ight have been
expected that with the anxiety occasioned by these enterprises,
would pass away the melancholy which in a nature like Rossetti's they
naturally induced. The reverse was the fact, He became more and more
depressed as each palpable cause of depression was removed, and more
and more liable to give way to excess with the drug. By his brother, Mr.
Watts, Mr. Shields, and others who had only too frequently in times past
had experience of similar outbreaks, this failure in spirits, with
all its attendant physical weakness, was said to be due primarily to
hypochondriasis. Hence the returning necessity to get him away (as
Mr. Madox Brown had done at a previous crisis) for a change of air and
scene. Once out of this atmosphere of gloom, we hoped that amid cheerful
surroundings his health would speedily revive. Infinite were the efforts
that had to be made, and countless the precautions that had to be taken
before he could be induced to set out, but at length we found ourselves
upon our way to Keswick, at nine p.m., one evening in September, in
a special carriage packed with as many artist's trappings and as many
books as would have lasted for a year.

We reached Penrith as the grey of dawn had overspread the sky. It was
six o'clock as we got into the carriage that was to drive us through the
vale of St. John to our destination at the Legberthwaite end of it. The
morning was now calm, the mountains looked loftier, grander, and yet
more than ever precipitous from the road that circled about their base.
Nothing could be heard but the calls of the awakening cattle, the rumble
of cataracts far away, and the rush and surge of those that were near.
Rossetti was all but indifferent to our surroundings, or displayed only
such fitful interest in them as must have been affected out of a kindly
desire to please me. He said the chloral he had taken daring the journey
was upon him, and he could not see. At length we reached the house that
was for some months to be our home. It stood at the foot of a ghyll,
which, when swollen by rain, was majestic in volume and sound. The
little house we had rented was free from all noise other than the
occasional voice of a child or bark of a dog. Here at least he might
bury the memory of the distractions of the city that vexed him. Save
for the ripple of the river that flowed at his feet, the bleating
of sheep on Golden Howe, the echo of the axe of the woodman who was
thinning the neighbouring