Certain remarks that have been made upon the character of D'Arcy in Aylwin have rendered it an imperative—nay, a sacred—duty for the author to seize an opportunity that may never occur again of saying here a few words upon the subject.
It is universally acknowledged that characters in fiction are not creations projected from the author's inner consciousness, but are founded more or less upon characters that he was brought into contact with in real life.
Mr. A. C. Benson, in his monograph on D. G. Rossetti, in English Men of Letters, says, 'It was for a long time hoped that Mr. Watts-Dunton would give the memoir of his great friend to the world, but there is such a thing as knowing a man too well to be his biographer. It is, however, an open secret that a vivid sketch of Rossetti's personality has been given to the world in Mr. Watts-Dunton's well-known romance Aylwin, where the artist D'Arcy is drawn from Rossetti.'
Since the appearance of these words many people who take an increasing interest in the most mysterious and romantic figure in the artistic world of the mid-Victorian period, have urged the author to tell them whether the portrait of Rossetti in Aylwin is a true one, or whether it is not idealized as certain cynical critics have affirmed. Nothing but the dread of being charged with egotism has prevented the author's stating publicly, and once for all, that the portrait of Rossetti in Aylwin showing him to be the creature of varying moods, gay and even frolicsome at one moment, profoundly meditative at the next, deeply dejected at the next, but always the most winsome of men, is true to the life. It is more than hinted in the story that D'Arcy's melancholy was the result of the loss of one he deeply loved. From such a loss it was that Rossetti's melancholy moods resulted. There are documentary evidences of the verisimilitude of the picture in every respect. Let one be given out of many. There exists a pathetic record that has never yet been published, by one who knew Rossetti—knew him with special intimacy—the poet Swinburne—depicting the great tragedy which darkened Rossetti's life—the loss of his wife.
It gives the only authorized account of that tragedy—a tragedy which ever since the publication of William Bell Scott's Autobiographical Notes has been so grievously misunderstood and misrepresented. In this narrative Swinburne tells how, when first introduced to Rossetti, he himself was an Oxford undergraduate of twenty. He records how he and Rossetti had lived on terms of affectionate intimacy: shaped and coloured on Rossetti's side by the cordial kindness and exuberant generosity which, to the last, distinguished his recognition of younger men's efforts: on his (Swinburne's) part by gratitude as loyal and admiration as fervent as ever strove and ever failed to express 'all the sweet and sudden passion of youth towards greatness in its elder.' He records how, during that year, he had come to know, and to regard with little less than a brother's affection, the noble lady whom Rossetti had recently married. He records how on the evening of her terrible death, they all three had dined together at a restaurant which Rossetti had been accustomed to frequent. He records how next morning, on coming by appointment to sit for his portrait, he heard that she had died in the night, under circumstances which afterwards made necessary his (Swinburne's) appearance and evidence at the inquest held on her remains. He dwells upon the anguish of the widower, when next they met, under the roof of the mother with whom he had sought refuge. He records how Rossetti appealed to his friendship in the name of the dead lady's regard for him—a regard such as she had felt for no other of Rossetti's friends—to cleave to him in this time of sorrow, to come and keep house with him as soon as a residence could be found.
Can there be a more convincing and a more beautiful testimony as to a friend's sorrow and its cause?
Over and above the touching testimony of Swinburne, no one will deny that if ever one man knew another too well to be his biographer, as Mr. Benson says, the author of Aylwin was that man with regard to Rossetti. No one has ever ventured to challenge the assertion in the article on Rossetti in the Encyclopædia Britannica that there was a time when with the exception of his own family the poet-painter saw scarcely any one save the writer of this book, whom he was never tired of designating his friend of friends. There is no need to multiply instances of this friendship, which has been enlarged upon by Rossetti's brother, and by many others. Elizabeth Luther Gary, in the best of all the books upon Rossetti, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons two years after the first edition of Aylwin, speaks of D'Arcy as being 'the mouthpiece of Rossetti.'
It may be added that Rossetti's Ballads and Sonnets, published in 1882, were dedicated to the author in these words: 'To the Friend whom my verse won for me, these few more pages are affectionately inscribed.' When he drew his last breath at Birchington it was in that friend's arms. It is necessary to dwell upon such facts as the above to show how fully equipped is the author of Aylwin for understanding and depicting the great poet-painter, to whose memory he addressed the sonnet at the head of this note.
As to the personality of Rossetti, to which Mr. Benson alludes, to say that it was the one that stood out among the lives of the Victorian poets is to state the case very feebly. It has been the fortune of the delineator of D'Arcy to be thrown intimately across several of the great poets of his time, not one of whom displayed a personality so dominant as Rossetti's. Fine as is Rossetti's poetry and fine as are his paintings, they but inadequately represent the man. As to his personal fascination, among all the poets of England we have no record of anything equal to it. It asserted itself not only in relation to the pre-Raphaelite group, but in relation to all other members of society with whom he was brought into contact. To describe the magnetism of such a man is, of course, impossible. Much has been written upon what is called the demonic power in certain individuals—the power of casting one's own influence over all others. Napoleon's case is generally instanced as a typical one. But Napoleon's demonic power was of a self-conscious kind. It would seem, however, that there is another kind of demonic power—the power of shedding quite unconsciously one's personality upon all brought into contact with it. The demonic power of Rossetti, like that of D'Arcy in this story, was quite unconscious. In Rossetti's presence, as in D'Arcy's, it was impossible not to yield to this strange, mysterious power. At the time when he was not so entirely reclusive as he afterwards became, when he used to meet all sorts of people, the author had many opportunities of noticing its effect upon others. He has seen them try to resist it, and in vain. On a certain occasion a very eminent man, much used to society, and much used to the brilliant literary clubs of London, was quite cowed and silenced before Rossetti. It is necessary to dwell upon these subtle distinctions, because this is the D'Arcy who, as a critic has remarked, 'is the real protagonist of Aylwin—although the reader does not discover it until the very end of the story, where D'Arcy is the character who unravels and explains all.' Without D'Arcy, indeed, and the demonic power possessed by him, the story would have no existence.
It is, of course, in the illustrated editions of Aylwin that D'Arcy's identification with Rossetti and his importance in the story become specially manifest. On page 204 of the illustrated editions an exact picture has been given by Rossetti's pupil, Dunn, of the famous studio at 16 Cheyne Walk—the studio which will always be associated with Rossetti's name. It has been immortalized by his friend, Dr. Gordon Hake, in the following lines addressed to the author of Aylwin in the sonnet-sequence, The New Day: