Chapter XVII

'THE LIFE POETIC'

[Picture: 'The Pines.' (From a Drawing by Herbert Railton.)]

I have been allowed to enrich this volume with photographs of 'The Pines' and of some of the exquisite works of art therein. But it is unfortunate for me that I am not allowed to touch upon what are the most important relations of Mr. Watts-Dunton's life--important though so many of them are. I mean his intimacy with the poet whose name is now beyond doubt far above any other name in the contemporary world of letters. I do not sympathize with the hyper-sensitiveness of eminent men with regard to privacy. The inner chamber of what Rossetti calls the 'House of Life' should be kept sacred. But Rossetti's own case shows how impossible it is in these days to keep those recesses inviolable. The fierce light that beats upon men of genius grows fiercer and fiercer every day, and it cannot be quenched. This was one of my arguments when I first answered Mr. Watts-Dunton's own objection to the appearance of this monograph. The times have changed since he was a young man. Then publicity was shunned like a plague by poets and by painters. If such men wish the light to be true as well as fierce, they must allow their friends to illuminate their 'House of Life' by the lamp of truth. If Rossetti during his lifetime had allowed one of his friends who knew the secrets of his 'House of Life' to write about him, we might have been spared those canards about him and the wife he loved which were rife shortly after his death. Byron's reluctance to take payment for his poetry was not a more belated relic of an old quixotism than is this dying passion for privacy. Publicity may be an evil, but it is an inevitable evil, and great men must not let the wasps and the gadflies monopolize its uses. It may be a reminiscence of an older and a nobler social temper, the temper under the influence of which Rossetti in 1870 said that he felt abashed because a paragraph had appeared in the 'Athenaeum' announcing the fact that a book from him was forthcoming. But that temper has gone by for ever. We live now in very different times. Scores upon scores of unauthorized and absolutely false paragraphs about eminent men are published, especially about these two friends who have lived their poetic life together for more than a quarter of a century. Only the other day I saw in a newspaper an offensive descriptive caricature of Mr. Swinburne, of his dress, etc. It is interesting to recall the fact that mendacious journalism was the cause of Mr. Watts-Dunton's very first contribution to the 'Athenaeum,' before he wrote any reviews at all. At that time the offenders seem to have been chiefly Americans. The article was not a review, but a letter signed 'Z,' entitled 'The Art of Interviewing,' and it appeared in the 'Athenaeum,' of March 11, 1876. As it shows the great Swinburne myth in the making, I will reproduce this merry little skit:--

"'Alas! there is none of us without his skeleton-closet,' said a great writer to one who was congratulating him upon having reached the goal for which he had, from the first, set out. 'My skeleton bears the dreadful name of "American Interviewer." Pity me!' 'Is he an American with a diary in his pocket?' was the terrified question always put by another man of genius, whenever you proposed introducing a stranger to him. But this was in those ingenuous Parker-Willisian days when the 'Interviewer' merely invented the dialogue--not the entire dramatic action--not the interview itself. Primitive times! since when the 'Interviewer' has developed indeed! His dramatic inspiration now is trammelled by none of those foolish and arbitrary conditions which--whether his scene of action was at the 'Blue Posts' with Thackeray, or in the North with Scottish lords--vexed and bounded the noble soul of the great patriarch of the tribe. Uncribbed, uncabined, unconfined, the 'Interviewer' now invents, not merely the dialogue, but the 'situation,' the place, the time--the interview itself. Every dramatist has his favourite character--Sophocles had his; Shakspeare had his; Schiller had his; the 'Interviewer' has his. Mr. Swinburne has, for the last two or three years, been--for some reason which it might not be difficult to explain--the 'Interviewer's' special favourite. Moreover, the accounts of the interviews with him are always livelier than any others, inasmuch as they are accompanied by brilliant fancy-sketches of his personal appearance--sketches which, if they should not gratify him exactly, would at least astonish him; and it is surely something to be even astonished in these days. Some time ago, for instance, an American lady journalist, connected with a 'Western newspaper,' made her appearance in London, and expressed many 'great desires,' the greatest of all her 'desires' being to know the author of 'Atalanta,' or, if she could not know him, at least to 'see him.'

The Fates, however, were not kind to the lady. The author of 'Atalanta' had quitted London. She did not see him, therefore--not with her bodily eyes could she see him. Yet this did not at all prevent her from 'interviewing' him. Why should it? The 'soul hath eyes and ears' as well as the body--especially if the soul is an American soul, with a mission to 'interview.' There soon appeared in the lady's Western newspaper a graphic account of one of the most interesting interviews with this poet that has ever yet been recorded. Mr. Swinburne--though at the time in Scotland--'called' upon the lady at her rooms in London; but, notwithstanding this unexampled feat of courtesy, he seems to have found no favour in the lady's eyes. She 'misliked him for his complexion.' Evidently it was nothing but good-breeding that prevented her from telling the bard, on the spot, that he was physically an unlovely bard. His manners, too, were but so-so; and the Western lady was shocked and disgusted, as well she might be. In the midst of his conversation, for example, he called out frantically for 'pen and ink.' He had become suddenly and painfully 'afflated.' When furnished with pen and ink he began furiously writing a poem, beating the table with his left hand and stamping the floor with both feet as he did so. Then, without saying a word, he put on his hat and rushed from the room like a madman! This account was copied into other newspapers and into the magazines. It is, in fact, a piece of genuine history now, and will form valuable material for some future biographer of the poet. The stubborn shapelessness of facts has always distressed the artistically-minded historian. But let the American 'Interviewer' go on developing thus, and we may look for History's becoming far more artistic and symmetrical in future. The above is but one out of many instances of the art of interviewing."

It is all very well to say that irresponsible statements of this kind are not in the true sense of the word believed by readers; they create an atmosphere of false mist which destroys altogether the picture of the poet's life which one would like to preserve. And I really think that it would have been better if I or some one else among the friends of the poets had been allowed to write more freely about the beautiful and intellectual life at 'The Pines.' But I am forbidden to do this, as the following passage in a letter which I have received from Mr. Watts-Dunton will show:

"I cannot have anything about our life at 'The Pines' put into print, but I will grant you permission to give a few reproductions of the interesting works of art here, for many of them may have a legitimate interest for the public on account of their historic value, as having come to me from the magician of art, Rossetti. And I assure you that this is a concession which I have denied to very many applicants, both among friends and others."

[Picture: A Corner in 'The Pines,' showing the Lacquer Cabinet]

Mr. Watts-Dunton's allusion to the Rossetti mementoes requires a word of explanation. Rossetti, it seems, was very fond of surprising his friends by unexpected tokens of generosity. I have heard Mr. Watts-Dunton say that during the week when he was moving into 'The Pines,' he spent as usual Wednesday night at 16 Cheyne Walk, and he and Rossetti sat talking into the small hours. Next morning after breakfast he strolled across to Whistler's house to have a talk with the ever-interesting painter, and this resulted in his getting home two hours later than usual. On reaching the new house he saw a waggon standing in front of it. He did not understand this, for the furniture from the previous residence had been all removed. He went up to the waggon, and was surprised to find it full of furniture of a choice kind. But there was no need for him to give much time to an examination of the furniture, for he found he was familiar with every piece of it. It had come straight from Rossetti's house, having been secretly packed and sent off by Dunn on the previous day. Some of the choicest things at 'The Pines' came in this way. Not a word had Rossetti said about this generous little trick on the night before. The superb Chinese cabinet, a photograph of which appears in this book, belonged to Rossetti. It seems that on a certain occasion Frederick Sandys, or some one else, told Rossetti that the clever but ne'er-do-well artist, George Chapman, had bought of a sea-captain, trading in Chinese waters, a wonderful piece of lacquer work of the finest period--before the Manchu pig-tail time. The captain had bought it of a Frenchman who had aided in looting the Imperial Palace. Rossetti, of course, could not rest until he had seen it, and when he had seen it, he could not rest until he had bought it of Chapman; and it was taken across to 16 Cheyne Walk, where it was greatly admired. The captain had barbarously mutilated it at the top in order to make it fit in his cabin, and it remained in that condition for some years. Afterwards Rossetti gave it to Mr. Watts-Dunton, who got it restored and made up by the wonderful amateur carver, the late Mr. T. Keynes, who did the carving on the painted cabinet also photographed for this book. There is a long and interesting story in connection with this piece of Chinese lacquer, but I have no room to tell it here.

* * * * *

[Picture: Summer at 'The Pines'--I]

All I am allowed to say about the relations between Mr. Watts-Dunton and Mr. Swinburne is that the friendship began in 1872, that it soon developed into the closest intimacy, not only with the poet himself, but with all his family. In 1879 the two friends became house-mates at 'The Pines,' Putney Hill, and since then they have never been separated, for Mr. Watts-Dunton's visits to the Continent, notably those with the late Dr. Hake recorded in 'The New Day,' took place just before this time. The two poets thenceforth lived together, worked together; saw their common friends together, and travelled together. In 1882, after the death of Rossetti they went to the Channel Islands, staying at St. Peter's Port, Guernsey, for some little time, and then at Petit Bot Bay. Their swims in this beautiful bay Mr. Watts-Dunton commemorated in two of the opening sonnets of 'The Coming of Love':--

NATURE'S FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

(A MORNING SWIM OFF GUERNSEY WITH A FRIEND)

As if the Spring's fresh groves should change and shake To dark green woods of Orient terebinth, Then break to bloom of England's hyacinth, So 'neath us change the waves, rising to take Each kiss of colour from each cloud and flake Round many a rocky hall and labyrinth, Where sea-wrought column, arch, and granite plinth, Show how the sea's fine rage dares make and break. Young with the youth the sea's embrace can lend, Our glowing limbs, with sun and brine empearled, Seem born anew, and in your eyes, dear friend, Rare pictures shine, like fairy flags unfurled, Of child-land, where the roofs of rainbows bend Over the magic wonders of the world

THE LANGUAGE OF NATURE'S FRAGRANCY

(THE TIRING-ROOM IN THE ROCKS)

These are the 'Coloured Caves' the sea-maid built; Her walls are stained beyond that lonely fern, For she must fly at every tide's return, And all her sea-tints round the walls are spilt. Outside behold the bay, each headland gilt With morning's gold; far off the foam-wreaths burn Like fiery snakes, while here the sweet waves yearn Up sand more soft than Avon's sacred silt. And smell the sea! no breath of wood or field, From lips of may or rose or eglantine, Comes with the language of a breath benign, Shuts the dark room where glimmers Fate revealed, Calms the vext spirit, balms a sorrow unhealed, Like scent of sea-weed rich of morn and brine.

The two friends afterwards went to Sark. A curious incident occurred during their stay in the island. The two poet-swimmers received a bravado challenge from 'Orion' Horne, who was also a famous swimmer, to swim with him round the whole island of Sark! I need hardly say that the absurd challenge was not accepted.

During the cruise Mr. Swinburne conceived and afterwards wrote some glorious poetry. In the same year the two friends went to Paris, as I have already mentioned, to assist at the Jubilee of 'Le Roi s'Amuse.' Since then their love of the English coasts and the waters which wash them, seems to have kept them in England. For two consecutive years they went to Sidestrand, on the Norfolk coast, for bathing. It was there that Mr. Swinburne wrote some of his East Anglian poems, and it was there that Mr. Watts-Dunton conceived the East coast parts of 'Aylwin.' It was during one of these visits that Mr. Swinburne first made the acquaintance of Grant Allen, who had long been an intimate friend of Mr. Watts-Dunton's. The two, indeed, were drawn together by the fact that they both enjoyed science as much as they enjoyed literature. It was a very interesting meeting, as Grant Allen had long been one of Swinburne's most ardent admirers, and his social charm, his intellectual sweep and brilliance, made a great impression on the poet. Since then their visits to the sea have been confined to parts of the English Channel, such as Eastbourne, where they were near neighbours of Rossetti's friends, Lord and Lady Mount Temple, between whom and Mr. Watts-Dunton there had been an affectionate intimacy for many years--but more notably Lancing, whither they went for three consecutive years. For several years they stayed during their holiday with Lady Mary Gordon, an aunt of Mr. Swinburne's, at 'The Orchard,' Niton Bay, Isle of Wight. During the hot summer of 1904 they were lucky enough to escape to Cromer, where the temperature was something like twenty degrees lower than that of London. A curious incident occurred during this visit to Cromer. One day Mr. Watts-Dunton took a walk with another friend to 'Poppy-land,' where he and Mr. Swinburne had previously stayed, in order to see there again the landslips which he has so vividly described in 'Aylwin.' While they were walking from 'Poppyland' to the old ruined churchyard called 'The Garden of Sleep,' they sat down for some time in the shade of an empty hut near the cliff. Coming back Mr. Watts-Dunton said that the cliff there was very dangerous, and ought to be fenced off, as the fatal land-springs were beginning to show their work. Two or three weeks after this a portion of the cliff at that point, weighing many thousands of tons, fell into the sea, and the hut with it.

[Picture: A Corner in 'The Pines,' showing the Chinese Divan described in 'Aylwin']

A friendship so affectionate and so long as the friendship between these two poets is perhaps without a parallel in literature. It has been frequently and beautifully commemorated. When Mr. Swinburne's noble poem, 'By the North Sea,' was published, it was prefaced by this sonnet:--

TO WALTER THEODORE WATTS

'WE ARE WHAT SUNS AND WINDS AND WATERS MAKE US.'

Landor.

Sea, wind, and sun, with light and sound and breath The spirit of man fulfilling--these create That joy wherewith man's life grown passionate Gains heart to hear and sense to read and faith To know the secret word our Mother saith In silence, and to see, though doubt wax great, Death as the shadow cast by life on fate, Passing, whose shade we call the shadow of death.

Brother, to whom our Mother, as to me, Is dearer than all dreams of days undone, This song I give you of the sovereign three That are, as life and sleep and death are, one: A song the sea-wind gave me from the sea, Where nought of man's endures before the sun.

1882 was a memorable year in the life of Mr. Watts-Dunton. The two most important volumes of poetry published in that year were dedicated to him. Rossetti's 'Ballads and Sonnets,' the book which contains the chief work of his life, bore the following inscription:--

TO THEODORE WATTS THE FRIEND WHOM MY VERSE WON FOR ME, THESE FEW MORE PAGES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

A few weeks later Mr. Swinburne's 'Tristram of Lyonesse,' the volume which contains what I regard as his ripest and richest poetry, was thus inscribed:--

TO MY BEST FRIEND THEODORE WATTS I DEDICATE IN THIS BOOK THE BEST I HAVE TO GIVE HIM.

Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred, And all our wide glad wastes aflower around, That twice have made keen April's clarion sound Since here we first together saw and heard Spring's light reverberate and reiterate word Shine forth and speak in season. Life stands crowned Here with the best one thing it ever found, As of my soul's best birthdays dawns the third.

There is a friend that as the wise man saith Cleaves closer than a brother: nor to me Hath time not shown, through days like waves at strife This truth more sure than all things else but death, This pearl most perfect found in all the sea That washes toward your feet these waifs of life.

THE PINES, _April_, 1882.

But the finest of all these words of affection are perhaps those opening the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the magnificent Collected Edition of Mr. Swinburne's poems issued by Messrs. Chatto and Windus in 1904:--

'To my best and dearest friend I dedicate the first collected edition of my poems, and to him I address what I have to say on the occasion.'

Once also Mr. Watts-Dunton dedicated verses of his own to Mr. Swinburne, to wit, in 1897, when he published that impassioned lyric in praise of a nobler and larger Imperialism, the 'Jubilee Greeting at Spithead to the Men of Greater Britain':--

"TO OUR GREAT CONTEMPORARY WRITER OF PATRIOTIC POETRY, ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

You and I are old enough to remember the time when, in the world of letters at least, patriotism was not so fashionable as it is now--when, indeed, love of England suggested Philistinism rather than 'sweetness and light.' Other people, such as Frenchmen, Italians, Irishmen, Hungarians, Poles, might give voice to a passionate love of the land of their birth, but not Englishmen. It was very curious, as I thought then, and as I think now. And at that period love of the Colonies was, if possible, even more out of fashion than was love of England; and this temper was not confined to the 'cultured' class. It pervaded society and had an immense influence upon politics. On one side the Manchester school, religiously hoping that if the Colonies could be insulted so effectually that they must needs (unless they abandoned all self-respect) 'set up for themselves,' the same enormous spurt would be given to British trade which occurred after the birth of the United States, bade the Colonies 'cut the painter.' On the other hand the old Tories and Whigs, with a few noble exceptions, having never really abandoned the old traditions respecting the unimportance of all matters outside the parochial circle of European diplomacy, scarcely knew where the Colonies were situated on the map.

There was, however, in these islands one person who saw as clearly then as all see now the infinite importance of the expansion of England to the true progress of mankind--the Great Lady whose praises in this regard I have presumed to sing in the opening stanza of these verses.

I may be wrong, but I, who am, as you know, no courtier, believe from the bottom of my heart that without the influence of the Queen this expansion would have been seriously delayed. Directly and indirectly her influence must needs be enormous, and, as regards this matter, it has always been exercised--energetically and even eagerly exercised--in one way. This being my view, I have for years been urging more than one friend clothed with an authority such as I do not possess to bring the subject prominently before the people of England at a time when England's expansion is a phrase in everybody's mouth. I have not succeeded. Let this be my apology for undertaking the task myself and for inscribing to you, as well as to the men of Greater Britain, these lines."

[Picture: Summer at 'The Pines'--II]

I feel that it is a great privilege to be able to present to my readers beautiful photogravures and photographs of interiors and pictures and works of art at 'The Pines.' Many of the pictures and other works of art at 'The Pines' are mementoes of a most interesting kind.

Among these is the superb portrait of Madox Brown, at this moment hanging in the Bradford Exhibition. Madox Brown painted it for the owner. An interesting story is connected with it. One day, not long after Mr. Watts-Dunton had become intimate with Madox Brown, the artist told him he specially wanted his boy Nolly to read to him a story that he had been writing, and asked him to meet the boy at dinner.

'Nolly been writing a story!' exclaimed Mr. Watts-Dunton.

'I understand your smile,' said Madox Brown; 'but you will find it better than you think.'

At this time Oliver Madox Brown seemed a loose-limbed hobbledehoy, young enough to be at school. After dinner Oliver began to read the opening chapters of the story in a not very impressive way, and Mr. Watts-Dunton suggested that he should take it home and read it at his leisure. This was agreed to. Pressure of affairs prevented him from taking it up for some time. At last he did take it up, but he had scarcely read a dozen pages when he was called away, and he asked a member of his family to gather up the pages from the sofa and put them into an escritoire. On his return home at a very late hour he found the lady intently reading the manuscript, and she declared that she could not go to bed till she had finished it.

On the next day Mr. Watts-Dunton again took up the manuscript, and was held spellbound by it. It was a story of passion, of intense love, and intense hate, told with a crude power that was irresistible.

Mr. Watts-Dunton knew Smith Williams (the reader of Smith, Elder & Co.), whose name is associated with 'Jane Eyre.' He showed it to Williams, who was greatly struck by it, but pointed out that it terminated in a violent scene which the novel-reading public of that time would not like, and asked for a concluding scene less daring. The ending was modified, and the story, when it appeared, attracted very great attention. Madox Brown was so grateful to Mr. Watts-Dunton for his services in the matter that he insisted on expressing his gratitude in some tangible form. Miss Lucy Madox Brown (afterwards Mrs. W. M. Rossetti) was consulted, and at once suggested a portrait of the painter, painted by himself. This was done, and the result was the masterpiece which has been so often exhibited. From that moment Oliver Madox Brown took his place in the literary world of his time. The mention of Oliver Madox Brown will remind the older generation of his friendship with Philip Bourke Marston, the blind poet, one of the most pathetic chapters in literary annals.

[Picture: 'Picture for a Story.' (Face and Instrument designed by D. G. Rossetti, background by Dunn.)]

Although Rossetti never fulfilled his intention of illustrating what he called 'Watts's magnificent star sonnet,' he began what would have been a superb picture illustrating Mr. Watts-Dunton's sonnet, 'The Spirit of the Rainbow.' He finished a large charcoal drawing of it, which is thus described by Mr. William Sharp in his book, 'Dante Gabriel Rossetti: a Record and a Study':--

"It represents a female figure standing in a gauzy circle composed of a rainbow, and on the frame is written the following sonnet (the poem in question by Mr. Watts-Dunton):

THE WOOD-HAUNTER'S DREAM

The wild things loved me, but a wood-sprite said: 'Though meads are sweet when flowers at morn uncurl, And woods are sweet with nightingale and merle, Where are the dreams that flush'd thy childish bed? The Spirit of the Rainbow thou would'st wed!' I rose, I found her--found a rain-drenched girl Whose eyes of azure and limbs like roseate pearl Coloured the rain above her golden head.

But when I stood by that sweet vision's side I saw no more the Rainbow's lovely stains; To her by whom the glowing heavens were dyed The sun showed naught but dripping woods and plains: 'God gives the world the Rainbow, her the rains,' The wood-sprite laugh'd, 'Our seeker finds a bride!'

Rossetti meant to have completed the design with the 'woods and plains' seen in perspective through the arch; and the composition has an additional and special interest because it is the artist's only successful attempt at the wholly nude--the 'Spirit' being extremely graceful in poise and outline.

* * * * *

I am able to give a reproduction of another of Rossetti's beautiful studies which has never been published, but which has been very much talked about. Many who have seen it at 'The Pines' agree with the late Lord de Tabley that Rossetti in this crayon created the loveliest of all his female faces. It is thus described by Mr. William Sharp: "The drawing, which, for the sake of a name, I will call 'Forced Music,' represents a nude half-figure of a girl playing on a mediaeval stringed instrument elaborately ornamented. The face is of a type unlike that of any other of the artist's subjects, and extraordinarily beautiful."

* * * * *

I should explain that the background and the ragged garb of the girl in the version of the picture here reproduced, are by Dunn. These two exquisite drawings were made from the same girl, who never sat for any other pictures. Her face has been described as being unlike that of any other of Rossetti's models and yet combining the charm of them all.

* * * * *

I am strictly prohibited by the subject of this study from giving any personal description of him. For my part I do not sympathize with this extreme sensitiveness and dislike to having one's personal characteristics described in print. What is there so dreadful or so sacred in mere print? The feeling upon this subject is a reminiscence, I think, of archaic times, when between conversation and printed matter there was 'a great gulf fixed.' Both Mr. Watts-Dunton and his friend Mr. Swinburne must be aware that as soon as they have left any gathering of friends or strangers, remarks--delicate enough, no doubt--are made about them, as they are made about every other person who is talked about in ever so small a degree. Not so very long ago I remained in a room after Mr. Watts-Dunton had left it. Straightway there were the freest remarks about him, not in the least unkind, but free. Some did not expect to see so dark a man; some expected to see him much darker than they found him to be; some recalled the fact that Miss Corkran, in her reminiscences, described his dark-brown eyes as 'green'--through a printer's error, no doubt. Some then began to contrast his appearance with that of his absent friend, Mr. Swinburne--and so on, and so on. Now, what is the difference between being thus discussed in print and in conversation? Merely that the printed report reaches a wider--a little wider--audience. That is all. I do not think it is an unfair evasion of his prohibition to reproduce one of the verbal snap-shots of him that have appeared in the papers. Some energetic gentleman--possibly some one living in the neighbourhood--took the following 'Kodak' of him. It appeared in 'M.A.P.' and it is really as good a thumb-nail portrait of him as could be painted. In years to come, when he and I and the 'Kodaker' are dead, it may be found more interesting, perhaps, than anything I have written about him:--

"Every, or nearly every, morning, as the first glimmer of dawn lightens the sky, there appears on Wimbledon Common a man, whose skin has been tanned by sun and wind to the rich brown of the gypsies he loves so well; his forehead is round, and fairly high; his brown eyes and the brow above them give his expression a piercing appearance. For the rest, his voice is firm and resonant, and his brown hair and thick moustache are partially shot with grey. But he looks not a day over forty-five. Generally he carries a book. Often, however, he turns from it to watch the birds and the rabbits. For--it will be news to lie-abeds of the district--Wimbledon Common is lively with rabbits, revelling in the freshness of the dawn, rabbits which ere the rush for the morning train begins, will all have vanished until the moon rises again. To him, morning, although he has seen more sunrises than most men, still makes an ever fresh and glorious pageant. This usually solitary figure is that of Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, and to his habit of early rising the famous poet, novelist, and critic ascribes his remarkable health and vigour."

The holidays of the two poets have not been confined to their visits to the sea-side. One place of retreat used to be the residence of the late Benjamin Jowett, at Balliol, when the men were down, or one of his country places, such as Boar's Hill.

I have frequently heard Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Watts-Dunton talk about the famous Master of Balliol. I have heard Mr. Swinburne recall the great admiration which Jowett used to express for Mr. Watts-Dunton's intellectual powers and various accomplishments. There was no one, I have heard Mr. Swinburne say, whom Jowett held in greater esteem. That air of the college don, which has been described by certain of Jowett's friends, left the Master entirely when he was talking to Mr. Watts-Dunton.

Among the pleasant incidents in Mr. Watts-Dunton's life were these visits with Mr. Swinburne to Jowett's house, where he had the opportunity of meeting some of the most prominent men of the time. He has described the Balliol dinner parties, but I have no room here to do more than allude to them. I must, however, quote his famous pen portrait of Jowett which appeared in the 'Athenaeum' of December 22, 1894.

"It may seem difficult to imagine many points of sympathy between the poet of 'Atalanta' and the student of Plato and translator of Thucydides; and yet the two were bound to each other by ties of no common strength. They took expeditions into the country together, and Mr. Swinburne was a not infrequent guest at Balliol and also at Jowett's quiet autumnal retreat at Boar's Hill. The Master of Balliol, indeed, had a quite remarkable faculty of drawing to himself the admiration of men of poetic genius. To say which poet admired and loved him most deeply--Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Arnold, or Mr. Swinburne--would be difficult. He seemed to join their hands all round him, and these intimacies with the poets were not the result of the smallest sacrifice of independence on the part of Jowett. He was always quite as frank in telling a poet what he disliked in his verses as in telling him what he liked. And although the poets of our own epoch are, perhaps, as irritable a race as they were in times past, and are as little impervious as ever to flattery, it is, after all, in virtue partly of a superior intelligence that poets are poets, and in the long run their friendship is permanently given to straightforward men like Jowett. That Jowett's judgment in artistic matters, and especially in poetry, was borne no one knew better than himself, and he had a way of letting the poets see that upon poetical subjects he must be taken as only a partially qualified judge, and this alone gained for him a greater freedom in criticism than would otherwise have been allowed to him. For, notwithstanding the Oxford epigram upon him as a pretender to absolute wisdom, no man could be more modest than he upon subjects of which he had only the ordinary knowledge. He was fond of quoting Hallam's words that without an exhaustive knowledge of details there can be no accurate induction; and where he saw that his interlocutor really had special knowledge, he was singularly diffident about expressing his opinion. They are not so far wrong who take it for granted that one who was able to secure the loving admiration of four of the greatest poets of the Victorian epoch, all extremely unlike each other, was not only a great and a rare intelligence, but a man of a nature most truly noble and most truly lovable. The kind of restraint in social intercourse resulting from what has been called his taciturnity passed so soon as his interlocutor realized (which he very quickly did) that Jowett's taciturnity, or rather his lack of volubility, arose from the peculiarly honest nature of one who had no idea of talking for talking's sake. If a proper and right response to a friend's remark chanced to come to his lips spontaneously, he was quite willing to deliver it; but if the response was neither spontaneous nor likely to be adequate, he refused to manufacture one for the mere sake of keeping the ball rolling, as is so often the case with the shallow or uneducated man. It is, however, extremely difficult to write reminiscences of men so taciturn as Jowett. In order to bring out one of Jowett's pithy sayings, the interlocutor who would record it has also to record the words of his own which awoke the saying, and then it is almost impossible to avoid an appearance of egotism."

Still more pleasurable than these relaxations at Oxford were the visits that the two friends used to pay to Jowett's rural retreat at Boar's Hill, about three miles from Oxford, for the purpose of revelling in the riches of the dramatic room in the Bodleian. The two poets used to spend the entire day in that enchanted room, and then walk back with the Master to Boar's Hill. Every reader of Mr. Watts-Dunton's poetry will remember the following sonnets:--

THE LAST WALK FROM BOAR'S HILL To A. C. S.

I

One after one they go; and glade and heath, Where once we walked with them, and garden bowers They made so dear, are haunted by the hours Once musical of those who sleep beneath; One after one does Sorrow's every wreath Bind closer you and me with funeral flowers, And Love and Memory from each loss of ours Forge conquering glaives to quell the conqueror Death.

Since Love and Memory now refuse to yield The friend with whom we walk through mead and field To-day as on that day when last we parted, Can he be dead, indeed, whatever seem? Love shapes a presence out of Memory's dream, A living presence, Jowett golden-hearted.

II

Can he be dead? We walk through flowery ways From Boar's Hill down to Oxford, fain to know What nugget-gold, in drift of Time's long flow, The Bodleian mine hath stored from richer days; He, fresh as on that morn, with sparkling gaze, Hair bright as sunshine, white as moonlit snow, Still talks of Plato while the scene below Breaks gleaming through the veil of sunlit haze.

Can he be dead? He shares our homeward walk, And by the river you arrest the talk To see the sun transfigure ere he sets The boatmen's children shining in the wherry And on the floating bridge the ply-rope wets, Making the clumsy craft an angel's ferry.

III

The river crossed, we walk 'neath glowing skies Through grass where cattle feed or stand and stare With burnished coats, glassing the coloured air-- Fading as colour after colour dies: We pass the copse; we round the leafy rise-- Start many a coney and partridge, hern and hare; We win the scholar's nest--his simple fare Made royal-rich by welcome in his eyes.

Can he be dead? His heart was drawn to you. Ah! well that kindred heart within him knew The poet's heart of gold that gives the spell! Can he be dead? Your heart being drawn to him, How shall ev'n Death make that dear presence dim For you who loved him--us who loved him well?

Another and much lovelier retreat, whither Mr. Watts-Dunton has always loved to go, is the cottage at Box-hill. Not the least interesting among the beautiful friendships between Mr. Watts-Dunton and his illustrious contemporaries is that between himself and Mr. George Meredith. Mr. William Sharp can speak with authority on this subject, being himself the intimate friend of Mr. Meredith, Mr. Swinburne, and Mr. Watts-Dunton. Speaking of Swinburne's championship, in the 'Spectator,' of Meredith's first book of poems, Mr. Sharp, in an article in the 'Pall Mall Magazine,' of December 1901, says:--

"Among those who read and considered" [Meredith's work] "was another young poet, who had, indeed, already heard of Swinburne as one of the most promising of the younger men, but had not yet met him. . . . If the letter signed 'A. C. Swinburne' had not appeared, another signed 'Theodore Watts' would have been published, to the like effect. It was not long before the logic of events was to bring George Meredith, A. C. Swinburne, and Theodore Watts into personal communion."

The first important recognition of George Meredith as a poet was the article by Mr. Watts-Dunton in the 'Athenaeum' on 'Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth.' After this appeared articles appreciative of Meredith's prose fiction by W. E. Henley and others. But it was Mr. Watts-Dunton who led the way. The most touching of all the testimonies of love and admiration which Mr. Meredith has received from Mr Watts-Dunton, or indeed, from anybody else, is the beautiful sonnet addressed to him on his seventy-fourth birthday. It appeared in the 'Saturday Review' of February 15, 1902:--

TO GEORGE MEREDITH (ON HIS SEVENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY)

This time, dear friend--this time my birthday greeting Comes heavy of funeral tears--I think of you, And say, ''Tis evening with him--that is true-- But evening bright as noon, if faster fleeting; Still he is spared--while Spring and Winter, meeting, Clasp hands around the roots 'neath frozen dew-- To see the 'Joy of Earth' break forth anew, And hear it on the hillside warbling, bleating.'

Love's remnant melts and melts; but, if our days Are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, still, Still Winter has a sun--a sun whose rays Can set the young lamb dancing on the hill, And set the daisy, in the woodland ways, Dreaming of her who brings the daffodil.

The allusion to 'funeral tears' was caused by one of the greatest bereavements which Mr. Watts-Dunton has sustained in recent years, namely, that of Frank Groome, whose obituary he wrote for the 'Athenaeum.' I have not the honour of knowing Meredith, but I have often heard Mr. Watts-Dunton describe with a glow of affectionate admiration the fine charm of his character and the amazing pregnancy in thought and style of his conversation.

But the most memorable friendship that during their joint occupancy of 'The Pines' Mr Watts-Dunton formed, was that with Tennyson.

I have had many conversations with Mr. Watts-Dunton on the subject of Tennyson, and I am persuaded that, owing to certain incongruities between the external facets of Tennyson's character and the 'abysmal deeps' of his personality, Mr. Watts-Dunton, after the poet's son, is the only man living who is fully competent to speak with authority of the great poet. Not only is he himself a poet who must be placed among his contemporaries nearest to his more illustrious friend, but between Mr. Watts-Dunton and Tennyson from their first meeting there was an especial sympathy. So long ago as 1881 was published his sonnet to Tennyson on his seventy-first birthday. It attracted much attention, and although it was not sent to the Laureate, he read it and was much touched by it, as well he might be, for it is as noble a tribute as one poet could pay to another:--

TO ALFRED TENNYSON, ON HIS PUBLISHING, IN HIS SEVENTY-FIRST YEAR, THE MOST RICHLY VARIOUS VOLUME OF ENGLISH VERSE THAT HAS APPEARED IN HIS OWN CENTURY.

Beyond the peaks of Kaf a rivulet springs Whose magic waters to a flood expand, Distilling, for all drinkers on each hand, The immortal sweets enveiled in mortal things. From honeyed flowers,--from balm of zephyr-wings,-- From fiery blood of gems, {286} through all the land, The river draws;--then, in one rainbow-band, Ten leagues of nectar o'er the ocean flings.

Rich with the riches of a poet's years, Stained in all colours of Man's destiny, So, Tennyson, thy widening river nears The misty main, and, taking now the sea, Makes rich and warm with human smiles and tears The ashen billows of Eternity.

Some two or three years after this Mr. Watts-Dunton met the Laureate at a garden party, and they fraternized at once. Mr. Watts-Dunton had an open invitation to Aldworth and Farringford whenever he could go, and this invitation came after his very first stay at Aldworth. One point in which he does not agree with Coleridge (in the 'Table Talk') or with Mr. Swinburne, is the theory that Tennyson's ear was defective at the very first. He contends that if Tennyson in his earlier poems seemed to show a defective ear, it was always when in the great struggle between the demands of mere metrical music and those of the other great requisites of poetry, thought, emotion, colour and outline, he found it best occasionally to make metrical music in some measure yield. As an illustration of Tennyson's sensibility to the most delicate nuances of metrical music, I remember at one of those charming 'symposia' at 'The Pines,' hearing Mr. Watts-Dunton say that Tennyson was the only English poet who gave the attention to the sibilant demanded by Dionysius of Halicarnassus; and I remember one delightful instance that he gave of this. It referred to the two sonnets upon 'The Omnipotence of Love' in the universe which I have always considered to be the keynote of 'Aylwin' and 'The Coming of Love.' These sonnets appeared in an article called 'The New Hero' in the 'English Illustrated Magazine' in 1883. Mr. Watts-Dunton was staying at Aldworth when the proof of the article reached him. The present Lord Tennyson (who, as Mr. Watts-Dunton has often averred, has so much literary insight that if he had not been the son of the greatest poet of his time, he would himself have taken a high position in literature) read out in one of the little Aldworth bowers to his father and to Miss Mary Boyle the article and the sonnets. Tennyson, who was a severe critic of his own work, but extremely lenient in criticising the work of other men, said there was one feature in one of the lines of one of the sonnets which he must challenge. The line was this:--

And scents of flowers and shadow of wavering trees.

Now it so chanced that this very line had been especially praised by two other fine critics, D. G. Rossetti and William Morris, to whom the sonnet had been read in manuscript. Tennyson's criticism was that there were too many sibilants in the line, and that although, other things being equal, 'scents' might be more accurate than 'scent,' this was a case where the claims of music ought to be dominant over other claims. The present Lord Tennyson took the same view, and I am sure they were right, and that Mr. Watts-Dunton was right, in finally adopting 'scent' in place of 'scents.'

Mr. Watts-Dunton has always contended that Tennyson's sensibility to criticism was the result, not of imperious egotism, but of a kind of morbid modesty. Tennyson used to say that "to whatsoever exalted position a poet might reach, he was not 'born to the purple,' and that if the poet's mind was especially plastic he could never shake off the reminiscence of the time when he was nobody."

On a certain occasion Tennyson took Mr. Watts-Dunton into the summer-house at Aldworth to read to him 'Becket,' then in manuscript. Although another visitor, whom he esteemed very highly, both as a poet and an old friend, was staying there, Tennyson said that he should prefer to read the play to Mr. Watts-Dunton alone. And this no doubt was because he desired an absolute freedom of criticism. Freedom of criticism we may be sure he got, for of all men Mr. Watts-Dunton is the most outspoken on the subject of the poet's art. The entire morning was absorbed in the reading; and, says Mr. Watts-Dunton, 'the remarks upon poetic and dramatic art that fell from Tennyson would have made the fortune of any critic.'

On the subject of what has been called Tennyson's gaucherie and rudeness to women I have seen Mr. Watts-Dunton wax very indignant. 'There was to me,' he said, 'the greatest charm in what is called Tennyson's bluntness. I would there were a leaven of Tennyson's single-mindedness in the society of the present day.'

One anecdote concerning what is stigmatized as Tennyson's rudeness to women shows how entirely the man was misunderstood. Mrs. Oliphant has stated that Tennyson, in his own house, after listening in silence to an interchange of amiable compliments between herself and Mrs. Tennyson, said abruptly, 'What liars you women are!' 'I seem to hear,' said Mr. Watts-Dunton, 'Tennyson utter the exclamation--utter it in that tone of humourous playfulness, followed by that loud guffaw, which neutralized the rudeness as entirely as Douglas Jerrold's laugh neutralized the sting of his satire. For such an incident to be cited as instance of Tennyson's rudeness to women is ludicrous. When I knew him I was, if possible, a more obscure literary man than I now am, and he treated me with exactly the same manly respect that he treated the most illustrious people. I did not feel that I had any claim to such treatment, for he was, beyond doubt, the greatest literary figure in the world of that time. There seems unfortunately to be an impulse of detraction, which springs up after a period of laudation.'

The only thing I have heard Mr. Watts-Dunton say in the way of stricture upon Tennyson's work was that, considering his enormous powers as a poet, he seemed deficient in the gift of inventing a story:--"The stanzas beginning, 'O, that 'twere possible'--the nucleus of 'Maud'--appeared originally in 'The Tribute.' They were the finest lines that Tennyson ever wrote--right away the finest. They suggested some superb story of passion and mystery; and every reader was compelled to make his own guess as to what the story could possibly be. In an evil moment some friend suggested that Tennyson should amplify this glorious lyric into a story. A person with more of the endowment of the inventor than Tennyson might perhaps have invented an adequate story--might perhaps have invented a dozen adequate stories; but he could not have invented a worse story than the one used by Tennyson in the writing of his monodrama. But think of the poetic riches poured into it!"

I remember a peculiarly subtle criticism that Mr. Watts-Dunton once made in regard to 'The Princess.' "Shakspeare," he said, "is the only poet who has been able to put sincere writing into a story the plot of which is fanciful. The extremely insincere story of 'The Princess' is filled with such noble passages of sincere poetry as 'Tears, idle tears,' 'Home they brought her warrior dead,' etc., passages which unfortunately lose two-thirds of their power through the insincere setting."

Not very long before Tennyson died, the editor of the 'Magazine of Art' invited Mr. Watts-Dunton to write an article upon the portraits of Tennyson. Mr. Watts-Dunton consulted the poet upon this project, and he agreed, promising to aid in the selection of the portraits. The result was two of the most interesting essays upon Tennyson that have ever been written--in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that without a knowledge of these articles no student of Tennyson can be properly equipped. It is tantalizing that they have never been reprinted. Tennyson died before their appearance, and this, of course, added to the general interest felt in them.

After Tennyson's death Mr. Watts-Dunton wrote two penetrating essays upon Tennyson in the 'Nineteenth Century,' one of them being his reminiscences of Tennyson as the poet and the man, and the other a study of him as a nature-poet in reference to evolution. It will be a great pity if these essays too are not reprinted. Mr. Knowles, the editor, also included Mr. Watts-Dunton among the friends of Tennyson who were invited to write memorial verses on his death for the 'Nineteenth Century.' To this series Mr. Watts-Dunton contributed the following sonnet, which is one of the several poems upon Tennyson not published in 'The Coming of Love' volume, which, I may note in passing, contains 'What the Silent Voices Said,' the fine 'sonnet sequence' commemorating the burial of Tennyson:--

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

'THE CROWD IN THE ABBEY WAS VERY GREAT.'

Morning Newspaper.

I saw no crowd: yet did these eyes behold What others saw not--his lov'd face sublime Beneath that pall of death in deathless prime Of Tennyson's long day that grows not old; And, as I gazed, my grief seemed over-bold; And, 'Who art thou,' the music seemed to chime, 'To mourn that King of song whose throne is Time?' Who loves a god should be of godlike mould.

Then spake my heart, rebuking Sorrow's shame: 'So great he was, striving in simple strife With Art alone to lend all beauty life-- So true to Truth he was, whatever came-- So fierce against the false when lies were rife-- That love o'erleapt the golden fence of Fame.'

By the invitation of the present Lord Tennyson, Mr. Watts-Dunton was one of the few friends of the poet, including Jowett, F. W. H. Myers, F. T. Palgrave, the late Duke of Argyll, and others, who contributed reminiscences of him to the 'Life.' In a few sentences he paints this masterly little miniature of Tennyson, entitled, 'Impressions: 1883-1892' {291}:--

"All are agreed that D. G. Rossetti's was a peculiarly winning personality, but no one has been in the least able to say why. Nothing is easier, however, than to find the charm of Tennyson. It lay in a great veracity of soul: it lay in a simple single-mindedness, so childlike that, unless you had known him to be the undoubted author of poems as marvellous for exquisite art as for inspiration, you could not have supposed but that all subtleties--even those of poetic art--must be foreign to a nature so simple.

Working in a language like ours--a language which has to be moulded into harmony by a myriad subtleties of art--how can this great, inspired, simple nature be the delicate-fingered artist of 'The Princess,' 'The Palace of Art,' 'The Day-Dream,' and 'The Dream of Fair Women'?

Tennyson knew of but one justification for the thing he said--viz. that it was the thing he thought. Behind his uncompromising directness was apparent a noble and a splendid courtesy of the grand old type. As he stood at the porch of Aldworth meeting a guest or bidding him good-bye--as he stood there, tall far beyond the height of average men, his skin showing dark and tanned by the sun and wind--as he stood there, no one could mistake him for anything but a great forthright English gentleman. Always a man of an extraordinary beauty of presence, he showed up to the last the beauty of old age to a degree rarely seen. He was the most hospitable of men. It was very rare indeed for him to part from a guest without urging him to return, and generally with the words, 'Come whenever you like.'

Tennyson's knowledge of nature--nature in every aspect--was simply astonishing. His passion for 'stargazing' has often been commented upon by readers of his poetry. Since Dante, no poet in any land has so loved the stars. He had an equal delight in watching the lightning; and I remember being at Aldworth once during a thunderstorm, when I was alarmed at the temerity with which he persisted, in spite of all remonstrances, in gazing at the blinding lightning. For moonlight effects he had a passion equally strong, and it is especially pathetic to those who know this to remember that he passed away in the light he so much loved--in a room where there was no artificial light--nothing to quicken the darkness but the light of the full moon, which somehow seems to shine more brightly at Aldworth than anywhere else in England.

In a country having a composite language such as ours it may be affirmed with special emphasis that there are two kinds of poetry: one appealing to the uncultivated masses, the other appealing to the few who are sensitive to the felicitous expression of deep thought and to the true beauties of poetic art.

Of all poets Shakespeare is the most popular, and yet in his use of what Dante calls the 'sieve for noble words' his skill transcends that of even Milton, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. His felicities of thought and of diction in the great passages seem little short of miraculous, and there are so many that it is easy to understand why he is so often spoken of as being a kind of inspired improvisatore. That he was not an improvisatore, however, any one can see who will take the trouble to compare the first edition of 'Romeo and Juliet' with the received text, the first sketch of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' with the play as we now have it, and the 'Hamlet' of 1603 with the 'Hamlet' of 1604, and with the still further varied version of the play given by Heminge and Condell in the Folio of 1623. Next to Shakespeare in this great power of combining the forces of the two great classes of English poets, appealing both to the commonplace public and to the artistic sense of the few, stands, perhaps, Chaucer; but since Shakespeare's time no one has met with anything like Tennyson's success in effecting a reconciliation between popular and artistic sympathy with poetry in England."