dead. It would be an inquiry, as Hamlet might say, such as
would become a woman. To this Rossetti answered that he was born on old
May-day (May 12), 1828; and thereupon he asked the date of my own birth.

The comparative dates of our births are curious.... I myself
was born on old May-Day (12th), in the year (1828) after
that in which Blake died.... You were born, in fact, just as
I was giving up poetry at about 25, on finding that it
impeded attention to what constituted another aim and a
livelihood into the bargain, _i.e._ painting. From that date
up to the year when I published my poems, I wrote extremely
little,--I might almost say nothing, except the renovated
_Jenny_ in 1858 or '59. To this again I added a passage or
two when publishing in 1870.

Often since Rossetti's death I have reflected upon the fact that in that
lengthy correspondence between us which preceded personal intimacy,
he never made more than a single passing allusion to those adverse
criticisms which did so much at one period to sadden and alter his life.
Barely, indeed, in conversation did he touch upon that sore subject, but
it was obvious enough to the closer observer, as well from his silence
as from his speech, that though the wounds no longer rankled, they
did not wholly heal. I take it as evidence of his desire to put by
unpleasant reflections (at least whilst health was whole with him, for
he too often nourished melancholy retrospects when health was broken
or uncertain), that in his correspondence with me, as a young friend
who knew nothing at first hand of his gloomier side, he constantly dwelt
with radiant satisfaction and hopefulness on the friendly words that had
been said of him. And as frequently as he called my attention to such
favourable comment, he did so without a particle of vanity, and with
only such joy as he may feel who knows in his secret heart he has
depreciators, to find that he has ardent upholders too. In one letter he
says:

I should say that between the appearance of the poems and your lecture,
there was one article on the subject, of a very masterly kind indeed,
by some very scholarly hand (unknown to me), in the _New York Catholic
World_ (I think in 1874). I retain this article, and will some day send
it you to read.

He sent me the article, and I found it, as he had found it, among the
best things written on the subject. Naturally, the criticism was best
whe