“Does not the dose increase with you?”
“It has not done so perceptibly in recent years. I judge I’ve taken more chloral than any man whatever: Marshall says if I were put into a Turkish bath I should sweat it at every pore.”
There was something in his tone suggesting that he was even proud of the accomplishment. To me it was a frightful revelation, accounting entirely for what had puzzled and distressed me in his delusions already referred to. And now let me say that whilst it would have been on my part the most pitiful weakness (because the most foolish tearfulness of injuring a great man who was strong enough to suffer a good deal to be discounted from his strength), to attempt to conceal this painful side of Rossetti’s mind, I shall not again allude to those delusions, unless it be to show that, coming to him with the drug which blighted half his life, they disappeared when it had been removed.
None may rightly say to what the use of that drug was due, or what was due to it; the sadder side of his life was ever under its shadow; his occasional distrust of friends: his fear of enemies: his broken health and shattered spirits, all came of his indulgence in the pernicious thing. When I remember this I am more than willing to put by all thought of the little annoyances, which to me, as to other immediate friends, were constantly occurring through that cause, which seemed at the moment so vexatious and often so insupportable, but which are now forgotten.
Next morning—(a clear autumn morning)—I strolled through the large garden at the back of the house, and of course I found it of a piece with what I had previously seen. A beautiful avenue of lime-trees opened into a grass plot of nearly an acre in extent. The trees were just as nature made them, and so was the grass, which in places was lying long, dry and withered under the sun, weeds creeping up in damp places, and the gravel of the pathway scattered upon the verges. This neglected condition of the garden was, I afterwards found, humorously charged upon Mr. Watts’s “reluctance to interfere with nature in her clever scheme of the survival of the fittest,” but I suspect it was due at least equally to the owner’s personal indifference to everything of the kind.
Before leaving I glanced over the bookcase. Rossetti’s library was by no means a large one. It consisted, perhaps, of 1000 volumes, scarcely more; and though this was not large as comprising the library of one whose reading must have been in two arts pursued as special studies, and each involving research and minute original inquiry, it cannot be considered noticeably small, and it must have been sufficient. Rossetti differed strangely as a reader from the man to whom in bias of genius he was most nearly related. Coleridge was an omnivorous general reader: Rossetti was eclectic rather than desultory. His library contained a number of valuable old works of more interest to him from their plates than letterpress. Of this kind were Gerard’s Herbal (1626), supposed to be the source of many a hint utilised by the Morris firm, of which Rossetti was a member; Poliphili Hypnerotomachia (1467); Heywood’s History of Women (1624); Songe de Poliphile (1561); Bonnard’s Costumes of 12th, 13th, and l4th Centuries; Habiti Antichi (of which the designs are said to be by Titian)—printed Venice, (1664); Cosmographia, a history of the peoples of the world (1572); Ciceronis Officia (1534), a blackletter folio, with woodcuts by Burgkmaier; Jost Amman’s Costumes, with woodcuts coloured by hand; Cento Novelle (Venice, 1598); Francesco Barberino’s Documenti (d’Amore (Rome, 1640); Décoda de Titolivio, a Spanish blackletter, without date, but probably belonging to the 16th century. Besides these were various vellum-bound works relating to Greek and Roman allegorical and mythological subjects, and a number of scrap-books and portfolios containing photographs from nearly all the picture-galleries of Europe, but chiefly of the pictures of the early Florentine and Venetian schools, with an admixture of Spanish art. Of Michael Angelo’s designs for the Sistine Chapel there was a fine set of photographs.
These did not make up a very complete ancient artistic library, but Rossetti’s collection of the poets was more full and valuable. There was a pretty little early edition of Petrarch, which appeared to have been presented first by John Philip Kemble to Polidori (Rossetti’s grandfather) in 1812; then in 1853 by Polidori to his daughter, Rossetti’s mother, Frances Rossetti; and by her in 1870 to her son. A splendid edition (1552) of Boccaccio’s Decamerone contained a number of valuable marginal notes, chiefly by Rossetti, the first being as follows:
This volume contains 40 woodcuts besides many initial letters. The greater number, if not the whole, must certainly be by Holbein. I am in doubt as to the pictures heading the chapters, but think these most probably his, only following the usual style of such illustrations to Boccaccio, and consequently more Italianised than the others. The initial letters present for the most part games of strength or skill.
There were various editions of Dante, including a very large folio edition of the Commedia, dated Florence, 1481, and the works of a number of Dante’s contemporaries. Besides two or three editions of Shakspeare (the best being Dyce’s, in 9 vols.), there were some of the Elizabethan dramatists. Coming to later poetry, I found a complete set of Gilfillan’s Poets, in 45 vols. There was the curious little manuscript quarto (much like a shilling school-exercise book) labelled Blake, and this was, perhaps, by far the most valuable volume in the library. The contents and history of this book have already been given.
There were two editions of Gilchrist’s Blake; complete (or almost complete) sets of the works of William Morris and A. C. Swinburne, inscribed in the authors’ autographs—the copy of Atalanta in Calydon being marked by the poet, “First copy; printed off before the dedication was in type.” It may be remembered that Robert Brough translated Béranger’s songs, and dedicated his volume in affectionate terms to Rossetti. The presentation copy of this book bore the following inscription:—“To D. G. Rossetti, meaning in my heart what I have tried to say in print. Et. B. Brough. 1856.” There were also several presentation copies from Robert Browning, Coventry Patmore, W. B. Scott, Sir Henry Taylor, Aubrey de Vere, Tom Taylor, Westland Marston, F. Locker, A. O’Shaughnessy, Sir Theodore Martin; besides volumes bearing the names of nearly every well-known younger writer of prose or verse.