Such people are a continual novelty. Had intellect been the dominating thing in this personality, I should soon have grown tired. Intellect is always the same. There are not two ways of doing the fifth proposition of Euclid or of stating the theory of rent. You just know it or you don't know it. But when it comes to a matter of feeling and of the instincts and desires and the multitudinous sensibilities, no two men are alike. They differ as a leaf on the tree differs from every other leaf. In each is concealed a lovely surprise, if only someone would draw the curtain. Change is the law of life; we desire it as we desire the morning and sniff the morning air, a desire that will get us into strange scrapes sometimes and be a pitfall to the innocent. A friend of mine found Rossetti doing a study of a woman model, and painting the nostrils with ultramarine. 'Well' said he wearily, 'I am so tired of painting them always with madder brown.' Search for novelty was quickening his imagination when he created the Rossetti woman--I would that he had created many--it is like the lamp set in the cap of the miner when he works underground. At that time those of us young artists who aspired after imaginative and poetic art were all agog about Rossetti. His poems had not then been published, nor had any one seen his pictures outside his immediate friends. But by all accounts he was a man of wonderful presence, keeping open mind and open house for kindred spirits. Swinburne was one of the circle; I was told Rossetti would not admit him without Whistler who knew how to keep him from drinking too much. Rossetti seldom went to picture exhibitions; by rare chance he did go to the Dudley, and saw there a picture of mine which he liked so much that he sent to me by three messengers, one of whom was his brother, an invitation to come and see him. I did not come. I regret it very much. I think I was afraid of the great man; diffident about myself and my work. To be afraid of anything is to listen to the counsels of your evil angel. I used to hear a great deal about Rossetti. I think that he exercised so much ascendancy because of a personality which was naked and unashamed. A personality encased in the armour of opinion arouses or calls for adherents & followers. Thoughts, fancies, surmises, the whole army of guesses, which are the airy children of hope and affection, present themselves to be liked or disliked without any power of argument. Opinion challenges assent and submission as of right, and is quite indifferent as to whether or no it is hideous in all men's sight. Rossetti would not go to his brother's wedding because he said he would meet all the bores of London. These bores were the men with opinions and contentions. I sometimes meet a man all cased in the armour of opinion, even as was John Knox--but raise his visor, let me see his personality shining in his eyes, and how fascinating it is! Rossetti