of my somewhat patronizing manner of a moment before.
"I guess I would be interested in that!" he replied with a real show of enthusiasm. "I've always been interested in that whole Preraphaelite movement!"
I tried manfully to conceal my astonishment; but I am very much afraid that in spite of all my efforts my eyes gave my real feelings away. I swallowed hard, and stared, and the old man chuckled as he went on.
"They were a great bunch, that crowd," he observed reflectively, "and I don't suppose the world realizes yet what we owe to them and their influence. Burne-Jones, William Morris, Madox Brown, Holman Hunt, and Rossetti—I suppose you know your Rossetti like a book?"
I tried to convey the impression that I was not without due familiarity with and appreciation of my Rossetti; but I began to feel myself getting into deeper water than I had expected.
"There's a lot of fine things in poetry and in paint we'd never have had if it hadn't been for those fellows," the old man went on. "Of course there's a lot of minds so calloused over with the things of the past that they can't see the beauty in anything that takes 'em out of a rut, even if it's really old and only seems to be new. That's always the way with any new movement, and the fellow that starts in at the head of the procession gets a lot of abuse. Take poor old Rossetti, for instance, how the critics did hand it to him, especially Buchanan—the idea of a man like Robert Buchanan even daring to criticize Rossetti's 'Blessed Damozel'! It's preposterous! It's like an elephant trying to handle a cobweb to find out how any living thing could make a home of it. Of course the elephant couldn't!"
I quite agreed that the average elephant of my acquaintance would have found the average cobweb a rather insecure retreat in which to stretch his weary length.
"Do you remember," he went on, "what Buchanan said about those lines?—
"And still she bowed herself and stooped
Out of the circling charm
Until her bosom must have made
The bar she leaned on warm.