A generation before, Rossetti had written to me regarding my “Valdarno, or the Ordeal of Art Worship,” then appearing in Ainsworth’s Magazine.
Before that visit to him I had returned to Poetry, my first and last love, having plenty of leisure, with my imagination unemployed. Spending some weeks at Nocton, where I went by Lady Ripon’s request, to look over her beautiful estate and visit the tomb of the late earl, I was often of a morning in the ancient wood, revelling in it for hours, the ground covered with hyacinths and lilies of the valley, the stock doves pouring out their sweet notes from every bough. It was there, to commemorate my visit, that I committed to paper my pastoral poem of “The Lily of the Valley,” which will take any one who reads it into Nocton Wood.
“Old Souls” I wrote while staying in Lady Ripon’s house at Putney: Mrs. Lushington and her beautiful family of daughters were guests. One Sunday, on returning from church with her to lunch, the idea of that poem crossed my mind, impressed by the finely dressed crowd that was chatting and laughing on the way to the fashionable villas in Wimbledon Park.
These two poems were the beginning of a volume named “The World’s Epitaph,” which was printed anonymously and distributed at random among friends and strangers, as well as editors of the press, and apparently it attracted no sort of notice, except from the librarian of a Cambridge college, who said that he had made it his companion during a pleasant tour.
I have forgotten the name of this gentleman, and of his college, but I will one day try to recall it. I must have distributed over a hundred copies.
One copy, sold at W. B. Scott’s sale, the words “D. G. Rossetti, with the author’s compliments,” written on the title-page, found its way into a bookseller’s, who advertised it in his catalogue, price eight shillings and sixpence. A relative of mine, who called to see it, was informed that it had been purchased for the library of the British Museum.
Evidently Rossetti had lent the volume to Scott; in his keeping it shared the lot of so many borrowed books, in being never returned.
A literary celebrity once pointed out to me four hundred books on his shelves, all of which, he said, had been borrowed.
Mr. Buxton Forman told me only the other day (Nov. ’91), that he was one evening at Madox Brown’s, when Rossetti entered in a state of excitement, with the “World’s Epitaph” in his pocket, which he produced, and did little but talk about “Old Souls.” It must have been the copy of which I have spoken, dated 1866, a beautifully printed little book from the press of Woodfall and Kinder.
Dr. R. Latham was good enough to send some copies of the book to his friends, and they took it as his in their reply, which he regarded as too good a joke to disturb.