Old Familiar Faces

by Theodore Watts-Dunton

of life would have made itself manifest, and also a rare potentiality of deep passion. It is this, indeed, which makes the study of her great and noble nature so absorbing.

Perhaps for strength both of subject and of treatment, Christina Rossetti’s masterpiece is ‘Amor Mundi.’ Here we get a lesson of human life expressed, not didactically, but in a concrete form of unsurpassable strength, harmony, and concision. Indeed, it may be said of her work generally that her strength as an artist is seen not so much in mastery over the rhythm, or even over the verbal texture of poetry, as in the skill with which she expresses an allegorical intent by subtle suggestion instead of direct preachment. Herein ‘An Apple Gathering’ is quite perfect. It is, however, if I may venture to say so, a mistake to speak of Christina Rossetti as being a great poetic artist. Exquisite as her best things are, no one had a more uncertain hand than she when at work. Here, as in so many things, she was like Blake, whose influence upon her was very great.

Of self-criticism she had almost nothing. On one occasion, many years ago now, she expressed a wish to have some of her verses printed in The Athenæum, and I suggested her sending them to 16, Cheyne Walk, her brother’s house, where I then used to spend much time in a study that I occupied there. I said that her brother and I would read them together and

submit them to the editor. She sent several poems (I think about six), not one of which was in the least degree worthy of her. This naturally embarrassed me, but Gabriel, who entirely shared my opinion of the poems, wrote at once to her and told her that the verses sent were, both in his own judgment and mine, unworthy of her, and that she “had better buckle to at once and write another poem.” She did so, and the result was an exquisite lyric which appeared in The Athenæum. Here is where she was wonderfully unlike Gabriel, whose power of self-criticism in poetry was almost as great as Tennyson’s own. But in the matter of inspiration she was, I must think, above Gabriel—above almost everybody.

If English rhymed metres had been as easy to work in as Italian rhymed metres, her imagination was so vivid, her poetic impulse was so strong, and, indeed, her poetic wealth so inexhaustible, that she would have stood in the front rank of English poets. But the writer of English rhymed measures is in a very different position as regards improvisatorial efforts from the Italian who writes in rhymed measures. He has to grapple with the metrical structure—to seize the form by the throat, as it were, and force it to take in the enormous wealth at the English poet’s command. Fine as is the ‘Prince’s Progress,’ for instance (and it would be hard to

find its superior in regard to poetic material in the whole compass of Victorian poetry), the number of rugged lines the reader has to encounter weighs upon and distresses him until, indeed, the conclusion is reached: then the passion and the pathos of the subject cause the poem to rise upon billows of true rhythm. On the other hand, however, it may be said that a special quality of her verse is a curiosa felicitas which makes a metrical blemish tell as a kind of suggestive grace. But I must stop; I must bear in mind that he who has walked and talked with Christina Rossetti, burdened with a wealth of remembered beauty from earth and heaven, runs the risk of becoming garrulous.

II.

In regard to unpublished manuscripts which a writer has left behind him, the responsibilities of his legal representatives are far more grave than seems to be generally supposed. In deciding what posthumous writings an executor is justified in giving to the public it is important, of course, to take into account the character, the idiosyncrasy of the writer in regard to all his relations towards what may be called the mechanism of every-day life. Some poets are so methodical that the mere fact of anything having been left by them in manuscript unaccompanied by directions as to its disposal is primâ facie evidence that it was intended to be withheld from the public, either temporarily for revision or finally and absolutely. And, of course, the representative, especially if he is also a relative or a friend, has to consider primarily the intentions of the dead. If loyalty to living friends is a duty, what shall be said of loyalty to friends who are dead? This, indeed, has a sanction of the deepest religious kind.

No doubt, in the philosophical sense, the aspiration of the dead artist for perfect work and the honour it brings is a delusion, a sweet

mockery of the fancy. But then so is every other aspiration which soars above the warm circle of the human affections, and if this delusion of the dead artist was held worthy of respect during the artist’s life, it is worthy of respect—nay, it is worthy of reverence—after he is dead. Now every true artist when at work has before him an ideal which he would fain reach, or at least approach, and if he does not himself know whether in any given exercise he has reached that ideal or neared it, we may be pretty sure that no one else does. Hence, whenever there is apparent in the circumstances under which the MS. has been found the slightest indication that the writer did not wish it to be given to the public, the representative who ignores this indication sins against that reverence for the dead which in all forms of civilization declares itself to be one of the deepest instincts of man.