Chapter XII. Hostages to Fortune 1861-1862

This was a year of wonders quite difFerent from those of 1856, for all its marvels were visible to others beside ourselves. Let who will smile, but to most people the sight of a first child is one of the miracles of life, and it is noteworthy that Morris, Rossetti (age 32), and Edward now went through this experience within a few months of each other. First came the owner of the little garment that was being fashioned for her when we were at Red House the summer before, and then, just as we were taking it for granted that all would go as well in one household as another, there was illness and anxiety and suspense at Chatham Place, and poor Lizzie (age 31) was only given back to us with empty arms. This was not a light ming to Gabriel, and though he wrote about it, "She herself is so far the most important that I can feel nothing but thankfulness," the dead child certainly lived in its father's heart. "I ought to have had a little girl older than she is," he once said wistfully as he looked at a friend's young daughter of seven years.

[Before 02 May 1861]. When we went to see Lizzie (age 31) for the first time after her recovery, we found her sitting in a low chair with the childless cradle on the floor beside her, and she looked like Gabriel's "Ophelia" when she cried with a kind of soft wildness as we came in, "Hush, Ned, you'll waken it!" How often has it seemed to us that if that little baby had lived she, too, might have done so, and Gabriel's terrible melancholy would never have mastered him.

Lizzie's (age 31) nurse was a delightful old country woman, whose words and ways we quoted for years afterwards; her native wit and simple wisdom endeared her to both Gabriel and Lizzie (age 31), and were the best possible medicine for their overstrained feelings. Naturally, after meeting her at Blackfriars, we invited her to come to us.

On the day little Jane Alice Morris was christened many friends went down to Red House for the christening feast, and beds were made up for their accommodation at night in the true Red Lion Square spirit of hospitality, the drawing-room being turned into a big dormitory for the men. At dinner I sat next to Rossetti (age 32), and noticed that even amidst such merry company he fell silent occasionally and seemed absent in mind. He drank water only, and, after he had helped himself, I asked him if he would give me some, which he did with an instant return to the scene before him, saying at the same time with grave humour in his sonorous voice, "I beg your pardon, Georgie: I had forgotten that you, like myself, are a temperate person."

At this time Faulkner was thinking seriously about leaving Oxford, for he longed to share the struggle which he saw his old companions beginning in a wider world: they, of course, encouraged this desire, and Edward, for one, says distinctly, "I'm doing all I can to persuade him to leave Oxford and settle in London at some profession." This happened a few months later, when Faulkner came up to town and entered the office of a civil engineer, where he patiently sat and drew rivets by the thousand in plans for iron bridges — or at least that was the impression we had of his occupation. Out of office hours he kept the books of the firm or Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., now legally registered partners in business.

Edward painted also in this year a water-colour of "Clerk Saunders," which embodies his passionate sympathy with the Border Ballads. Mr. Marshall, a big, handsome Scotchman, the least prominent member of the Firm, made us very happy with the traditional tune of the poem, and we started a manuscript music-book to preserve it and a few other treasures. "The Three Ravens" was a song for which Rossetti (age 32) used to ask.

There was a small water-colour "Laus Veneris" ["Praising Venus"] too, which contained the germ of one of Edward's most elaborate pictures, and I remember that in it was the only cat ever allowed a place in his serious work. It was not reproduced in the large "Laus Veneris," Perhaps it was a silent tribute to the memory of his own fiiend and companion "Tom," who had lately met with a sudden death: chance words, now and then taught me that such a thing was possible.

There were special flowers — the lily, the sunflower, and the rose, for instance — which at various times Edward studied profoundly and finally knew by heart. We have seen him painting lilies in Red Lion Square garden, and nearly ten years Mterwards he finished his apprenticeship by the masterly pencil drawing, familiar to many, of a group in his own garden at Kensington Square. Roses he was still looking at with uncritical love — the time for grappling with them had not arrived — but that he was already far on in his knowledge of sunflowers is shown by a pen-and-ink design begun this year of "Childe Roland," in which they fill up the whole background: he knew them from their roots to the tips of their petals before he had done, and never lost interest in them.

" Did you ever draw a sunflower ?" he writes: "it is a whole school of drawing and an education in itself." And again: "Do you know what faces they have — how they peep and peer, and look arch and winning, or bold and a ittle insolent sometimes? Have you ever noticed their back-hair, how beautifidly curled it is?" The sunflower affectation, which was a fashion at one time amongst hangers-on of Art, filled him with disgust. "As to those sunflower-worshippers," he says, "I do renounce them — I will not stand godfather to that feeble folly without crying out. What have I done ever to deserve such a fate? I do renounce and denounce, and will have none of them. Was I not at work happily and peacefully years before their rubbish began — and shall I not survive them happily and peacefidly? Away with them, the feeblings."

Poppies also had their fascination for him: Mr. Bodley remembers him, at Red House, coming in to breakfast one day with a beautiful drawing of a poppy that he had done in the early morning.

We continued the excellent habit of going to Red House very often from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning, when we would return to town with Morris, who came up every day to the works at 8, Red Lion Square. This place become a fresh centre for friendly as well as business meetings of the members of the firm, and here they laid plans for the future, discussed work going on at the moment, and in the intervals told anecdotes and played each other tricks which prolonged the youth that seemed as if it would never rail.

On one of these evenings Madox Brown (age 39) surpassed himself in a display of his peculiarity of forgetting names. He wanted something brought upstairs, but, in order to make sure of calling the right person, first turned round and carefully asked: "What is the name of your housekeeper, Morris?" "Button," answered Morris. Whereupon it took no longer than his stepping to the head of the stairs before Madox Brown was heard shouting in his slow, clear voice, "Mrs. Penny, will you" but applause drowned the rest. Another time Morris being called away during a meeting, the devil suggested to Faulkner that it were well in his absence to make an elaborate "booby-trap" to await his return; so the London Directory and two large copper candlesticks were swiftiy balanced by his clever fingers upon the top of the half-open door, and of course at Morris's entrance fell like "Goddes grame" "right amiddlewards of his crown." Bumping and rebounding they rolled to the ground, while Morris yelled with the enraged surprise of startled nerves, and was very near to serious anger, when Faulkner changed everything by holding him up to opprobrium and exclaiming loudly in an injured voice, "What a bad-tempered fellow you are!" The "bad-tempered " one stopped his torrent of rage — looked at Faulkner for a second, and then burst into a fit of laughter, which disposed of the matter.

"The Co. gets on, "Edward wrote to Cormell Price in Russia; " have you heard of the Co.? It's made of Topsy, Marshall, Faulkner, Brown, Webb, Rossetti (age 32) and me — we are partners and have a manufactory and make stained glass, furniture, jewellery, decoration and piftures; we have many commissions, and shall probably roll in yellow carriages by the time you come back."

Under the general pressure of the time Edward had joined the Artists' Corps of Volunteers when it was first formed, but his attendance was not regular, and of this episode in his life I remember little except a very tired man in a grey uniform.

Another unlikely recruit was Rossetti (age 32), who I believe presented himself on the drill-ground, although his name does not appear in the Muster Roll Book of the Corps: but Major Horsley suggests that, as Volunteer economy was doubtless imperfeA at the beginning of the movement, it is quite possible that he may have tried the work, found it distasteml, and never really joined. At any rate we clung to the legend of Gabriel's unmistakeable voice having been heard to ask quite politely " Why ? " in response to the sergeant's fiercely shouted "Right about face": and Madox Brown is quoted by his grandson, Mr. Ford Hueffer, as relating that Gabriel's first shot was a wonderful one, hitting the centre of the bull's-eye.

Morris figured far better as a defender of his country, for he attended drill regularly, and I distinctly remember that he was camping out at Wimbledon on the night of the great Tooley Street fire. This was on a Saturday, and Edward and I were going down to Red House as usual, though Morris would not be back till next day. As we got near London Bridge Station we saw something was the matter, for crowds were running in one direAion, and presently we knew that it was a big fire, and were so much excited that when on reaching the station we found it was close to us, we decided to go to Upton by a later train and stopped where we were to see how things might turn out. The sight was appalling, and the heat so great that we had to turn away from time to time to cool our faces. We did not hear of any danger to life, though there was evidently great destruftion of property, but in spite of this, as it was burning, we felt a kind of fearful satisradion in being there to see. This form of excitement gave way to another before long, for as we were watching the fire, a woman near us suddenly covered her fece and then we heard a shout and saw a wall of the burning building totter and fall with a splash of fire, while a groan went through the crowd and every one knew that life had been lost. We turned away, but could learn no details, and it was not until we saw the newspapers on Monday morning that we knew it had been the death of James Braidwood, the head of the Fire Brigade, and two of his devoted men. When we got to Woolwich the sky was so red there that people were running out from their cottages to see what the fire was, and Morris saw it also from his tent at Wimbledon. On Monday morning when we returned to London the flames were not yet got under, nor were they for many days.

Before the birth of our first child [Philip Burne-Jones 2nd Baronet] we removed from Russell Place into a larger set of rooms just left by Mr. Henry Wallis, at No. 62, Great Russell Street. Here Edward's studio was again only the front room on the first floor, but as the house was opposite to the British Museum the large open space before it gave a better painting light than usual. Behind the studio and communicating with it by a door was our sitting-room, and beyond that a very small third one. The outlook of the sitting-room was upon a little back-yard entirely built over and covered with a skylight; beyond this was the high blank wall of the back of a house. This had once been coloured and was now blotched in a leprous way. Our own walls inside were beautified with some old tapestry left there by Mr. Wallis while he was travelling abroad.

Writing to Cormell Price in Russia towards the end of September, Edward tells him that he thinks in about a month "either a little Ned or a little Georgie will appear," and just adding "don't tell, I keep it quiet tor fear it should be a monster," passes to other subjects. But the reflex of the idea of having a child of his own appears on the next page, where he writes of his father: "I want my dad to come and live near me: business doesn't answer and he grows old [he was fifty-nine] and a little cottage 12 miles out of London seems a good idea. Next year I hope it can be managed — hj then I shall be out of debt and getting on a bit. Dads ought to have their whack sometimes; it's very dull to be a dad and have a son cutting about and enjoying himself and still be working on drearily — I shall hate it when I'm a dad." I cannot remember when it was that Mr. Jones decided to give up the struggle of business, in order to avoid the possibility of failure, but I know that when he did so, with his usual ill-luck, he sold the house in Bennett's Hill just before property in that neighbourhood increased so much in value that its rental would have made him comfortable for the rest of his days.

The arrival of our child, though not a "monster," brought us face to face with strange experiences. No one had told us any details conneded with it essential for our guidance, the doctor and the wise woman were to arrange everything — but as neither of them happened to be at hand when wanted I doubt whether Edward or I had the more perturbed day. By his own energy, however, he guided the disjointed time and set it straight, for with him intelleft was a manageable force applicable to everything, but good dame Wheeler, who soon arrived to supersede the strange nurse of the moment, saw at once how great a demand had been made upon his physical power, and was almost as anxious about him as about either of her recognized charges. I can remember, in the readion that followed, a day on which the small stranger within our gates was the most valiant member of the family. Those who have gone through such times as these know them to be amongst the testing times of humanity.

I do not think that Edward was a man with whom parental feeling was very great in the abstract, but from the moment he had a child of his own, strong natural love for it awoke in his heart. This new love was accompanied, however, by a fearful capacity for anxiety which was a fresh drain upon his strength. "A painter ought not to be married," he once said; "children and pictures are too important to be produced by one man."

I must not forget to mention the transporting satisfaction of Miss Sampson, who happened to be staying for a few days with us and had the unexpected bliss of receiving Edward's son in her arms and then going back to Birmingham with the story. To this time belongs a clear recollection of the appearance of Janey (age 21) and Lizzie (age 31) as they sat side by side one day when in a good hour it had occurred to them to come together to see the mother and child. They were as unlike as possible and quite perfect as a contrast to each other; also, at the moment neither of them was under the cloud of ill-health, so that, as an Oriental might say, the purpose of the Creator was manifest in them. The difference between the two women may be typified broadly as that between sculpture and painting, Mrs. Morris being the statue and Mrs. Rossetti the pidure: the grave nobility and colourless perfeftion of feature in the one was made human by kindness that looked from "her great eyes standing far apart," while a wistfullness that often accompanied the brilliant loveliness and grace of the other gave an unearthly character to her beauty. "Was there ever two such beautiful ladies!" said dame Wheeler, with a distinct sense of ownership in one of them, as soon as they were gone.

A few weeks after this, whilst I was in Manchester, showing their first nephew to my sisters and younger brother, Edward wrote to me of having been with Rossetti (age 32) to Chelsea, to see Alexander Gilchrist, in whose forthcoming life of Blake they were both keenly interested. They were told that one of the children of the house had scarlet fever, but that the case had taken a favourable turn, and people in those days did not dread infeAion as they have learned to do now, so the two friends stayed on, spending the evening in conversation with Mr. Gilchrist, and the news of his death from the fever within a fortnight afterwards was a great shock to them. Edward joined me in Manchester and we took our child to be baptized at the Cathedral [Map], Ruskin (age 41) and Rossetti (age 32) being his godfathers by proxy. After stopping at Birmingham to present the little one to his grandfather there, we returned to London and were settled again in our own home early in December.