His nocturnal studies continued to arouse interest even after the return to London. As he was coming back to Chelsea on a ’bus one night the driver entertained him with descriptions of the eccentric persons who lived there, Carlyle among them, “and I’ve been told as how he gets his living by teaching people to write.” Then he went on confidentially, “But I’ll show you another queer cove if you’re coming round the corner. You see him well from the ’bus. He’s a cove, in the first place, as has a something standing all night at one winder, while he sits down at the other, or stands, and seemingly is a-drawing of it. He doesn’t go to bed like other Christians, but stays long after the last ’bus has come in; and, as the perlice tells us, when the clock strikes four, out goes the gas, down comes the gemman, opens the street door, runs down Cheyne Walk as hard as he can pelt, and when he gets to the end he turns and runs back again, opens his door, goes in, and nobody sees no more of him.”
Pre-Raphaelitism went steadily forward. “The Light of the World” was not yet ready, but the wonderful Academy of 1852 contained “The Hireling Shepherd,” Millais’ “Ophelia” and “The Huguenot,” and Ford Madox Brown’s fine picture, painted after the same method, “Christ Washing Peter’s Feet.” “The Strayed Sheep,” a beautiful little landscape begun for a gentleman who admired “The Hireling Shepherd,” but did not wish for so large a picture, was painted at Fairlight, soon afterwards. At the Academy of 1853 “Claudio and Isabella” hung in the first room. In 1854 “The Light of the World” was finished, and sold to Mr. Combe of Oxford. “The Awakened Conscience” went to the Academy the same year.
And now a plan that had been in the artist’s mind ever since, as a child, he listened to the words of the New Testament at school, found sudden fulfilment. The cry of the East was in his ears; he would go to the East, and paint a sacred picture there. As on so many other occasions throughout his life, he met with violent opposition. He would lose all that he had gained at such cost and have to begin over again on his return; he would find nothing but overgrown weeds, no beauty that was not tenfold more beautiful in England; he would get Syrian fever and be an invalid for the rest of his days; he would die like Wilkie. Rossetti said that local colour interfered with the poetry of design. Ruskin said that he was giving up the real purpose of his life, which was to train a new school of art. What Millais said does not appear. What Millais did was to help in the packing, which had been left to the last minute, so that there was no time for dinner, and to rush to the buffet for any “likely food” that he could find and toss it into the railway carriage after the train had begun to move.
Upon a parting gift from Rossetti were written these lines from “Philip van Artevelde”:
“There’s that betwixt us been, which we remember
Till they forget themselves, till all’s forgot,
Till the deep sleep falls on them in that bed
From which no morrow’s mischief knocks them up.”
II
THE EAST
“I regard the man who has not sojourned in a tent as one who has not thoroughly lived.”
W. H. H.
The first period of life was over. The mystic letters were used no more; after the savage onslaughts of the press it had been determined that Pre-Raphaelites should be recognised by their work alone, not by any arbitrary signal. Henceforth each of the Brothers followed his own line. Marriage came in due course. Mr. Holman Hunt has been twice married; he has two sons and a daughter.
