have already been uttered ad nauseam, though never so musically uttered before, it gives me a kind of physical oppression on the chest ; a vehement longing to get out into the sweet fresh air to breathe; and the extreme sweetness of the flow of the words, makes it the worse, because it holds me, obliges me to go on. "I can go with you any length in admiration of Victor Hugo, 'cet héros au doux sourire' as I always think of him." William Michael Rossetti replies on the twentyfourth of April, 1870:-"What you say about my criticism on Swinburne pleases me, of course: but I am sure you underrate him. . . . The Ballad of Burdens should be taken, I think, as a study from a particular point of view, both of conception and of art. It seems to be about as true as Ecclesiastes-which is to me one of the most moving and powerful books in existence, and true too in its own sphere of thought: but, even if the Ballad of Burdens can't be allowed to pair off with Ecclesiastes, I think it has a fair right (as a matter of art and optional selection of emotional mood) to say what it does say, over-enforced though no doubt it is. It takes one side, and refuses to know anything of the other side. This is the privilege of a passionate lyric: besides which the poem is obviously of the reproductive class to a great extent. It is what a Medieval Troubadour, very fond of the enjoyments of sense, of sense, and very sure that he would be damned to all eternity for indulging in them, might have found to say." In reply she says: "Yes, it is too certain I do not rightly appreciate Mr. Swinburne. . . But A MEDIEVAL TROUBADOUR. 195 'Whitmanism' is not only another sort of thing' but an absolutely destructive-capable of swallowing up all that, as light swallows darkness. When once the world has got well hold of it-incorporated that teaching into its life-both the Poetry and the Philosophy of despair, disgust, satiety, ennui, and scepticism will dissolve into unreality, like evil dreams at dawn:-do not you think so? ". . . I fancy too, you would find in all women, whatever their bent of mind, a sort of averseness or at any rate an absence of enthusiasm towards literature that transports itself into the Past in that absolute way, quite disconnecting it from the present; owing to the subtle but deep and real sense they have of the starved and barren heritage in life of woman in that old world; excepting for the fleeting year or two when they were man's delight. "To-day is but the dawning time for them, I am persuaded-hints of a future of undreamed of beauty and greatness just beginning to disclose themselves, by and by to unfold into a Life Poem that will beggar all words. "The similarity between Swinburne and Landor I judge to be deep." Her friend replies on the first of May :-"My dear Mrs. Gilchrist: I agree with you that when the world has incorporated Whitman's teaching into its life, the poetry and philosophy of despair, &c., will dissolve into unreality.' Only I would substitute if for when. "I am afraid human nature, as concreted into human society, is a very tough affair, and that neither Whitman nor anyone will fully permeate it, or wrench it aside from itself. I believe Whitman will exercise a very real and a very valuable influence; but, as long as there are men and women who prefer to do what they choose' at the moment to doing what the highest intuitions or the most universal interests would dictate, I am afraid there always will be wronged, aggrieved, disappointed, discontented, and misled people in ample number for keeping up the philosophy of ennui. Prometheus will have to wait a longish while before he is unbound. ..." IN CHAPTER XVII. "JENNY." 1870-1871. AGE 42-43. N the spring of 1870, Dante Gabriel Rossetti published his first volume of Poems. He presented a copy to Anne Gilchrist. After acknowledging its safe arrival, she writes a second time to the poet, and alludes to the poem, Jenny : My dear Mr. Rossetti: Now I have read all, the wish is very strong in me to write to you again. And please, do not make up your mind beforehand that my letter is burdensomely long, because these Poems have stirred me so deeply, will remain to me so precious, that I think you cannot help caring a little to hear the way in which this is so. I could linger long content, absorbed, over such noble Poems as the Dante at Verona,' The Last Confession,' 'Sea Limits' (grand!). But I should not tell true if I did not own to you that I believe the glory, the imperishable life of the book is in the Poems which treat of Love; including among these that dear first Poem, The Blessed Damozel, and one or two others, as well as the Songs and Sonnets. So it may well be. What material, gathered by the intellect from afar, can be wrought into life and beauty like that which grows up out of a man's own Soul, with roots in his heart that are nourished by his life blood? The very outward form of the verse takes in these a subtler beauty, so that one thinks of the lines, Whose speech Truth knows not from her thought, the words seeming to flow bodily into the mind and the outward ear to catch the very pulse and breathings of the Soul. "They make me sigh with happiness to realize that the earth did bear on its bosom such sweet life for two human creatures. Then, Such Pity-such pity, it strains the heart too tightly, whelms it. I wish I could convey to you a sense of the vividness and strength of my conviction of the imperishableness of all Realities. Only a little pause, in that blended life! Only one of the two hidden for a few yards by a bend of the road, my friend! How could God spare the sight of such happiness out of His Universe? "There is another poem-other indeed!—which moves me even to anguish one which comes upon a woman with appalling force after she has been standing gazing into the very Sanctuary of Love where womanhood sits divinely enthroned. For she knows that if, looking up joyfully, the brightness shining on her also, she may say, my sister,' she must also, though shame should rise up and cover her, look down and say 'O my sister, |