Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic

No one, I say, is more competent to speak of the whims and the fancies and the troublesomeness of Rossetti than I am; and yet I say that he was one of the noblest-hearted men of his time, and lovable – most lovable.”

It would be worse than idle to enter at this time of day upon the painful subject of the “Buchanan affair.” Indeed, I have often thought it is a great pity that it is not allowed to die out. The only reason why it is still kept alive seems to be that, without discussing it, it is impossible fully to understand Rossetti’s nervous illness, about which so much has been said. I remember seeing in Mr. Watts-Dunton’s essay on Congreve in ‘Chambers’s Encyclopædia’ a definition of envy as the ‘literary leprosy.’ This phrase has often been quoted in reference to the case of Buchanan, and also in reference to a recent and much more ghastly case between two intimate friends. Now, with all deference to Mr. Watts-Dunton, I cannot accept it as a right and fair definition. It is a fact no doubt that the struggle in the world of art – whether poetry, music, painting, sculpture, or the drama – is unlike that of the mere strivers after wealth and position, inasmuch as to praise one man’s artistic work is in a certain way to set it up against the work of another. Still, one can realize, without referring to Disraeli’s ‘Curiosities of Literature,’ that envy is much too vigorous in the artistic life. Now, whatever may have been the good qualities of Buchanan – and I know he had many good qualities – it seems unfortunately to be true that he was afflicted with this terrible disease of envy. There can be no question that what incited him to write the notorious article in the ‘Contemporary Review’ entitled ‘The Fleshly School of Poetry,’ was simply envy – envy and nothing else. It was during the time that Rossetti was suffering most dreadfully from the mental disturbance which seems really to have originated in this attack and the cognate attacks which appeared in certain other magazines, that the intimacy between Mr. Watts-Dunton and Rossetti was formed and cemented. And it is to this period that Mr. William Rossetti alludes in the following words: “‘Watts is a hero of friendship’ was, according to Mr. Caine, one of my brother’s last utterances, easy enough to be credited.”

That he deserved these words I think none will deny; and that the friendship sprang from the depths of the nature of a man to whom the word ‘friendship’ meant not what it generally means now, a languid sentiment, but what it meant in Shakespeare’s time, a deep passion, is shown by what some deem the finest lines Mr. Watts-Dunton ever wrote – I mean those lines which he puts into the mouth of Shakespeare’s Friend in ‘Christmas at the Mermaid,’ lines part of which have been admirably turned into Latin by Mr. E. D. Stone, 13 and published by him in the second volume of that felicitous series of Latin translations,’ Florilegium Latinum’: —

‘MR. W. H.’To sing the nation’s song or do the deedThat crowns with richer light the motherland,Or lend her strength of arm in hour of needWhen fangs of foes shine fierce on every hand,Is joy to him whose joy is working well —Is goal and guerdon too, though never fame.Should find a thrill of music in his name;Yea, goal and guerdon too, though Scorn should aimHer arrows at his soul’s high citadel.But if the fates withhold the joy from meTo do the deed that widens England’s day,Or join that song of Freedom’s jubileeBegun when England started on her way —Withhold from me the hero’s glorious powerTo strike with song or sword for her, the mother,And give that sacred guerdon to another,Him will I hail as my more noble brother —Him will I love for his diviner dower.Enough for me who have our Shakspeare’s loveTo see a poet win the poet’s goal,For Will is he; enough and far aboveAll other prizes to make rich my soul.Ben names my numbers golden. Since they tellA tale of him who in his peerless primeFled us ere yet one shadowy film of timeCould dim the lustre of that brow sublime,Golden my numbers are: Ben praiseth well.

It seems to me to be needful to bear in mind these lines, and the extremely close intimacy between these two poet-friends in order to be able to forgive entirely the unexampled scourging of Buchanan in the following sonnet if, as some writers think, Buchanan was meant: —

THE OCTOPUS OF THE GOLDEN ISLES‘what! will they even strike at me?’Round many an Isle of Song, in seas serene,With many a swimmer strove the poet-boy,Yet strove in love: their strength, I say, was joyTo him, my friend – dear friend of godlike mien!But soon he felt beneath the billowy greenA monster moving – moving to destroy:Limb after limb became the tortured toyOf coils that clung and lips that stung unseen.“And canst thou strike ev’n me?” the swimmer said,As rose above the waves the deadly eyes,Arms flecked with mouths that kissed in hellish wise,Quivering in hate around a hateful head. —I saw him fight old Envy’s sorceries:I saw him sink: the man I loved is dead!

Here we get something quite new in satire – something in which poetry, fancy, hatred, and contempt, are mingled. The sonnet appeared first in the ‘Athenæum,’ and afterwards in ‘The Coming of Love.’ If Buchanan or any special individual was meant, I doubt whether any man has a moral right to speak about another man in such terms as these.

All the friends of Rossetti have remarked upon the extraordinary influence exercised upon him by Mr. Watts-Dunton. Lady Mount Temple, a great friend of the painter-poet, used to tell how when she was in his studio and found him in a state of great dejection, as was so frequently the case, she would notice that Rossetti’s face would suddenly brighten up on hearing a light footfall in the hall – the footfall of his friend, who had entered with his latch-key – and how from that moment Rossetti would be another man. Rossetti’s own relatives have recorded the same influence. I have often thought that the most touching thing in Mr. W. M. Rossetti’s beautiful monograph of his brother is the following extract from his aged mother’s diary at Birchington-on-Sea, when the poet is dying: —

‘March 28, Tuesday. Mr. Watts came down; Gabriel rallied marvellously.

This is the last cheerful item which it is allowed me to record concerning my brother; I am glad that it stands associated with the name of Theodore Watts.’

Here is another excerpt from the brother’s diary: —

‘Gabriel had, just before Shields entered the drawing-room for me, given two violent cries, and had a convulsive fit, very sharp and distorting the face, followed by collapse. All this passed without my personal cognizance. He died 9.31 p.m.; the others – Watts, mother, Christina, and nurse, in room; Caine and Shields in and out; Watts at Gabriel’s right side, partly supporting him.’

That Mr. Watts-Dunton’s influence over Rossetti extended even to his art as a poet is shown by Mr. Benson’s words already quoted. I must also quote the testimony of Mr. Hall Caine, who says, in his ‘Recollections’: —

“Rossetti, throughout the period of my acquaintance with him, seemed to me always peculiarly and, if I may be permitted to say so without offence, strangely liable to Mr. Watts’ influence in his critical estimates; and the case instanced was perhaps the only one in which I knew him to resist Mr. Watts’s opinion upon a matter of poetical criticism, which he considered to be almost final, as his letters to me, printed in Chapter VIII of this volume, will show. I had a striking instance of this, and of the real modesty of the man whom I had heard and still hear spoken of as the most arrogant man of genius of his day, on one of the first occasions of my seeing him. He read out to me an additional stanza to the beautiful poem ‘Cloud Confines.’ As he read it, I thought it very fine, and he evidently was very fond of it himself. But he surprised me by saying that he should not print it. On my asking him why, he said:

‘Watts, though he admits its beauty, thinks the poem would be better without it.’

‘Well, but you like it yourself,’ said I.

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but in a question of gain or loss to a poem I feel that Watts must be right.’

And the poem appeared in ‘Ballads and Sonnets’ without the stanza in question.”

Here is another beautiful passage from Mr. Hall Caine’s ‘Recollections’ – a passage which speaks as much for the writer as for the object of his enthusiasm: —

“As to Mr. Theodore Watts, whose brotherly devotion to him and beneficial influence over him from that time forward are so well known, this must be considered by those who witnessed it to be almost without precedent or parallel even in the beautiful story of literary friendships, and it does as much honour to the one as to the other. No light matter it must have been to lay aside one’s own long-cherished life-work and literary ambitions to be Rossetti’s closest friend and brother, at a moment like the present, when he imagined the world to be conspiring against him; but through these evil days, and long after them, down to his death, the friend that clung closer than a brother was with him, as he himself said, to protect, to soothe, to comfort, to divert, to interest and inspire him – asking, meantime, no better reward than the knowledge that a noble mind and nature was by such sacrifice lifted out of sorrow. Among the world’s great men the greatest are sometimes those whose names are least on our lips, and this is because selfish aims have been so subordinate in their lives to the welfare of others as to leave no time for the personal achievements that win personal distinction; but when the world comes to the knowledge of the price that has been paid for the devotion that enables others to enjoy their renown, shall it not reward with a double meed of gratitude the fine spirits to whom ambition has been as nothing against fidelity of friendship. Among the latest words I heard from Rossetti was this: ‘Watts is a hero of friendship’; and indeed, he has displayed his capacity for participation in the noblest part of comradeship, that part, namely, which is far above the mere traffic that too often goes by the name, and wherein self-love always counts upon being the gainer. If in the end it should appear that he has in his own person done less than might have been hoped for from one possessed of his splendid gifts, let it not be overlooked that he has influenced in a quite incalculable degree, and influenced for good, several of the foremost among those who in their turn have influenced the age. As Rossetti’s faithful friend and gifted medical adviser, Mr. John Marshall, has often declared, there were periods when Rossetti’s very life may be said to have hung upon Mr. Watts’ power to cheer and soothe.”

This anecdote is also told by Mr. Caine: —

“Immediately upon the publication of his first volume, and incited thereto by the early success of it, he had written the poem ‘Rose Mary,’ as well as two lyrics published at the time in ‘The Fortnightly Review’; but he suffered so seriously from the subsequent assaults of criticism, that he seemed definitely to lay aside all hope of producing further poetry, and, indeed, to become possessed of the delusion that he had for ever lost all power of doing so. It is an interesting fact, well known in his own literary circle, that his taking up poetry afresh was the result of a fortuitous occurrence. After one of his most serious illnesses, and in the hope of drawing off his attention from himself, and from the gloomy forebodings which in an invalid’s mind usually gather about his own too absorbing personality, a friend prevailed upon him, with infinite solicitation, to try his hand afresh at a sonnet. The outcome was an effort so feeble as to be all but unrecognizable as the work of the author of the sonnets of ‘The House of Life,’ but, with more shrewdness and friendliness (on this occasion) than frankness, the critic lavished measureless praise upon it and urged the poet to renewed exertion. One by one, at longer or shorter intervals, sonnets were written, and this exercise did more towards his recovery than any other medicine, with the result besides that Rossetti eventually regained all his old dexterity and mastery of hand. The artifice had succeeded beyond every expectation formed of it, serving, indeed, the twofold end of improving the invalid’s health by preventing his brooding over unhealthy matters, and increasing the number of his accomplished works. Encouraged by such results, the friend went on to induce Rossetti to write a ballad, and this purpose he finally achieved by challenging the poet’s ability to compose in the simple, direct, and emphatic style, which is the style of the ballad proper, as distinguished from the elaborate, ornate, and condensed diction which he had hitherto worked in. Put upon his mettle, the outcome of this second artifice practised upon him was that he wrote ‘The White Ship’ and afterwards ‘The King’s Tragedy.’

Thus was Rossetti already immersed in this revived occupation of poetic composition, and had recovered a healthy tone of body, before he became conscious of what was being done with him. It is a further amusing fact that one day he requested to be shown the first sonnet which, in view of the praise lavished upon it by the friend on whose judgment he reposed, had encouraged him to renewed effort. The sonnet was bad: the critic knew it was bad, and had from the first hour of its production kept it carefully out of sight, and was now more than ever unwilling to show it. Eventually, however, by reason of ceaseless importunity, he returned it to its author, who, upon reading it, cried: ‘You fraud! You said this sonnet was good, and it’s the worst I ever wrote!’ ‘The worst ever written would perhaps be a truer criticism,’ was the reply, as the studio resounded with a hearty laugh, and the poem was committed to the flames. It would appear that to this occurrence we probably owe a large portion of the contents of the volume of 1881.”

Mr. William Rossetti is ever eager to testify to the beneficent effect of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s intimacy upon his brother; and quite lately Madox Brown’s grandson, Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer, who, from his connection with the Rossetti family, speaks with great authority, wrote: ‘In 1873 came Mr. Theodore Watts, without whose practical friendship and advice, and without whose literary aids and sustenance, life would have been from thenceforth an impracticable affair for Rossetti.’ Mr. Hueffer speaks of the great change that came over Rossetti’s work when he wrote ‘The King’s Tragedy’ and ‘The White Ship’: —

“It should be pointed out that ‘The White Ship’ was one of Rossetti’s last works, and that in it he was aiming at simplicity of narration, under the advice of Mr. Theodore Watts. In this he was undoubtedly on the right track, and the ‘rhymed chronicles’ might have disappeared had Rossetti lived long enough to revise the poem as sedulously as he did his earlier work, and to revise it with the knowledge of narrative-technique that the greater part of the poem shows was coming to be his.”

It was impossible for a man of genius to live so secluded a life as Rossetti lived at Cheyne Walk and at Kelmscott for several years, without wild, unauthenticated stories getting about concerning him. Among other things Rossetti, whose courtesy and charm of manner were, I believe, proverbial, was now charged with a rudeness, or rather boorishness like that which with equal injustice, apparently, is now being attributed to Tennyson. Stories got into print about his rude bearing towards people, sometimes towards ladies of the most exalted position. And these apocryphal and disparaging legends would no doubt have been still more numerous and still more offensive, had it not been for the influence of his watchful and powerful friend. Here is an interesting letter which Rossetti addressed to the ‘World,’ and which shows the close relations between him and Mr. Watts-Dunton: —

“16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, S.W.December 28, 1878.

My attention has been directed to the following paragraph which has appeared in the newspapers: ‘A very disagreeable story is told about a neighbour of Mr. Whistler’s, whose works are not exhibited to the vulgar herd; the Princess Louise in her zeal therefore, graciously sought them at the artist’s studio, but was rebuffed by a ‘Not at home’ and an intimation that he was not at the beck and call of princesses. I trust it is not true,’ continues the writer of the paragraph, ‘that so medievally minded a gentleman is really a stranger to that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that dignified obedience,’ etc.

The story is certainly disagreeable enough; but if I am pointed out as the ‘near neighbour of Mr. Whistler’s’ who rebuffed, in this rude fashion, the Princess Louise, I can only say that it is a canard devoid of the smallest nucleus of truth. Her Royal Highness has never called upon me, and I know of only two occasions when she has expressed a wish to do so. Some years ago Mr. Theodore Martin spoke to me upon the subject, but I was at that time engaged upon an important work, and the delays thence arising caused the matter to slip through. And I heard no more upon the subject till last summer, when Mr. Theodore Watts told me that the Princess, in conversation, had mentioned my name to him, and that he had then assured her that I should feel ‘honoured and charmed to see her,’ and suggested her making an appointment. Her Royal Highness knew that Mr. Watts, as one of my most intimate friends, would not have thus expressed himself without feeling fully warranted in so doing; and had she called she would not, I trust, have found me wanting in that ‘generous loyalty’ which is due, not more to her exalted position, than to her well-known charm of character and artistic gifts. It is true that I do not run after great people on account of their mere social position, but I am, I hope, never rude to them; and the man who could rebuff the Princess Louise must be a curmudgeon indeed.

D. G. ROSSETTI.”

At the very juncture in question Lord Lorne was suddenly and unexpectedly appointed Governor-General of Canada, and, leaving England, Her Royal Highness did not return until Rossetti’s health had somewhat suddenly broken down, and it was impossible for him to see any but his most intimate friends.

My account of the friendship between Mr. Watts-Dunton and Rossetti would not be complete without the poem entitled, ‘A Grave by the Sea,’ which I think may be placed beside Milton’s ‘Lycidas,’ Shelley’s ‘Adonais,’ Matthew Arnold’s ‘Thyrsis,’ and Swinburne’s ‘Ave Atque Vale,’ as one of the noblest elegies in our literature: —

A GRAVE BY THE SEAIYon sightless poet 14 whom thou leav’st behind,Sightless and trembling like a storm-struck tree,Above the grave he feels but cannot see,Save with the vision Sorrow lends the mind,Is he indeed the loneliest of mankind?Ah no! – For all his sobs, he seems to meLess lonely standing there, and nearer thee,Than I – less lonely, nearer – standing blind!Free from the day, and piercing Life’s disguiseThat needs must partly enveil true heart from heart,His inner eyes may see thee as thou artIn Memory’s land – see thee beneath the skiesLit by thy brow – by those beloved eyes,While I stand by him in a world apart.III stand like her who on the glittering RhineSaw that strange swan which drew a faëry boatWhere shone a knight whose radiant forehead smoteHer soul with light and made her blue eyes shineFor many a day with sights that seemed divine,Till that false swan returned and arched his throatIn pride, and called him, and she saw him floatAdown the stream: I stand like her and pine.I stand like her, for she, and only she,Might know my loneliness for want of thee.Light swam into her soul, she asked not whence,Filled it with joy no clouds of life could smother,And then, departing like a vision thence,Left her more lonely than the blind, my brother.IIILast night Death whispered: ‘Death is but the nameMan gives the Power which lends him life and light,And then, returning past the coast of night,Takes what it lent to shores from whence it came.What balm in knowing the dark doth but reclaimThe sun it lent, if day hath taken flight?Art thou not vanished – vanished from my sight —Though somewhere shining, vanished all the same?With Nature dumb, save for the billows’ moan,Engirt by men I love, yet desolate —Standing with brothers here, yet dazed and lone,King’d by my sorrow, made by grief so greatThat man’s voice murmurs like an insect’s drone —What balm, I ask, in knowing that Death is Fate?IVLast night Death whispered: ‘Life’s purblind procession,Flickering with blazon of the human story —Time’s fen-flame over Death’s dark territory —Will leave no trail, no sign of Life’s aggression.Yon moon that strikes the pane, the stars in session,Are weak as Man they mock with fleeting glory.Since Life is only Death’s frail feudatory,How shall love hold of Fate in true possession?’I answered thus: ‘If Friendship’s isle of palmIs but a vision, every loveliest leaf,Can Knowledge of its mockery soothe and calmThis soul of mine in this most fiery grief?If Love but holds of Life through Death in fief,What balm in knowing that Love is Death’s – what balm?’VYea, thus I boldly answered Death – even IWho have for boon – who have for deathless dower —Thy love, dear friend, which broods, a magic power,Filling with music earth and sea and sky:‘O Death,’ I said, ‘not Love, but thou shalt die;For, this I know, though thine is now the hour,And thine these angry clouds of doom that lour,Death striking Love but strikes to deify.’Yet while I spoke I sighed in loneliness,For strange seemed Man, and Life seemed comfortless,And night, whom we two loved, seemed strange and dumb;And, waiting till the dawn the promised sign,I watched – I listened for that voice of thine,Though Reason said: ‘Nor voice nor face can come.’Birchington,Eastertide, 1882.

Mr. Watts-Dunton has written many magnificent sonnets, but the sonnet in this sequence beginning —

Last night Death whispered: ‘Life’s purblind procession,’

is, I think, the finest of them all. The imaginative conception packed into these fourteen lines is cosmic in its sweep. In the metrical scheme the feminine rhymes of the octave play a very important part. They suggest pathetic suspense, mystery, yearning, hope, fear; they ask, they wonder, they falter. But in the sestet the words of destiny are calmly and coldly pronounced, and every rhyme clinches the voice of doom, until the uttermost deep of despair is sounded in the iterated cry of the last line. The craftsmanship throughout is masterly. There is, indeed, one line which is not unworthy of being ranked with the great lines of English poetry:

Yon moon that strikes the pane, the stars in session.

Here by a bold use of the simple verb ‘strikes’ a whole poem is hammered into six words. As to the interesting question of feminine rhymes, while I admit that they should never be used without an emotional mandate, I think that here it is overwhelming.

I have tried to show the beauty of the friendship between these two rare spirits by means of other testimony than my own, for although I have been granted the honour of knowing Rossetti’s ‘friend of friends,’ I missed the equal honour of knowing Rossetti, save through that ‘friend of friends.’ But to know Mr. Watts-Dunton seems almost like knowing Rossetti, for when at The Pines he begins to recall those golden hours when the poets used to hold converse, the soul of Rossetti seems to come back from the land of shadows, as his friend depicts his winsome ways, his nobility of heart, his generous interest in the work of others, that lovableness of nature and charm of personality which, if we are to believe Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer, worked, in some degree, ill for the poet. Mr. Hueffer, who, as a family connection, may be supposed to represent the family tradition about ‘Gabriel,’ has some striking and pregnant words upon the injurious effect of Rossetti’s being brought so much into contact with admirers from the time when Mr. Meredith and Mr. Swinburne were his housemates at Cheyne Walk. “Then came the ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ poets like Philip Marston, O’Shaughnessy, and ‘B. V.’ Afterwards there came a whole host of young men like Mr. William Sharp, who were serious admirers, and to-day are in their places or are dead or forgotten; and others again who came for the ‘pickings.’ They were all more or less enthusiasts.”

Mr. Hake, in ‘Notes and Queries’ (June 7, 1902), says:

“With regard to the green room in which Winifred took her first breakfast at ‘Hurstcote,’ I am a little in confusion. It seems to me more like the green dining-room in Cheyne Walk, decorated with antique mirrors, which was painted by Dunn, showing Rossetti reading his poems aloud. This is the only portrait of Rossetti that really calls up the man before me. As Mr. Watts-Dunton is the owner of Dunn’s drawing, and as so many people want to see what Rossetti’s famous Chelsea house was like inside, it is a pity he does not give it as a frontispiece to some future edition of ‘Aylwin.’ Unfortunately, Mr. G. F. Watts’s picture, now in the National Portrait Gallery, was never finished, and I never saw upon Rossetti’s face the dull, heavy expression which that portrait wears. I think the poet told me that he had given the painter only one or two sittings. As to the photographs, none of them is really satisfactory.”