t 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 Watts-Dunton (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 Watts-Dunton'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
Watts-Dunton, 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 Watts-Dunton 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