* In The Düsseldorf Annual the poem was signed H. H. H., and
in explanation of this signature Rossetti wrote on his own
copy the following characteristic note:--“The initials as
above were taken from the lead-pencil.”
In reply to this I told Rossetti that, as a “jealous honourer” of his,
I confessed to some uneasiness when I read that he had been making
important additions to _Sister Helen_. That I could not think of a stage
of the story that would bear so to be severed from what goes before or
comes after it as to admit of interpolation might not of itself go for
much; but the entire ballad was so rounded into unity, one incident so
naturally begetting the next, and the combined incidents so properly
building up a fabric of interest of which the meaning was all inwoven,
that I could not but fear that whatever the gain in certain directions,
the additions of any stanzas involving a new incident might, in
some measure, cripple the rest. Even though the new stanzas were as
beautiful, or yet more beautiful than the old ones, and the incident as
impressive as any that goes before it, or comes after it, the gain to
the poem as an individual creation was not, I thought, assured because
people used to say my style was hard.
Rossetti was mistaken in supposing that I possessed the latest and
best edition of his _Poems_, but I had seen the latest of all English
editions, and had noted in it several valuable emendations which, in
subsequent quotation, I had been careful to employ. One of these seemed
to me to involve an immeasurable gain. A stanza of _Sister Helen_, in
its first form, ran:
Oh, the wind is sad in the iron chill,
Sister Helen,
And weary sad they look by the hill;
But Keith of Ewern ‘s sadder still,
Little brother.--etc. etc.
In the later edition the fourth line of this stanza ran:
But he and I are sadder still.
The change adds enormously to one’s estimate of the characterisation.
All through the ballad one wants to feel that, despite the bitterness
of her speech, the heart of the relentless witch is breaking. Like _The
Broken Heart_ of Ford, the ballad with the amended line was a masterly
picture of suppressed emotion. I hoped the new incident touched the same
chord. Rossetti replied: