in some
sort a trust; and though I must have withheld them for some years if I
had consulted my own wishes simply, I yielded to the necessity that they
should be published at once, rather than run any risk of their not been
published at all.

What I have just said will account for the circumstance that I, the
youngest and latest of Rossetti's friends, should be the first to seem
to stand towards him in the relation of a biographer. I say _seem_ to
stand, for this is not a biography. It was always known to be Rossetti's
wish that if at any moment after his death it should appear that the
story of his life required to be written, the one friend who during many
of his later years knew him most intimately, and to whom he unlocked the
most sacred secrets of his heart, Mr. Theodore Watts, should write it,
unless indeed it were undertaken by his brother William. But though
I know that whenever Mr. Watts sets pen to paper in pursuance of
such purpose, and in fulfilment of such charge, he will afford us a
recognisable portrait of the man, vivified by picturesque illustration,
the like of which few other writers could compass, I also know from
what Rossetti often told me of his friend's immersion in all kinds and
varieties of life, that years (perhaps many years) may elapse before
such a biography is given to the world. My own book is, I trust, exactly
what it purports to be: a volume of Recollections, interwoven with
letters and criticism, and preceded by such a summary of the leading
facts in Rossetti's life as seems necessary for the elucidation of
subsequent records. I have drawn Rossetti precisely as I found him in
each stage of our friendship, exhibiting his many contradictions of
character, extenuating nothing, and, I need hardly add, setting down
naught in malice. Up to this moment I have never inquired of myself
whether to those who have known little or nothing of Rossetti
hitherto, mine will seem to be on the whole favourable or unfavourable
portraiture; but I have trusted my admiration of the poet and affection
for the friend to penetrate with kindly and appreciative feeling every
comment I have had to offer. I was attracted to Rossetti in the first
case by ardent love of his genius, and retained to him ultimately by
love of the man. As I have said in the course of these Recollections,
it was largely his unhappiness that held me, with others, as by a spell,
and only too sadly in this particular did he in his last year