by which a man of genius, surrounded
by constant friends, could yet bend to a new-comer who was a stranger
and twenty-five years his junior, and think and feel with him; the
generous appreciativeness by which he could bring himself to consider
the first efforts of one quite unknown; and then the unselfishness that
seemed always to prefer the claims of others to his own great claims,
could command only the return of unqualified allegiance. Such were the
feelings with which I went forth to my first meeting with Rossetti, and
if at any later date, the ardour of my regard for him in any measure
suffered modification, be sure when the time comes to touch upon it I
shall make no more concealment of the causes that led to such a change
than I have made of those circumstances, however personal in primary
interest, that generated a friendship so unusual and to me so serious
and important.

CHAPTER VII.

It was in the autumn of 1880 that I saw Rossetti for the first time.
Being then rather reduced in health I contemplated a visit to the
sea-side and wrote saying that in passing through London I should avail
myself of his oft-repeated invitation to visit him. I gave him this
warning of my intention, remembering his declared dread of being taken
unawares, but I came to know at a subsequent period that for one who was
within the inner circle of his friends the necessity to advise him of
a visit was by no means binding. His reception of my intimation of an
intention to call upon him was received with an amount of epistolary
ceremony which I recognise now by the light of further acquaintance as
eminently characteristic of the man, although curiously contradictory of
his unceremonious habits of daily life. The fact is that Rossetti was
of an excessively nervous temperament, and rarely if ever underwent an
ordeal more trying than a first meeting with any one to whom for some
time previously he had looked forward with interest. Hence by return of
the post that bore him my missive came two letters, the one obviously
written and posted within an hour or two of the other. In the first of
these he expressed courteously his pleasure at the prospect of seeing
me, and appointed 8.30 p.m. the following evening as his dinner hour at
his house in Cheyne Walk. The second letter begged me to come at 5.30 or
6 p.m., so that we might have a long evening. "You will, I repeat," he
says, "recognise the hole-and-cornerest of all existences in this