WMR's notes on the
WMR clearly saw additional “loose pages of [the] original copy” of “St. Agnes of
Intercession” that took the story “much further”—in fact, to the point of the incomplete tale
that we have in the
This is an integral copy of the kind of notebook that DGR typically used in his work. Only
two other integral copies exist, the Jane Morris
Sold by
PARTRIDGE & COOPER.
192 Fleet Street.
“In all my life,” said my uncle in his cus-
-tomary voice made up of goodness and
trusting simplicity, and a spice of piety
withal, which, an't please your worship,
made it sound the sweeter,—“In all my
life,” quoth my uncle Toby, “I have
never heard a stranger story than one which
was told me by a sergeant in Maclure's
regiment, and which, with your permission,
Doctor, Inowwill relate.”“No stranger, brother Toby,” said my father
testily, “than a certain tale to be found
in Slawkenbergius, (being the eighth
of his thirdD[?]Decad,) and called
by him the History of an Icelandish
Nose.”“Nor than the golden legend of Saint
Anschankus of Lithuania,” added Dr.
Slop, “who, being troubled digestively
while delivering his discourse“de Sanctis was tempted by the Devil
Sanctorum,”
,— in imagine vasis in contumeliam
which is to say,—in the form of a vessel
unto dishonour.”Now Excentrio, as one mocking, sayeth”—&c. &c.
Among my earliest recollections, none is
stronger than that of my father
standing
before the fire when he came home in
the London winter evenings, and
singing
to us in his sweet generous tones: sometimes
ancient ditties of
English ditties,—such
songs as one might translate from the birds
and the brooks might
set to music;
sometimes those with which foreign
travel had familiarized his
youth,—
among them the great tunes which have
rung the world's changes since '89.
I
used to sit on the hearth-rug,
listening to him, and look between
his knees into the
fire till it burned
my face, while the sights swarming
up in it seemed changed and
changed
with the music: till the music and the
fire and my heart burned together, and
try in
some childish way to fix the shapes
that rose within me. For my hope even
then was to
be a painter.
The first book I remember to have read
of my own accord was an
old-fashioned
work on Art which my mother had,—
“Hamilton's English Conoscente.” It
was
a kind of continental tour,—suffi-
-ciently Della-Cruscan, from what I
can
recall of it,—and contained notices
of pictures which the author had
seen abroad, with
engravings after some
of them. These were in the English fashion
of that day, executed
in dots
printed with red ink; tasteless enough,
no
doubt, but I yearned towards them
and would toil over them for days.
One of
them especially possessed for me
a strong and indefinable charm: it
was a Saint
Agnes in glory, by
I
could copy from the first with much
more success than I could any of the
others:
and indeed, it was mainly my
love of the figure, and a desire to
obtain
some knowledge regarding it, which
impelled me, by one magnanimous
effort
upon the “Conoscente,” to master
in a few days more of the difficult
art of reading
than my mother's
laborious inculcations had accomplished
during till then.
However, what I
managed to spell and puzzle out
related chiefly to the
mechanical
qualities of the picture, which could
be
little understood by a mere child:
of the artist himself, or the meaning
of his work,
the author of the book
appeared to know scarcely anything.
As I became older, my boyish impulse
towards art grew into a vital passion;
and permitted me my own bent of study.
There is no need that I should
dwell
much upon the next few years of my
life. The beginnings of Art, entered
on at
all seriously, present an alter-
-nation of extremes:—on the one hand,
the most
bewildering phases of mental
endeavour,—on the other, a toil
rigidly exact and dealing
often with
trifles. What was then the precise
shape of the cloud within my
tabernacle,
I could scarcely say now; or whether,
through so thick a veil, I
could
be sure of its presence there at all.
And as to which statue at the Museum
I
drew most or learned least from,
—or which professor at the Academy
“set” the model in
the worst taste,—
these are things which no one need care
to know. I may say briefly
that I
was wayward enough in the pursuit,
too little for what could be taught me
by others; and that my original
designs
greatly outnumbered my school-drawings.
In most cases where study—
at least, as involves
any practical
elements,—has benumbed that subtle
transition
which brings youth out of
boyhood,—there comes a point, after
some time, when the mind
loses its
suppleness and is riveted merely
by the continuance of the
mechanical
effort. At such It is then that the
constrained senses gradually
assume
their utmost tension, and any urgent
impression from without will suffice
to
scatter the charm. The student looks
up: the film of their own fixedness
drops
at once from before his eyes, and for
the first time he sees his life in
the
face.
In my nineteenth year, I might say
that, between one path of Art and
another, I
worked hard. One afternoon
I was returning, after an unprofitable
morning, from a class
which I attended.
The day was one of those oppressive
lulls in autumn, when
application,
unless under sustained excitement,
is all but impossible,—when the
perceptions seem curdled and the
brain full of sand. On ascending
the stairs to my
room, I heard voices
there; and when I entered, found my
sister Catharine, with
another young
lady, busily turning over my sketches
and papers, as if in search of
something.
Catharine laughed, and introduced
her companion as Miss Mary
Arden.
There might have been a little malice
in the laugh; for I remembered to
have
heard the lady's name before, and to
have then made in fun some teasing
sisters' friends. I bowed for the introduction,
and stood rebuked. She had her
back
to the window, and I could not well
see her features at the moment; but
I made
sure she was very beautiful,
from her tranquil body and the way
that she held her
hands. Catharine
told me they had been looking together
for a book of hers which I had
had
by me for some time and which she
had promised to Miss Arden. I joined
in the
search; the book was found,
and soon after they left my room.
I had come in utterly
spiritless; but
now I fell to and worked well for
several hours. In the evening,
Miss
Arden remained with our family circle
till rather late: till she left, I
did
not return to my room, nor, when
there was my work resumed that
night. I had
thought her more
rather lost their hold upon me;
and
at the close of that year Mary
Arden and I were promised in
marriage.
seemed to grow on my sight by
gazing,
as the stars do in water. It was some
time before I ceased to think of
her
beauty alone; and even then it was
still of her that I thought. For about
a
year I neglect my studies somewhat
lost their hold upon me; and when
that
year was upon its close, she & I
were promised in marriage. Her
not lofty, was one of more ease than
my
own; but the earnestness of her
attachment to me had deterred her
parents from placing
any obstacles
in the way of our union. All the
more therefore did I now long
to
obtain at once such a position as
should secure me from reproaching
myself with
any sacrifice made by
her for my sake: and I now set
to work, with all the energy of
which
I was capable, upon a picture of
some labour, involving various aspects
of
study. The subject was one of our own day,
it has often seemed to me that
all work, to be
worthy truly
worthy, should be wrought out of the
age itself, as well as
out of the soul
of its producer which must needs be a
soul of the age. At this picture
I laboured
constantly and unweariedly, my days and
my nights;
to which I sent it opened a few weeks
before the completion of my
twenty-first
year.
Naturally enough, I was there on the
opening day. My picture, I knew, had
been
accepted; but I was ignorant of
a matter perhaps still more important,—
its situation
on the walls. On that
now depended its success; on its success
the fulfilment of my
most cherished
hopes might almost be said to depend.
That is not the least curious
feature
of life as evolved in society,—which,
where the average strength and
the
average mind are equal, as in this
world, becomes to each life another
name
for destiny,—when a man,
having endured labour, gives its fruit
into the hands of other
men, that they
may do their work between him and
mankind: confiding it to them,
them; to them, who have probably done in
likewise before him, without appeal
to
the sympathy of kindred experience: sub-
-mitting to them his naked soul,
himself
blind and unseen: and with no thought
of retaliation, when, it may be, by
their judgment, more than one year
from his dubious threescore and ten
drops alongside,
unprofitable, leaving
its baffled labour for its successors to
recommence. There is
perhaps no
proof more complete, how sluggish
and little arrogant, in aggregate
life,
is the sense of individuality.
I dare say something like this may
have been passing in my mind as I
entered
the lobby of the exhibition:
though the principle, with me as with
others, was
subservient to its appli-
-cation: my thoughts, in fact, starting
my own picture. The kind of uncertainty
in which I then was is rather a
nervous
affair; and when, as I shouldered
my way through the press, I heard my
name
spoken close behind me, I believe
that I could have wished the speaker
further off
without being particular
as to distance. I could not well,
however, do otherwise than
look
round; and on doing so, recognized
in him who had addressed me, a
gentleman to
whom I had been
introduced overnight at the house of
a friend, and to whose
remarks
on the Corn question and the National
debt I had listened to a with
a
wish for deliverance somewhat
akin to that which I now felt; the
more so,
perhaps, that my distaste
was coupled with surprize; his name
having been for some
time familiar
As soon as we were rid of the crush,
we spoke and shook hands; and I said,
to
conceal my chagrin, some plati-
-tudes as to Poetry being present to
support her sister
Art in the hour of
trial.
“Oh just so, thank you,” said he; “have
you anything here?”
While he spoke, it suddenly struck me
that my friend, the night before,
had
informed me this gentleman was a
critic as well as a poet. And indeed,
for the
hippopotamus-visaged
his splay limbs and wading
gait,
it seemed the more congenial vocation
of the two. In a moment, the
instinct-
-ive antagonism wedged itself between
the artist and the reviewer; and I
He had taken my arm, and we were
now in the gallery together. My
compa-
-nion's scrutiny was limited almost
entirely to the “line;” but my
own
glance wandered furtively among the
suburbs and outskirts of the ceiling;
as a
misgiving possessed me that I
might have a personal interest in those
unenviable “high
places” of art. Works
which at another time would have
absorbed my whole attention
could
now obtain from me but a restless
and hurried examination: still,
I dared not
institute an open search
for my own, lest thereby I should
reveal to my companion its
presence
in some dismal condemned corner
which might otherwise escape his
notice.
Had I procured my catalogue,
I might at least have known in
to do so, thinking thereby to know my
fate the sooner, and never
anticipating
so vexatious an obstacle to my search.
Meanwhile I must answer his
ques-
-tions, listen to his criticism, observe
and discuss. After nearly an hour
of
this work, we were not through
the first room: my thoughts were
already bewildered, and
my face
burning with excitement.
By the time we reached the second room,
the crowd was more dense than
ever,
and the heat more and more oppressive.
A glance round the walls could
reveal
but little of the consecrated
“line,” before all parts of which the
backs were
clustered more or less
thickly; except perhaps where at
intervals hung the work of
some
venerable Member, whose glory was
middle of the room were for the most part
empty as yet: here and there only
an
unenthusiastic lady had been left
by her party, and sat, in stately un-
-ruffled
toilet, her eye ranging apa-
-thetically over the upper portion of
the walls, where the
gilt frames
were packed together in desolate parade.
Over these my gaze also passed
uneasily,
but without encountering the object
of its solicitude.
In this room my friend the critic came
upon a picture, conspicuously
hung,
which interested him prodigiously,
and on which he seemed determined
to have
my opinion. It was one of
those tender and tearful works,
those “labours of love”,
since familiar
to all print-shop flâneurs
the wax doll is made to occupy a
contemplated in the days of its humble
origin. The silks heaved and swayed
in
front of this picture the whole day
long.
All that we could do was to stand
behind, and catch a glimpse of it
now and
then through the whispering
bonnets, whose “curtains” brushed
our faces continually. I
hardly kn[?]
knew what to say; but my compa-
-nion was lavish of his
admiration,
and began to give symptoms of the
gushings of the poet-soul. It
ap-
-peared that he had already seen
the picture in the studio, and being
but
little satisfied with my mono-
-syllables, was at great pains to
convince me. While he
chattered,
I trembled with rage and impatience.
“You must be tired,” said he at last;
“So am I; let us rest a little.” He
led
the way to a seat. I was his slave,
bound hand and foot: I followed him.
The crisis now proceeded rapidly. When
seated, he took from his pocket
some
papers, one of which he handed to
me. Who does not know the dainty
action of a
poet fingering M.S.? The
knowledge forms a portion of those won-
-drous instincts
implanted in us for
self-preservation. I was past resis-
-tance however, and took the
paper
submissively. “They are some verses,”
he said, “suggested by the picture
you
have just seen. I mean to print
them in our next number, as being
the only
species of criticism adequate
to such a work.”
I read the poem twice over, for
attended to a word of it, and was
ashamed to give it him back. The
repetition
was not however much more
successful as regarded comprehension,—
a fact which I have
since believed
(having seen it again) may have been
dependent upon other causes
besides
my distracted thoughts. The poem,
now included among the works of its
author, runs as follows:—
Having atoned for non-attention by a second peru-
sal, whose only result was
non-comprehension, I thought
I had done my