To the secluded house at Bognor—a house so surrounded by trees and shrubs that the murmur of the waves mingling with the whispers of the leaves seemed at one moment the sea’s voice, and at another the voice of the earth—Rossetti took not only the cartoon of the ‘Astarte Syriaca,’ but also the most peculiar of all his pictures, ‘The Blessed Damozel,’ which had long lain in an incomplete state. But it was not much painting that he did at Bognor. From a cause he tried in vain to understand, and tried in vain to conquer, his thoughts ran upon poetry, and refused to fix themselves upon art. Partly this might have been owing to the fact that now, comparatively late in life, he to whom, as his brother well says, “such words as _sea_, _ship_, and _boat_ were generic terms admitting of little specific and still less of any individual and detailed distinction,” awoke to the fascination that the sea sooner or later exercises upon all truly romantic souls. For deep as is the poetry of the inland woods, the Spirit of Romance, if there at all, is there in hiding. In order for that Spirit to come forth and take captive the soul something else is wanted; howsoever thick and green the trees—howsoever bright and winding the streams—a magical glimmer of sea-light far or near must shine through the branches as they wave. That this should be a new experience to so fine a poet as Rossetti was no doubt strange, but so it chanced to be. He whose talk at Kelmscott had been of ‘Blessed Damozels’ and ‘Roman Widows’ and the like, talked now of the wanderings of Ulysses, of ‘The Ancient Mariner,’ of ‘Sir Patrick Spens,’ and even of ‘Arthur Gordon Pym’ and ‘Allan Gordon.’ And on hearing a friend recite some tentative verses on a great naval battle, he looked about for sea subjects too; and it was now, and not later, as is generally supposed, that he really thought of the subject of ‘The White Ship,’ a subject apparently so alien from his genius. Every evening he used to take walks on the beach for miles and miles, delighted with a beauty that before had had no charms for him. Still, the ‘Astarte Syriaca’ did progress, though slowly, and became the masterpiece that Mr. W. M. Rossetti sets so high among his brother’s work. “From Bognor my brother returned to his house in Cheyne Walk; and in the summer he paid a visit to two of his kindest and most considerate friends, Lord and Lady Mount-Temple, at their seat of Broadlands in Hampshire. He executed there a portrait in chalks of Lady Mount-Temple. He went on also with the picture of ‘The Blessed Damozel.’ For the head of an infant angel which appears in the front of this picture he made drawings from two children—one being the baby of the Rev. H. C. Hawtrey, and the other a workhouse infant. The former sketch was presented to the parents of the child and the latter to Lady Mount-Temple; and the head with its wings, was painted on to the canvas at Broadlands.”