It has been said that Sister Helen strikes the keynote of Rossetti’s creative gift; it ought to be added that The King’s Tragedy touches his highest reach of imagination.
Having in the early part of 1881 brought together a sufficient quantity of fresh poetry to fill a volume, Rossetti began negotiations for publishing it. Anticipatory announcements were at that time constantly appearing in many quarters, not rarely accompanied by an outspoken disbelief in the poet’s ability to achieve a second success equal to his first. In this way it often happens to an author, that, having achieved a single conspicuous triumph, the public mind, which has spontaneously offered him the tribute of a generous recognition, forthwith gravitates towards a disposition to become silently but unmistakeably sceptical of his power to repeat it. Subsequent effort in such a case is rarely regarded with that confidence which might be looked for as the reward of achievement, and which goes far to prepare the mind for the ready acceptance of any genuine triumph. Indeed, a jealous attitude is often unconsciously adopted, involving a demand for special qualities, for which, perchance, the peculiar character of the past success has created an appetite, or obedience to certain arbitrary tests, which, though passively present in the recognised work, have grown mainly out of critical analysis of it, and are neither radical nor essential. Where, moreover, such conspicuous success has been followed by an interval of years distinguished by no signal effort, the sceptical bias of the public mind sometimes complacently settles into a conviction (grateful alike to its pride and envy, whilst consciously hurtful to its more generous impulses), that the man who made it lived once indeed upon the mountains, but has at length come down to dwell finally upon the plain. Literary biography furnishes abundant examples of this imperfection of character, a foible, indeed, which in its multiform manifestations, probably goes as far as anything else to interfere with the formation of a just and final judgment of an author’s merit within his own lifetime. When it goes the length of affirming that even a great writer’s creative activity usually finds not merely central realisation, but absolute exhaustion within the limits of some single work, to reason against it is futile, and length of time affords it the only satisfying refutation. One would think that it could scarcely require to be urged that creative impulse, once existent within a mind, can never wholly depart from it, but must remain to the end, dependent, perhaps, for its expression in some measure on external promptings, variable with the variations of physical environments, but always gathering innate strength for the hour (silent perchance, or audible only within other spheres), when the inventive faculty shall be harmonised, animated, and lubricated to its utmost height. Nevertheless, Coleridge encountered the implied doubtfulness of his contemporaries, that the gift remained with him to carry to its completion the execution of that most subtle mid-day witchery, which, as begun in Christabel, is probably the most difficult and elusive thing ever attempted in the field of romance. Goethe, too, found himself face to face with outspoken distrust of his continuation of Faust; and even Cervantes had perforce to challenge the popular judgment which long refused to allow that the second part of Don Quixote, with all its added significance, was adequate to his original simple conception. Indeed that author must be considered fortunate who effects a reversal of the public judgment against the completion of a fragment, and the repetition of a complete and conspicuous success.
When Rossetti published his first volume of poems in 1870, he left only his House of Life incomplete; but amongst the readers who then offered spontaneous tribute to that series of sonnets, and still treasured it as a work of all but faultless symmetry, built up by aid of a blended inspiration caught equally from Shakspeare and from Dante, with a superadded psychical quality peculiar to its author, there were many, even amongst the friendliest in sympathy, who heard of the completed sequence with a sense of doubt. Such is the silent and unreasoning and all but irrevocable edict of all popular criticism against continuations of works which have in fragmentary form once made conquest of the popular imagination. Moreover, Rossetti’s first volume achieved a success so signal and unexpected as to subject this second and maturer book to the preliminary ordeal of such a questioning attitude of mind as we speak of, as the unfailing and ungracious reward of a conspicuous triumph. In the interval of eleven years, Rossetti had essayed no notable achievement, and his name had been found attached only to such fugitive efforts as may have lived from time to time a brief life in the pages of the Athenæum and Fortnightly. Of the works in question two only come now within our province to mention. The first and most memorable was the poem Cloud Confines. Inadequate as the critical attention necessarily was which this remarkable lyric obtained, indications were not wanting that it had laid unconquerable siege to the sympathies of that section of the public in whose enthusiasm the life of every creative work is seen chiefly to abide. There was in it a lyrical sweetness scarcely ever previously compassed by its author, a cadent undertoned symphony that first gave testimony that the poet held the power of conveying by words a sensible eflfect of great music, even as former works of his had given testimony to his power of conveying a sensible eflfect by great painting. But to these metrical excellencies was added an element new to Rossetti’s poetry, or seen here for the first time conspicuously. Insight and imagination of a high order, together with a poetic instinct whose promptings were sure, had already found expression in more than one creation moulded into an innate chasteness of perfected parts and wedded to nature with an unerring fidelity. But the range of nature was circumscribed, save only in the one exception of a work throbbing with the sufferings and sorrows of a shadowed side of modern life. To this lyric, however, there came as basis a fundamental conception that made aim to grapple with the pro-foundest problems compassed by the mysteries of life and death, and a temper to yield only where human perception fails. Abstract indeed in theme the lyric is, but few are the products of thought out of which imagination has delved a more concrete and varied picturesqueness:
What of the heart of hate
That beats in thy breast, O Time?—
Bed strife from the furthest prime,
And anguish of fierce debate; that shatters her slain,
And peace that grinds them as grain,
And eyes fixed ever in vain
On the pitiless eyes of Fate.
The second of the fugitive efforts alluded to was a prose work entitled Hand and Soul. More poem than story, this beautiful idyl may be briefly described as mainly illustrative of the struggles of the transition period through which, as through a slough, all true artists must pass who have been led to reflect deeply upon the aims and ends of their calling before they attain that goal of settled purpose in which they see it to be best to work from their own heart simply, without regard for the spectres that would draw them apart into quagmires of moral aspiration. These two works and an occasional sonnet, such as that on the greatly gifted and untimely lost Oliver Madox Brown, made the sum of all {*} that was done, in the interval of eleven years between the dates of the first volume and of that which was now to be published, to keep before the public a name which rose at once into distinction, and had since, without feverish periodical bolstering, grown not less but more in the ardent upholding of sincere men who, in number and influence, comprised a following as considerable perhaps as owned allegiance to any contemporary.
* A ballad appeared in The Dark Blue.
Having brought these biographical and critical notes to the point at which they overlap the personal recollections that form the body of this volume, it only remains to say that during the years in which the poems just reviewed were being written Rossetti was living at his house in Chelsea a life of unbroken retirement. At this time, however (1877-81), his seclusion was not so complete as it had been when he used to see scarcely any one but Mr. Watts and his own family, with an occasional visit from Lord and Lady Mount Temple, Mrs. Sumner, etc. Once weekly he was now visited by his brother William, twice weekly by his attached and gifted friend Frederick J. Shields, occasionally by his old friends William Bell Scott and Ford Madox Brown. For the rest, he rarely if ever left the precincts of his home. It was a placid and undisturbed existence such as he loved. Health too (except for one serious attack in 1877), was good with him, and his energies were, as we have seen, at their best.
His personal amiability was, perhaps, never more conspicuous than in these tranquil years; yet this was the very time when paragraphs injurious to his character found their way into certain journals. Among the numerous stories illustrative of his alleged barbarity of manners was the one which has often been repeated both in conversation and in print to the effect that H.E.H. the Princess Louise was rudely repulsed from his door. Rossetti was certainly not easy to approach, but the geniality of his personal bearing towards those who had commands upon his esteem was always unfailing, and knowledge of this fact must have been enough to give the lie to the injurious calumny just named. Nevertheless, Rossetti, who was deeply moved by the imputation, thought it necessary to contradict it emphatically, and as the letter in which he did this is a thoroughly outspoken and manly one, and touches an important point in his character, I reprint it in this place:
16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, S.W., December 28, 1878.
My attention has been directed to the following paragraph
which has appeared in the newspapers:—“A very disagreeable
story is told about a neighbour of Mr. Whistler’s, whose
works are not exhibited to the vulgar herd; the Princess
Louise in her zeal, therefore, graciously sought them at the
artist’s studio, but was rebuffed by a ‘Not at home’ and an
intimation that he was not at the beck and call of
princesses. I trust it is not true,” continues the writer of
the paragraph, “that so medievally minded a gentleman is
really a stranger to that generous loyalty to rank and sex,
that dignified obedience,” etc.
The story is certainly “disagreeable” enough; but if I am
pointed at as the “near neighbour of Mr. Whistler’s” who
rebuffed, in this rude fashion, the Princess Louise, I can
only say that it is a canard devoid of the smallest
nucleus of truth. Her Royal Highness has never called upon
me; and I know of only two occasions when she has expressed
a wish to do so. Some years ago Mr. Theodore Martin spoke to
me upon the subject; but I was at that time engaged upon an
important work, and the delays thence arising caused the
matter to slip through. And I heard no more upon the subject
till last summer, when Mr. Theodore Watts told me that the
Princess, in conversation, had mentioned my name to him, and
that he had then assured her that I should “feel honoured
and charmed to see her,” and suggested her making an
appointment. Her Royal Highness knew that Mr. Watts, as one
of my most intimate friends, would not have thus expressed
himself without feeling fully warranted in so doing; and had
she called she would not, I trust, have found me wanting in
that “generous loyalty” which is due not more to her exalted
position than to her well-known charm of character and
artistic gifts. It is true enough that I do not run after
great people on account of their mere social position, but I
am, I hope, never rude to them; and the man who could rebuff
the Princess Louise must be a curmudgeon indeed.
D. G. Rossetti.
At the very juncture in question Lord Lome was suddenly and unexpectedly appointed Governor-General of Canada, and, leaving England, Her Royal Highness did not return until Rossetti’s health had somewhat suddenly broken down, and it was impossible for him to see any but his most intimate friends.