Rossetti was not disturbed by them as he had been formerly. Indeed, the
drug once removed, he was in every sense a changed man. He talked that
night brightly, and with more force and incisiveness, I thought, than he
had displayed for months. There was the ring of affection in his tone as
he said he had always had loyal friends; and then he spoke with feeling
of Mr. Watts’s friendship, of Mr. Shields’s, and afterwards he spoke of
Mr. Burne Jones who had just previously visited him, as well as of Mr.
Madox Brown, and his friendship of a lifetime; of Mr. Swinburne, Mr.
Morris, Mr. Stephens, Mr. Boyce, and other early friends. He said a word
or two of myself which I shall not repeat, and then spoke with emotion
of his mother and sister, and of his sister who was dead, and how they
were supported through their sore trials by religious resignation. He
asked if I, like Shields, was a believer, and seemed altogether in a
softer and more spiritual mood than I remember to have noticed before.
With such talk we passed the Christmas night of 1881. Rossetti recovered
power in some measure, was able to get down to the studio, and see the
friends who called--Mr. F. E. Leyland frequently, Lord and Lady Mount
Temple, Mrs. Sumner, Mr. Boyce, Mr. F. G. Stephens, Mr. Gilchrist, Mr.
and Mrs. Virtue Tebbs, Mrs. Stillman, Mrs. Coronio, and Mr. C. and Mr.
A. Ionides occasionally, as well as those previously named. A visit
from Dr. Hueffer of the _Times_ (of whose gifts he had a high opinion),
enlivened him perceptibly. But he did not recover, and at the end of
January 1882 it was definitely determined that he should go to the
sea-side. I was asked to accompany him, and did so. At the right
juncture Mr. J. P. Seddon very hospitably tendered the use of his
handsome bungalow at Birchington-on-Sea, a little watering-place four
miles west of Margate. There we spent nine weeks. At first going out he
was able to take short walks on the cliffs, or round the road that winds
about the churchyard, but his strength grew less and less every day
and hour. We were constantly visited by Mr. Watts, whose devotion never
failed, and Rossetti would brighten up at the prospect of one of his
visits, and become sensibly depressed when he had gone. Mr. William
Sharp, too (a young friend of whose gifts as a poet Rossetti had a
genuine appreciation, and by whom he had been visited at intervals
for some time), came out occasionally and cheered up the sufferer in
a noticeable degree. Then his mother and sister came and stayed in the
house during many weeks at the last. How shall I speak of the tenderness
of their solicitude, of their unwearying attentions, in a word of their
ardent and reciprocated love of the illustrious son and brother for whom
they did the thousand gentle offices which they alone could have done!
The end was drawing on, and we all knew the fact. Rossetti had actually
taken to poetical composition afresh, and had written a facetious ballad