The morning call., 1892-12-18

and about the Tower of London. Or course
was full Of the tower and could talk OF
nothing else. Finally Maria Rossetti. author
OF the Shadow OF Dante.' said with the
least bit OF impatience. II have lived more
than forty years within as many minutes
OF the tower, but have never yet seen il. !
have never had time"
Put these two statements together NV
aspirsnt for fame, and you will have some
idea OF the fearful price that even such
gifted souls as the Rossettis have to pay
for IL. They have never had time for aut-
thing but toll aud toll and toll We can
well understand that such highly sensitive
natures might shrink from visiting the
bloody tower, but if they had ever had
time they would surely have seen the land
of their fathers and the cradles of art and
cong.
And yet they had time. always time. to
help any one who was trying to get along.
The elder brother. the most famous of
English critics and the one 10 whom Walt
whitman owes. his first renown, generously
took my second book when in press and
read and revised IL so far as be conveniently
could; went over the whole thing. 1t must
have cost him month of fruitless work !:
ana hOally after asked permission to dedi-
cate the book thus: ITO the ROssetts !"
each one Of the four took time 10 write a.
long. sweet letter of acceptance; and it
takes so much time to be polite. says Elmer
son.
l had met these dear people In the stormi-
est of times. having Just esca ped back to
England from reporting between the con-
tending armies of France and Germany.
with my first book still unpublished. The
King OF Prussia was laundering away at
the gates of Paris and the great heart of
England went out to the weaker side. Lon
don was full OF refugees; and yet, with all
this tumult and the war of artillery not
twenty leagues distant, the very map of
Europe being shot full of holes and
bayoBeted into shreds. art was at white
heat in smoky old London. To say nothing
of the paintings of Whistler, Burne Jones'
Aiilais. Maddox Browne and a lot of others.
London, right there. almost within hearing
of cannon. published Swinburne's greatest
work, the THREE great books Of William
Morris, Earthly Paradise" the younger
MarstOn's poems and the works of at least
half a dozen others of like renown.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti dug up his poems
that year from his wife's grave, where they
had been buried for eight years, and first
gave them to the world. | know well how
he would abhor having this told, but il is
the only true way of telling how true
and tender and entirely sensitive and
she diea he would have nothing more to
say. He had written his songs and bis
poems all for her and to her. not for the
world ard to the world; and so the world
should not have them TO pull TO pieces or to
trample under foot after the fashion of
swine. But time, you see, tempered all
this, so when his brothers and sisters and
others of the great pre- Raph aelte school,
which he had really founded and carried
forward, were being heard all over the
world above the booming of cannon the
sadly took his scroll from the dead wife
dust and let the world read what be had
written there.
am told that few years later, when
Rossetti died. in his early prime, the two
great men who stood next to him, the great
master in the revival of art. shook hands at
his grave TO meet no more. They conld not
bear TO meet again and the master gone
away forever. What a tender tributei Ii
IL almost too pathetic TO tell. II is like the
tender love OF the man for his dead wife
when he laid his silent songs in her grave.
Only such love could win and hold such love.
OF course. all this seems out OF place in this
railroad age OF leveling down and grinding
TO dust in the iron grooves. But a thousand
years farther on, when the world is civilized
and we sit down TO rest, we viii read these
things and love the man Dante Gabriel
Rossstti as he deserves TO be loved aud as
those two men at his grave loved him.
Meanwhile please read here a few lines
from a poem addressed to her after death.
Maybe they will hold fuller meaning for
you now, and This is my only excuse for en-
teriug the sanctuary OF the dead aud telling,
without authority from any one, but exactly
as i understand them. these little incidents
THE BLESSED DAMoZEL.