Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic. Douglas James
to so skilled and experienced a friend. The rare kind of cerebral exaltation into which Henry Aylwin passed after his appalling experience in the Cove, in which the entire nervous system was disturbed, was not what is known as brain fever. The record of it in ‘Aylwin’ is, I understand, a literal account of a rare and wonderful case brought under the professional notice of Dr. Hake.
As physician to Rossetti, a few years after the death of his beloved wife, Dr. Hake’s services must have been priceless to the poet-painter; for, as is only too well known, Rossetti’s grief for the death of his wife had for some time a devastating effect upon his mind. It was one of the causes of that terrible insomnia to relieve himself from which he resorted to chloral, though later on the attacks upon him by certain foes intensified the distressing ailment. The insomnia produced fits of melancholia, an ailment, according to the skilled opinion of Dr. Hake, more difficult than all others to deal with; for when the nervous system has sunk to a certain state of depression, the mind roams over the universe, as it were, in quest of imaginary causes for the depression. This accounts for the ‘cock and bull’ stories that were somewhat rife immediately after Rossetti’s death about his having expressed remorse on account of his ill-treatment of his wife. No one of his intimates took the least notice of these wild and whirling words. For he would express remorse on account of the most fantastic things when the fits of melancholia were upon him; and when these fits were past he would smile at the foolish things he had said. I get this knowledge from a very high authority, Dr. Hake’s son – Mr. Thomas St. E. Hake, before mentioned – who knew Rossetti intimately from 1871 until his death, having lived under the same roof with him at Cheyne Walk, Bognor and Kelmscott. After Rossetti’s most serious attack of melancholia, his relations and friends persuaded him to stay with Dr. Hake at Roehampton, and it was there that the terrible crisis of his illness was passed.
It is interesting to know that in the original form of ‘Aylwin’ the important part taken in the development of the story by D’Arcy was taken by Dr. Hake, under the name of Gordon, and that afterwards, when all sorts of ungenerous things were written about Rossetti, D’Arcy was substituted for Gordon in order to give the author an opportunity of bringing out and showing the world the absolute nobility and charm of Rossetti’s character.
Among the many varieties of life which Mr. Watts-Dunton saw at this time was life in the slums; and this was long before the once fashionable pastime of ‘slumming’ was invented. The following lines in Dr. Hake’s ‘New Day’ allude to the deep interest that Mr. Watts-Dunton has always shown in the poor – shown years before the writers who now deal with the slums had written a line. Artistically, they are not fair specimens of Dr. Gordon Hake’s verses, but nevertheless it is interesting to quote them here: —
Know you a widow’s home? an orphanage?
A place of shelter for the crippled poor?
Did ever limbless men your care engage
Whom you assisted of your larger store?
Know you the young who are to early die —
At their frail form sinks not your heart within?
Know you the old who paralytic lie
While you the freshness of your life begin?
Know you the great pain-bearers who long carry
The bullet in the breast that does not kill?
And those who in the house of madness tarry,
Beyond the blest relief of human skill?
These have you visited, all these assisted,
In the high ranks of charity enlisted.
That Mr. Watts-Dunton has retained his interest in the poor is shown by the sonnet, ‘Father Christmas in Famine Street,’ which was originally printed as ‘an appeal’ on Christmas Eve in the ‘Athenæum’: —
When Father Christmas went down Famine Street
He saw two little sisters: one was trying
To lift the other, pallid, wasted, dying,
Within an arch, beyond the slush and sleet.
From out the glazing eyes a glimmer sweet
Leapt, as in answer to the other’s sighing,
While came a murmur, ‘Don’t ’ee keep on crying —
I wants to die: you’ll get my share to eat.’
Her knell was tolled by joy-bells of the city
Hymning the birth of Jesus, Lord of Pity,
Lover of children, Shepherd of Compassion.
Said Father Christmas, while his eyes grew dim,
‘They do His bidding – if in thrifty fashion:
They let the little children go to Him.’
With this sonnet should be placed that entitled, ‘Dickens Returns on Christmas Day’: —
A ragged girl in Drury Lane was heard to exclaim: ‘Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?’ – June 9, 1870.
‘Dickens is dead!’ Beneath that grievous cry
London seemed shivering in the summer heat;
Strangers took up the tale like friends that meet:
‘Dickens is dead!’ said they, and hurried by;
Street children stopped their games – they knew not why,
But some new night seemed darkening down the street.
A girl in rags, staying her wayworn feet,
Cried, ‘Dickens dead? Will Father Christmas die?’
City he loved, take courage on thy way!
He loves thee still, in all thy joys and fears.
Though he whose smile made bright thine eyes of grey —
Though he whose voice, uttering thy burthened years,
Made laughters bubble through thy sea of tears —
Is gone, Dickens returns on Christmas Day!
Let me say here, parenthetically, that ‘The Pines’ is so far out of date that for twenty-five years it has been famous for its sympathy with the Christmas sentiment which now seems to be fading, as this sonnet shows: —
Life still hath one romance that naught can bury —
Not Time himself, who coffins Life’s romances —
For still will Christmas gild the year’s mischances,
If Childhood comes, as here, to make him merry —
To kiss with lips more ruddy than the cherry —
To smile with eyes outshining by their glances
The Christmas tree – to dance with fairy dances
And crown his hoary brow with leaf and berry.
And as to us, dear friend, the carols sung
Are fresh as ever. Bright is yonder bough
Of mistletoe as that which shone and swung
When you and I and Friendship made a vow
That Childhood’s Christmas still should seal each brow —
Friendship’s, and yours, and mine – and keep us young.
I may also quote from ‘Prophetic Pictures at Venice’ this romantic description of the Rosicrucian Christmas: —
(The morning light falls on the Rosicrucian panel-picture called ‘The Rosy Scar,’ depicting Christian galley-slaves on board an Algerine galley, watching, on Christmas Eve, for the promised appearance of Rosenkreutz, as a ‘rosy phantom.’ The Lover reads aloud the descriptive verses on the frame.)
While Night’s