I sacrificed myself on the altar of sympathy. I admitted that I might have been mistaken—must have been—must have confused this play with some other. I dipped into the pages and `No,’ I shouted, `this I have never read.’
His equanimity was restored. He was up the ladder and down again, showing me further treasures with all pride and ardour. At length, WattsDunton, afraid that his old friend would tire himself, arose from his corner, and presently he and I went downstairs to the diningroom. It was in the course of our session together that there suddenly flashed across my mind the existence of a play called `The Country Wife,’ by—wasn’t it Wycherley? I had once read it—or read something about it…. But this matter I kept to myself. I thought I had appeared fool enough already.
I loved those sessions in that Tupperossettine diningroom, lair of solid old comfort and fervid old romanticism. Its odd duality befitted well its owner. The distinguished critic and poet, Rossetti’s closest friend and Swinburne’s, had been, for a while, in the dark ages, a solicitor; and one felt he had been a good one. His frock-coat, though the Muses had crumpled it, inspired confidence in his judgment of other things than verse. But let there be no mistake. He was no mere bourgeois parnassien, as his enemies insinuated. No doubt he had been very useful to men of genius, in virtue of qualities they lacked, but the secret of his hold on them was in his own rich nature. He was not only a born man of letters, he was a deeply emotional human being whose appeal was as much to the heart as to the head. The romantic Celtic mysticism of `Aylwin,’ with its lack of fashionable Celtic nebulosity, lends itself, if you will, to laughter, though personally I saw nothing funny in it: it seemed to me, before I was in touch with the author, a work of genuine expression from within; and that it truly was so I presently knew. The mysticism of WattsDunton (who, once comfortably settled at the fireside, knew no reserve) was in contrast with the frock-coat and the practical abilities; but it was essential, and they were of the surface. For humorous Rossetti, I daresay, the very contrast made Theodore’s company the more precious.
He himself had assuredly been, and the memory of him still was, the master-fact in WattsDunton’s life. `Algernon’ was as an adopted child, `Gabriel’ as a long-lost only brother. As he was to the outer world of his own day, so too to posterity Rossetti, the man, is conjectural and mysterious. We know that he was in his prime the most inspiring and splendid of companions. But we know this only by faith.
The evidence is as vague as it is emphatic. Of the style and substance of not a few great talkers in the past we can piece together some more or less vivid and probably erroneous notion. But about Rossetti nothing has been recorded in such a way as to make him even faintly emerge. I suppose he had in him what reviewers seem to find so often in books a quality that defies analysis. Listening to WattsDunton, I was always in hope that when next the long-lost turned up—for he was continually doing so—in the talk, I should see him, hear him, and share the rapture. But the revelation was not to be. You might think that to hear him called `Gabriel’ would have given me a sense of propinquity. But I felt no nearer to him than you feel to the Archangel who bears that name and no surname.
It was always when WattsDunton spoke carelessly, casually, of some to me illustrious figure in the past, that I had the sense of being wafted right into that past and plumped down in the very midst of it.
When he spoke with reverence of this and that great man whom he had known, he did not thus waft and plump me; for I, too, revered those names. But I had the magical transition whenever one of the immortals was mentioned in the tone of those who knew him before he had put on immortality. Browning, for example, was a name deeply honoured by me.
`Browning, yes,’ said WattsDunton, in the course of an afternoon, `Browning,’ and he took a sip of the steaming whisky-toddy that was a point in our day’s ritual. `I was a great diner-out in the old times.
I used to dine out every night in the week. Browning was a great diner-out, too. We were always meeting. What a pity he went on writing all those plays! He hadn’t any gift for drama—none. I never could understand why he took to play-writing.’ He wagged his head, gazing regretfully into the fire, and added, `Such a clever fellow, too!’
Whistler, though alive and about, was already looked to as a hierarch by the young. Not so had he been looked to by Rossetti. The thrill of the past was always strong in me when WattsDunton mentioned—seldom without a guffaw did he mention—`Jimmy Whistler.’ I think he put in the surname because `that fellow’ had not behaved well to Swinburne.
But he could not omit the nickname, because it was impossible for him to feel the right measure of resentment against `such a funny fellow.’
As heart-full of old hates as of old loves was WattsDunton, and I take it as high testimony to the charm of Whistler’s quaintness that WattsDunton did not hate him. You may be aware that Swinburne, in ‘88, wrote for one of the monthly reviews a criticism of the `Ten O’Clock’ lecture. He paid courtly compliments to Whistler as a painter, but joined issue with his theories. Straightway there appeared in the World a little letter from Whistler, deriding `one Algernon Swinburne—outsider—Putney.’ It was not in itself a very pretty or amusing letter; and still less so did it seem in the light of the facts which WattsDunton told me in some such words as these: After he’d published that lecture of his, Jimmy Whistler had me to dine with him at Kettner’s or somewhere. He said “Now, Theodore, I want you to do me a favour.” He wanted to get me to get Swinburne to write an article about his lecture. I said “No, Jimmy Whistler, I can’t ask Algernon to do that. He’s got a great deal of work on hand just now—a great deal of work. And besides, this sort of thing wouldn’t be at all in his line.’ But Jimmy Whistler went on appealing to me. He said it would do him no end of good if Swinburne wrote about him. And—well, I half gave in: I said perhaps I would mention the matter to Algernon. And next day I did. I could see Algernon didn’t want to do it at all. But—well, there, he said he’d do it to please me. And he did it. And then Jimmy Whistler published that letter. A very shabby trick—very shabby indeed.’ Of course I do not vouch for the exact words in which WattsDunton told me this tale; but this was exactly the tale he told me. I expressed my astonishment. He added that of course he `never wanted to see the fellow again after that, and never did.’ But presently, after a long gaze into the coals, he emitted a chuckle, as for earlier memories of `such a funny fellow.’
One quite recent memory he had, too. `When I took on the name of Dunton, I had a note from him. Just this, with his butterfly signature: Theodore! What’s Dunton? That was very good—very good….
But, of course,’ he added gravely, `I took no notice.’ And no doubt, quite apart from the difficulty of finding an answer in the same vein, he did well in not replying. Loyalty to Swinburne forbade. But I see a certain pathos in the unanswered message. It was a message from the hand of an old jester, but also, I think, from the heart of an old man—a signal waved jauntily, but in truth wistfully, across the gulf of years and estrangement; and one could wish it had not been ignored.
Some time after Whistler died I wrote for one of the magazines an appreciation of his curious skill in the art of writing. WattsDunton told me he had heard of this from Swinburne. `I myself,’ he said, `very seldom read the magazines. But Algernon always has a look at them.’ There was something to me very droll, and cheery too, in this picture of the illustrious recluse snatching at the current issues of our twaddle. And I was immensely pleased at hearing that my article had `interested him very much.’ I inwardly promised myself that as soon as I reached home I would read the article, to see just how it might have struck Swinburne. When in due course I did this, I regretted the tone of the opening sentences, in which I declared myself `no book-lover’ and avowed a preference for `an uninterrupted view of my fellow-creatures.’ I felt that had I known my article would meet the eye of Swinburne I should have cut out that overture. I dimly remembered a fine passage in one of his books of criticism—something (I preferred not to verify it) about `the dotage of duncedom which cannot perceive, or the impudence of insignificance so presumptuous as to doubt, that the elements of life and literature are indivisibly mingled one in another, and that he to whom books are less real than life will assuredly find in men and women as little reality as in his accursed crassness he deserves to discover.’ I quailed, I quailed. But mine is a resilient nature, and I promptly reminded myself that Swinburne’s was a very impersonal one: he would not think the less highly of me, for he never had thought about me in any way whatsoever.