realise
his own picture of Dante at Verona:

Yet of the twofold life he led
In chainless thought and fettered will
Some glimpses reach us,--somewhat still
Of the steep stairs and bitter bread,--
Of the soul's quest whose stern avow
For years had made him haggard now.

I am sensible of the difficulty and delicacy of the task I have
undertaken, involving, as it does, many interests and issues; and in
every reference to surviving relatives as well as to other persons now
living, with whom Rossetti was in any way allied, I have exercised in
all friendliness the best judgment at my command.

Clement's Inn, October 1882.

*** It has not been thought necessary to attach dates to the
letters printed in this volume, for not only would the
difficulty of doing so be great, owing to the fact that
Rossetti rarely dated his letters, but the utility of dates
in such a case would be doubtful, because the substance of
what is said is often quite impersonal, and, where
otherwise, is almost independent of the time of production.
It may be sufficient to say that the letters were written in
the years 1879,1880, and 1881.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

Gabriele Rossetti--Boyhood--The pre-Raphaelite Movement--Early
Manhood--The Blessed Damozel--Jenny--Sister Helen--The Translations--The
House of Life--The Germ--Oxford and Cambridge Magazine--Blackfriars
Bridge--Married Life

CHAPTER II.

Chelsea--Chloral--Dante's Dream--Recovery of the Poems--Poems--The
Contemporary Controversy--Mr. Theodore Watts--Rose Mary--The
White Ship--The King's Tragedy--Poetic Continuations--Cloud
Confines--Journalistic Slanders

CHAPTER III.

Early Intercourse--Poetic Impulses--Beginning of Correspondence--Early
Letters

CHAPTER IV.

Inedited Poems--Inedited Ballads--Additions to Sister Helen--Hand
and Soul--St. Agnes of Intercession--Catholic Opinion--Rossetti's
Catholicism--Cloud Confines--The Portrait

CHAPTER V.

Coleridge--Wordsworth--Lamb and Coleridge--Charles Wells--Keats--Leigh
Hunt and Keats--Keats's Sister

CHAPTER VI.

Chatterton--Oliver Madox Brown--Gilchrist's Blake--George Gilfillan--Old
Periodicals--A Rustic Poet--Art and Politics--Letters in Biography

CHAPTER VII.

Cheyne Walk--The House--First Meeting--Rossetti's Personality--His
Reading--The Painter's Craft--Mr. Ruskin--Rossetti's Sensitiveness--His
Garden--His Library