This collection of material has no original integrity, despite the fact that (a) it is headed “Note Book II” in the Duke Library archives; and (b) WMR numbers the pages as an integral sequence. The leaves were gathered together after DGR's death, probably around 1903. The Duke University Library (or more strictly, Paull Baum) subsequently labelled them as “Note Book II”, although the documents, as Baum well knew, do not come from a single notebook.
The first 26 pages date from an early notebook dating ca. 1847-1848. Pages 27, 28, 31-33 are not from a notebook at all. The remaining leaves are all from a late notebook dating no earlier than 1878. Some (and perhaps all) of these pages clearly date from the spring of 1880.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
Writings: XXVI. Note Book II
45 43 in the book
1. Note on Bride's Prelude
2. Close of King's Tragedy
3. Soothsay
4.
4 sonnets (Raleigh &c)
5. Printed note on Rosemary.
Motto “In all my life,” said my uncle in “No stranger, brother Toby,” said my father testily, “Nor than the golden legend of Saint Anschankus of
Now Excentrio, as one mocking, sayeth,“— etc., etc.”—
his customary voice, made
up of goodness
and trusting simplicity, and a spice of
piety withal, which, an't pleased 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, I will relate.”
than a
certain tale to be found in Slawkenbergius
(being the
eighth of his third Decad), and called by
him the History
of an Icelandish Nose.”
Lithuania,” added Dr. Slop, “who, being
troubled
digestively while delivering his discourse
‘de sanctis
sanctorum,’ was tempted by the Devil
in imagine vasis in contumeliam,—which is to
say,—in the form of a vessel unto dishonour.”
Motto
My father had settled in England
only a few years before I
was
born
multitude of
exiles who
year to year
half
from Poland
over the world indeed. Not all
however of these are so fortunate as
my father. Few indeed
can have less of riches than he
had wherein to seek
happiness;
but I believe that there are
still fewer who could be so
happy
as he was, without riches; in exile
and labour.
The narrative which
I sit down to copy
To-day
Though my father Though
Englishman & the
son of an Englishman,
was remotely of foreign
our family is re-
motely of foreign
foreign
extraction; and perhaps
this
Among my earliest recollections,
there are none are
that of my father, standing
before the
fire when he came
home in the
to us in his fine voice the
patriotic songs
familiar to his
youth: those of France—times
which have beaten
time for rung
the worldand those
to which Italy gave birth about
the unlucky year '20; of
less skillful, from his own desolate
this land of his own desolate birthright
to
sit on the carpet, listening
to him, and look between
his
legs knees into the fire till it
scorched my face. And the
shapes
would swarm up in the fire, and
change; faces and
figures and
all [?] of objects; all
them so distinct and clearly
perceived that
sometimes I
would look/ often
and tried to fix them
before they
crumbled. For I was to be
a painter.
The first book I remember to
have read, of my own
accord,
(I could not read at all till
nearly eight
was an old-fashioned work
on Art
which my mother had,
—Hamilton's “English Cognoscente.”
It was a
kind of Continental
Tour,—sufficiently Della-Cruscan,
from what I
can recall of it,—
and contained notices of some
works of Art which the author
had seen in Italy
gravings after some of them.
These were
in the English fashion
of that day, executed in dots
and printed
with red ink;
tasteless enough, no doubt,—
but I yearned towards them
and would toil over them for
hours.
One of them especially
possessed for me a strong
and
indefinable charm. It was a
Saint Agnes in glory, by
Guido, the contempo-
da Prato Vergnese
rary and friend of
Ghirlandaio
This plate I could copy from
the first
with much more suc-
cess than I could any of the
others: and it was
not long
before repeated efforts
me to produce an almost perfect
imitation of it. I believe.
was
mainly my love of the
figure, and the
some knowledge regarding it,
which
impelled me, by one mag-
nanimous effort upon the
“Conoscente,”, to
master in a
few days more of the difficult
Art of reading than
has my
mother's laborious inculcations
had
accomplished during se-
veral
of what I managed to
spell
and puzzle out rela-
ted merely to the execution
and mechanical
qualities
of the picture, which could
be but little understood by a
child like me: of the author
artist himself, Mr. the author
of but scarcely anything. I
little
may
almost say that upon
this figure,—copied, and re-
copied, and much
considered in
during a long period of childhood,—
my life will be found to
?
and the story with it.
As I became older, my boyish
impulse towards art
grew
into a vital passion; but it
was not till i was thirteen/ that my father, consi-
fourteen
dering my
determination diffi- to be now
sufficiently
ciently
rooted & secure, took me from
school and
permitted me my
own bent of study. Upon those
years of my life
which now followed
I shall not dwell with any
particularity. The
beginning of
Art, entered on earnestly, is
confused
one hand, the most
vague
and bewildering phases of
mental endeavour,—on the
other,
a labour
and dealing so much with
shape of the cloud within
my
tabernacle, I could
hardly say now, even then
I knew it
so thick a
be sure of its presence
statue at the Museum
I
drew most or learnt
least from,—or which
professor at the Royal
Academy
“set” the model in the worst
taste.— These are
things
which no one need care
to know.
the drudgery of any trade.
And
through this manner of daily life
will the true artist (even
when
the mists are cleared, as they soon
are, from his spirit)
keep his thought
holy in silence, until it he be
made
perfect by labour. But
this patient faculty of trust is
not for
all. To many God
gives great enjoyments
to
many great energies, and
to some the whole glow of life
which is
power: that/the grace
which is vouchsafed to the
smallest number, and to
these
seldom from the first, is self-
denial. It is a flame of
the
inner shrine that the priest
bows over in secret; and
whence
only, at long intervals he comes
forth to the people, his
face
still trembling with the presence
of God.
For myself, I was wayward
enough,— in the pursuit, if
not
in the purpose; & From the
even at the outset, with the
endurances of Art I laid
claim to
its indulgences.
No sooner was I fairly [engaged?]
in the first
painful acquisi-
tion of technicalities, than
I began
also to attempt also
an embodiment
fancies and ideas; without
appealing
to the study of nature.
as an auxiliary. It was
well that I had at least
the enough of judgment to
deter me from any wish
to
exhibit these first essays,
though I allowed them to oc-
cupy
a portion of time
which might probably have
been better employed.
However,
the mannerisms of which I
stood in danger through
this
hazardous kind of guesswork
probably
extent, their antidote in
the
portraits which I painted
when opportunity offered,
to
assist in pursuing my studies.
I had already, for
several
years, been in the habit of thus
painting
when, at the age of twenty
two, I ventured to send one
of my pictures, for the first
time,
to a public exhibition.
But of this I shall have to
speak presently.
In all
study, at least, as involves
any
practical elements,— has
engrossed and benumbed as
it that subtle transition
were
which brings youth out of boyhood,
it will be found that there is
a point, after some
while,
when, the mind having lost its
suppleness and
remaining being
riveted merely by the continuance
of the
mechanical effort, the
constrained senses gradually
assume/attain
and any urgent
impression
from without will suffice
to scatter the spell. The
stu-
dent looks up: the film
of their own fixedness drops
at
once from before his eyes,
and for the first time he
sees the
world
At the time I was twenty
may say that, what with one
path between one path of
of study
Art and another, I
worked hard.
One afternoon, I was returning,
after an unprofitable
morning,
from a day
which I attended. The day was
one of
those oppressive lulls
in Autumn, when application,
except
citement, is all but im-
possible,—when the very senses
seem
and the brain full of dry sand.
On ascending the stairs to
my
room, I heard voices there: and
when I entered, found my
sister
Catherine, with another young
lady, busily turning over
my
sketches & papers, apparently
in search of something.
Cathe-
rine laughed when she saw
me, and introduced her
com-
panion as Miss Mary Ethel.
I fancy I may have
looked there was
rather awkward
a little malice in the
laugh; for
I remembered to have heard the lady's
name before, and
?
some disparaging questions about
her, as one will of one's
sisters'
friends. I bowed for the intro-
duction, and stood
rebuked.
She stood with
the window, and where
the
light was strong; & I could
not well distinguish her
features:
but I made sure she was very
lovely
her hands and her
beautiful
tranquil body. Catherine
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 pro-
mised to Miss Ethel, who wished
to read it. I accordingly
joined in the search: the work
was
found, and soon after
they left my room. I had
come in utterly
spiritless;
but now I sat down
worked well for several hours.
In the
evening, when I went
down
Miss Ethel still there
mained rather late: till
she left, I
did not return
to my room, nor, when there,
was my work resumed
that
night. I had seen her well thought her
more
? and
beautiful than at first.
After that, every time that I
saw her, her
beauties
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; & even then, it was
still of her that I
thought.
For about a year I neglected
my studies almost
entirely,
except
became a duty
by the com-
pensation it brought
when that year was upon
its close, she and I were
promised in marriage.
Her stationMiss Ethel's station
in life, though not lofty,
was
one of more ease than my
own; and I had the satisfac-
tion
of knowing that it was
the earnestness of her attachment
to me which
had withheld
her parents from placing
any obstacle in the way
of
our union. At the same
time, all the more rigidy
on this
account did the
task now devolve upon me
of obtaining, by my
own exer-, a position which should
tion
preclude
to reproach myself with
any
sacrifice made by her for
my sake. It was in
this
determination that I now
set to work
energy of which I was ca-
pable, upon a picture of
some
size, involving many
aspects of study. The subject
was a modern one,
and
indeed it has often seemed
to me that all work, to be
truly worthily done, must 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
con-
stantly and unweariedly,
my days and my nights;
and Mary
sat to me for
the principal female figure.
The exhibition to which I
sent
it opened a few days after
the completion of my 22nd
year.
It will not excite wonder
was present upon the opening day.
My [?] picture,
I knew, had been
accepted, but
[?] a matter perhaps still
more important,—its
situation
on the walls. Upon
will
pended its success; from 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 th in this world, becomes to each
life
another name for destiny,—
when a man, having endured labour,
gives
its fruits into the hands of other
men, that they may do their work
between
him and mankind: confiding it to them,
unknown, without
seeking knowledge
of them; to them, who have
in like wise
before him, without
an appeal to the sympathy of
kindred experience:
submitting
to them his naked soul, himself,
blind and unseen: and
with no
thought of retaliation when, it
may be, by their judgement,
more
than one year from his dubious three-
score and ten, drops
alongside, un-
profitable, leaving its baffled labour
for its
successors to recommence.
There is perhaps no proof more
complete,
how sluggish & little
arrogant, in aggregate life, is the
consciousness
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
from and tending towards myself
and 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
without being
particular as to
the distance. I could not well,
however, do otherwise than
look
round; & 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
perhaps with
a wish for deliverance, somewhat
akin to
that which I now felt.
The more so, perhaps, that my
distaste was
coupled with surprise;
his name having been for some
time familiar
to me as that of
a writer of poetry.
As soon as we were rid of the
crush, we spoke and shook
hands;
and I said, to conceal my chagrin,
some platitudes 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 told
that
this gentleman was a critic as
well as a poet; so that,
most
likely, he was here in the former
capacity. And indeed, for
the
heavy Cornish-looking man,
with his gaunt jaws and
shambling
gait, it seemed
the more congenial ocupation
of the two. In a moment, the
refrained from answering his
enquiry with any precision,
and between the artist and the
reviewer there sprang up at
once a feeling of
instinctive
antagonism.
instinctive antagonism wedged
itself between the artist and
the
reviewer, and I avoided his
question.
He had taken my arm, & we
were now in the gallery
together.
My companion's scrutiny was
limited almost entirely to
the
“line”; but my own glance wan-
dered furtively to
& outskirts of the ceiling;
since
a misgiving possessed me that
I might requ have a
personal
interest in those unenviable
“high places” of Art. Works
which
at another time would have ab-
sorbed 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, least,
thereby I
might
its presence in some
dismal
condemned corner, which might
otherwise escape his notice.
I might at least have known
in what room to look; but I had
omitted to do so,
hoping thinking
thereby to know my fate the
sooner,
and never anticipating so vexatious
an obstacle to my
search.
I must answer his questions,
listen
to his criticism, observe
and discuss. After half
of this work, we were not through
the
first room: My thoughts were
already bewildered, and my cheeks
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
or less thickly; except,
perhaps,
where, at intervals, hung the
work of some venerable
Member,
whose glory was departed from
him. The seats in the
middle
of the room were for the most
part empty as yet: here
and
there only some
thusiastic lady had been left
by her party, and
sat in stately
unruffled toilet, her eye ranging
apathetically over
the upper por-
tion 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
? and to which
we could not at first get
for the
press
hung, which interested him
sincerely
seemed determined to
have
my opinion. It was one of
those tender and tearful works,
those “labours of love,” Since
fa
familiar in their engraved frames
to all print-shop flâneurs,—
in which the wax
doll is made
to occupy a position in Art which
it can never have
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
knew what to say; but my
companion was lavish of
his
admiration, and gave
began to give symptoms of
the gushings of the poet-soul.
It
appeared that he knew the & being
painter and had seen the pic-
ture before it went
in
but little satisfied with my
monosyllables,
he was at
great pains to convince me.
and While he chattered, I
trembled with anger and
im-
patience.
“You must be tired,” said he sud- at last;
“so am I; let us
denly
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
M.S.? The
knowledge forms a
portion of those wondrous instincts
implanted in
us for self- preser-
vation. [?] I was past
resistance,
however, and took
the paper submissively. “They
are some verses,” he
said,
the picture you have just seen.
I mean to print them in
our
next number, as being the
only
a work.”
I read the poem twice over,
for after the first reading
I
found I had not attended to
a word of it, and was ashamed
to
give it him back. The same
repetition was not, however,
much more successful, as
re-
garded comprehension,—a
fact which the/ I then
attri- I
buted to my wandering
have since believed,
(having
seen it again) may have
been dependent upon other
causes
besides my distracted
thoughts. The poem, which is
now included among the works
of its author, runs as follows:—
After atone Having atoned for
non-attention by a second
perusal,
whose only result was non-compre-
hension, I thought I had
done my
Mem:
To paint head large head of
smaller one of
Salutatio Beatricis (from the two
drawings
particularly the latter which is my best of her.)
To make design of
subject to show —also full length
To complete the Dante
and the revise from the picture the
studies for the 2 altered
figures before
picture leaves
Query? To print
add all the other things to a new Ed: of
To re-design the
subjects, & to make a descriptive list of
all
projected compositions. (!!)
Lent
Sent DOlive green dress to the shrubbery for Mrs
Stillman (14
Via Alfieri, Florence), 13 March
Returned “Unseen World” to Haden who
promised me to bring it back
shortly. March 13
This is not the place where any attempt
could be made to appraise the
thanks
due for such a work as Mr Swinburne's
undertaken in it—that of explaining
&
expounding the System which of thought
& creed
has
been undertaken
as task work by piecework
or
analysis but as
The fiat of
far as such a chaos could respond,
it
has responded. All else that has been
said about
but the work of industry
and intelligence
To the book itself, & to that only, the reader
can any reader be referred for its stores
of intellectual wealth
& eloquent splendour
reach of elquent dominion.
The word written does not appear to be really “sensing”: I
cannot
decipher it.
In early life the affinities of men are
uppermost to drive them
together; later
their individualities become tyrannous
&
sunder them
theological one, respecting a palimpsest.
The classical one takes
years to decipher
this
Theologian considers the only
value
of the scroll to consist in the Early
Father above
it on the surface,
whom he is to edit in due course.
The
Theologian is in bad health,
& expects to die before the
classic
has finished. This drives him
to desperation, and impels
him
at last to murder his rival;
who in dying shows him
scroll, from which the Early Father
has been
completely erased by
acids, leaving a fair MS. of the
Pagan
poet.