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 The home life of Swinburne, 
 
 3 1924 013 556 653 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013556653 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
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THE HOME LIFE 
 OF SWINBURNE 
 
 CLARA WATTS-DUNTON 
 
 LONDON 
 
 A. M. PHILPOT 
 
 69 GREAT RUSSELL STREET 
 
 1922 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 CAHILL AND CO., LTD., LONDON, DUBLIN AND DROGHEDA, 
 
TO 
 
 THE LADY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL OF ARGYLL, 
 
 THE LOYAL FRIEND OF SWINBURNE AND WATTS-DUNTON, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR, 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Three of the chapters of " The Home Life of 
 Swinburne " have appeared as articles in the 
 Nineteenth Century and After. I have to 
 tender my thanks to the editor of that magazine 
 for his permission to reprint them. 
 
 C.W.D. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 First Visit to The Pines . . . .15 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Early Impressions . . . . .29 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 " That ' Limber Elf ' " . . .39 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Swinburne as a Bibliophile . , ,49 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Swinburne when first I knew Him . , ,60 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Housemates . . . . .67 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 The Hawthorns . . . . .78 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Miss Isabel Swinburne . . . ,88 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Swinburne's Constitutional . . .93 
 
 11 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 FIRST VISIT TO THE PINES 
 
 My mother, Mrs. Reich, met Watts-Dunton 
 when I was a girl at school, and they were friends 
 almost at once. She was a woman of fine musical 
 abiUty besides being a keen judge of books and 
 their authors, and she became a visitor at The 
 Pines, Putney Hill, where Swinburne and his de- 
 voted friend resided. I was sixteen years of age 
 when my mother took me to visit Mr. Watts — as 
 Watts-Dunton was then called. In a chapter 
 contributed to his biography I have described that 
 visit and the wonderful change in my life which it 
 preluded. It was the first step — ^little though I 
 dreamed it — that led to my marriage to the great 
 critic and brought me into domestic relationship 
 with Algernon Charles Swinburne. I did not, 
 however, see Swinburne on the occasion of my 
 first visit to The Pines. A whole year elapsed 
 
 15 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 before I was formally presented to the greatest 
 Unglish poet of his day. 
 
 Exactly a week after this first visit a note came 
 to my mother from Mr. Watts asking if we " would 
 like to come and dine with Swinburne and me. 
 It may, perhaps, be conjectured that this invita- 
 tion thrilled me at least as much as my mother's 
 proposal of the week before : " I am going to take 
 you to meet my friend Mr. Watts." As a matter 
 of fact, the contrary was the case. The presence 
 of the famous poet would, it seemed to me, 
 interfere with the delightful flow of my newly- 
 found friend's conversation. From my first visit 
 I had come away in an ecstasy of admiration and 
 exultation. I had gone merely pleased with the 
 idea of meeting the author of a work which I 
 loved — ^the sonnet sequence on the Fausts of 
 Berlioz, Gounod and Schumann. I had come away 
 with a warm regard for the man. Until I met him 
 again I lived in a state of longing anticipation. 
 My school-lessons were neglected or forgotten in 
 tribute to that unmistakable and arresting gift of 
 personality which was his in marvellous measure. 
 School-girl though I was, I could discern in him 
 the divine gift of genius, and I had no desire to 
 meet his famous friend since I found himself so 
 satisfying. 
 
 16 
 
FIRST VISIT TO THE PINES 
 
 In fact, an uncomfortable feeling of shyness 
 came over me at the idea of meeting S.winbume. 
 It was not that I feared to experience any sort 
 of mauvaise honte, for I had no lack of the self- 
 possession required by people unknown to fame 
 on being presented to a celebrity. The fact was 
 that at this juvenile period of my existence, 
 Swinburne's poetry was " caviare " to me if not 
 to " the general," and I imagined he would expect 
 me to know a great deal about it — in fact, to be 
 a profound Swinburnian, though my actual excur- 
 sions into the realms of his Muse had covered very 
 little ground. It is true my Canadian governess at 
 school had read to me portions of " Songs before 
 Sunrise," and was never tired of telling me of the 
 wonderful effect " Atalanta " had produced upon 
 her when in 1865 she read this masterpiece for the 
 first time in far-away Toronto. She would recite 
 to me bits from the choruses, and I became 
 quite accustomed to hearing her declaim at odd 
 moments in a voice throbbing with a sense of 
 their beauty that soul-stirring lyric which 
 begins — 
 
 When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, 
 
 The mother of months in meadow or plain 
 Fills the shadows and windy places 
 
 With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain. 
 B 17 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Often during our walk she would carry with her 
 to read under the trees while the girls played 
 rounders or tennis a volume of Swinburne in an 
 American edition, the outside cover of which grew 
 quite familiar to me. It was " Laus Veneris," 
 the work now generally known as " Poems and 
 Ballads." She would sit reading it, entirely 
 absorbed and lost in its pages and- oblivious of 
 everything around her. If during a halt in our 
 game I came near her to rest for a while, up would 
 go her finger to admonish silence and a gentle 
 " Sh — Sh ! " would issue from her half -parted 
 lips. When it was time to return to the house 
 she would cause me to walk beside her, and then 
 I would hear about " Anactoria " and other of 
 the glorious pieces to be found within the covers 
 of her cherished volume. She prized her " Laus 
 Veneris " very much, and had brought it with 
 her from America. She was fond of telling me 
 how eagerly after reading "Atalanta in Calydon " 
 she had seized upon it when it first came out. 
 But she never told me of the succes du scandale 
 which its appearance evoked, although she must 
 have known all about it. A good deal of water 
 had to flow under London Bridge before I could 
 put before the reader this interesting evidence of 
 one of Swinburne's friends — then resident in 
 
 18 
 
FIRST VISIT TO THE PINES 
 
 Boston, U.S.A. — of the extraordinary sensation 
 
 " Laus Veneris " caused in America in 1866. 
 
 Dec. 2nd, 1866. 
 
 To Algernon Swinburne, Pagan, suffering persecution 
 from the Christians . . . greeting. 
 
 You may have already heard, mon cher, that your book 
 is making a furore in this continent. No new volume of 
 Tennyson has ever made more talk. . . . The publisher 
 has sold 6,000 and is now printing the seventh. Mr. 
 Emerson, to whom I was introduced yesterday, asked me 
 a great many questions about you. He had read your 
 " Madonna Mia " detached and instantly got the book. 
 
 Lowell, he said (" Biglow Papers " Lowell) being a 
 linguist was especially interested in that department of 
 your brain, his curiosity having been excited about your 
 Greek verses and French songs. 
 
 I have just read Eraser's article — it is very fair. 
 Longfellow was out when I called so I have not seen him. 
 I am going back to New York to-morrow and I suppose 
 I shall not return for some time. I shall very probably 
 pass a year in that city and so finish my medical studies. 
 You were good enough to say you wanted to read my 
 African book which I promised to send you, but never 
 did — ^because I thought to do something better with the 
 old materials. This I am going to work on now. It will 
 be published at first only in America — I will send you a 
 copy. 
 
 Give my regards to our mutual friends and believe me. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 WiNVi^ooD Reade.* 
 
 * William Winwood Reade (1838-1875) was a nephew of 
 Charles Reade and the author of " The Martyrdom of Man," 
 " Savage Africa," etc. 
 
 19 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 In spite of all this admiration on the part of my 
 governess for the poetry of Swinburne, Byron con- 
 tinued to be my pet poet, and I never attempted to 
 explore for myself the verse of this far greater 
 singer. Consequently, having so meagre a 
 knowledge of Swinburne the Poet, I was intimi- 
 dated by the prospect of dining with Swinburne 
 the man, and without considering what an honour 
 had been paid me, I asked my mother to make 
 some excuse for declining the invitation. I horribly 
 wanted to go, but I was dominated by the idea 
 that Swinburne would turn out to be that pet 
 aversion of Don Juan — 
 
 An author that's all author, a fellow 
 In foolscap uniform turned up with ink. 
 
 I had lately been reading "Don Juan, ' ' and was 
 passing through that stage of adulation for my 
 unsaintly hero which is the prerogative of many 
 young people of a romantic tendency. I .was 
 never tired of airing emancipated and laudatory 
 opinions regarding the poetry of Byron, and "Don 
 Juan " in particular, to my governess. Being a 
 real lover of poetry, she fostered any tastes in this 
 direction among such of the girls as cared for poetry 
 at all ; she was even something of a poet herself. 
 Far from putting a check on my predilection for 
 " Don Juan " she invited me to dip into the 
 
FIRST VISIT TO THE PINES 
 
 precious " Laus Veneris " myself. So deep and 
 sincere was her admiration for Swinburne that 
 " Dolores " and " Faustine '* were by no manner 
 of means anathema to her, nor were they 
 " forbidden fruit " to me. On the contrary, being 
 an exceptionally broad-minded woman, she even 
 encouraged me to read them. Whether I would 
 have understood them is quite another thing. 
 However, I had not read them, and my knowledge 
 of Byron was of course of no use as a substitute, 
 especially as I had received what I Considered a 
 great ' set back ' when, on venturing to remark to 
 Mr. Watts that I considered Byron equal to 
 Shakespeare, he replied : "I dare say he is at 
 your age." Naturally I thought that perhaps 
 Swinburne might not prove so kind. 
 
 It would be just as well, I reflected, to allow 
 time enough to elapse for my mind to be 
 less inadequately equipped with a knowledge of 
 Swinburne, not to mention a few other poets, 
 before I went through the ordeal of a dinner with 
 him. I wondered what fantastic whim could have 
 induced Fortune to set her wheel moving in my 
 direction, when just one turn more might have 
 passed me by, and oflEered my opportunity to some- 
 one far more deserving. Had it been possible, I 
 would ungrudgingly have yielded my place in the 
 
 21 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Sun to any one of the scores of Swinburnian enthu- 
 siasts who .were so immeasurably more fitted than 
 I to profit by such luck. I felt quite sorry that my 
 poor governess could not change places with me ; 
 she would not have felt on the horns of a dilemma. 
 
 In the end I persuaded my mother to intimate 
 my intention of calling at The Pines on the same 
 evening appointed for dining with the two friends, 
 but after dinner. By going after dinner I 
 imagined I should be free to talk tete-d-tete to 
 Mr. Watts, whom I shall henceforth call Walter, 
 and that my explanation would be accepted in the 
 right way. I felt he would listen to all I had to 
 say with correct and real understanding. I was 
 right in my surmise, for when I arrived at his 
 house, at about eight-thirty, dinner was over, and 
 he was alone, waiting to receive me in his charming 
 dining-room which, contrary to a published 
 account, is nbt connected by folding doors with the 
 adjoining room. 
 
 Almost the first object which caught my eye was 
 the particularly beautiful mantelpiece, and as this 
 work of art has been very erroneously described by 
 a distinguished .writer, I think it would not be 
 amiss to give an accurate description of it. The 
 mantelpiece, which is one of two exactly alike, the 
 other being in the drawing-room, was made at the 
 
 22 
 
FIRST VISIT TO THE PINES 
 
 oldest pottery in England — John Dwight's, 
 established in 1671. They are made of glazed 
 stoneware in lovely shades of blue and buff. They 
 have been admired by every artist .who has seen 
 them, including no less a person than William 
 Morris, and there are none like them in existence, 
 as their production, though very original and 
 charming, was found too expensive to be profitable. 
 
 It was a lovely summer evening and Walter 
 suggested we should stroll out into the garden. 
 He invited me to partake of the biggest, fattest 
 gooseberries I had ever seen that were weighing 
 down the bushes. But I was far too happy and ex- 
 cited to eat, and our talk which had begun at our 
 auspicious meeting of the preceding Monday was 
 resumed with a delightful freedom from restraint. 
 He received all my small remarks on music and 
 poetry and books with such patience and interest 
 that I was sure my explanation with regard to 
 Swinburne would be quite safe in his keeping. 
 
 " Why did you not want to come to dinner ? " 
 he asked. " I told Swinburne he was to expect 
 an ardent champion of ' Don Juan,' and I knew 
 what a refreshing surprise he would receive when 
 he met it in the person of yourself — tell me the 
 reason why you did not turn up? " 
 
 I felt no hesitation in telling him I would rather 
 
 23 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 wait until I had read " Poems and Ballads " 
 before I met the author. He seemed particularly 
 amused at this explanation, and tried hard to grasp 
 the meaning behind my words, but I failed to 
 make him understand why I felt Swinburne would 
 be aghast at my hmitations, and that if I talked to 
 him about " Don Juan " and omitted to speak of 
 '•' Poems and Ballads " he would think me a 
 dreadful little ignoramus. 
 
 Instead of taking me seriously — and I was 
 terribly in earnest at the time — ^he treated this 
 latter portion of my confession as a huge joke. 
 He laughed so long and so heartily that I won- 
 dered with dismay what stupid thing I could have 
 said. I begged him to teU why he was laughing. 
 He either could not, or would not tell me, but 
 wanted instead to carry me off and make me 
 known to Swinburne there and then. But I was 
 too engrossed in the exhilarating company of my 
 friend to desire any interruptions. To walk 
 about in such a charming garden listening to the 
 conversation of my host was the greatest of treats 
 to me. It was impossible to be long in his 
 company without learning something from his rich 
 scholarship or without becoming aware that his 
 mind was a veritable storehouse. Far from his 
 being obtrusively " bookish," there was a sympa- 
 
 24 
 
FIRST VISIT TO THE PINES 
 
 thetic giving of himself that actually made you 
 imagine he was learning from you, instead of 
 its being the other way about. That mag- 
 netic power which attracted so many to him 
 won from me an instinctive response. It was 
 delicious to be in this cool, pretty garden sur- 
 rounded on all sides by big shady trees, its high 
 walls completely covered with thick ivy. From his 
 study window overhead, Swinburne could look 
 out on a perfect forest of green, and enjoy quite 
 a striking view, for the large trees in the back- 
 ground conveyed a sense of space and a feeling of 
 distance which was not so apparent in the 
 foreground where I stood. We stayed chatting 
 until it grew dusk. The time had flown so swiftly 
 that I had no idea how late it was till the arrival 
 of a maid, sent by my mother to claim me, put 
 an end to our delightful talk. 
 
 When at the garden gate Walter said 
 " au revoir " with the assurance that we had many 
 more such meetings to look forward to, I felt 
 somewhat reconciled to the approach of the 
 dreaded Monday which would see me back again 
 at my desk and lesson-books. As we shook hands, I 
 told him once again I felt really shy at the idea of 
 meeting Swinburne, and meant every word I had 
 said. But he waived all my scruples to one side 
 
 25 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 with the remark that he knew I was joking. With 
 a confident and reassuring smile he concluded : 
 " All right then , it shall be as you wish, but you 
 need not be afraid to meet Swinburne — you are 
 sure to like him ; if you feel you are not quite ready 
 to meet him, tell me when you think you are, and 
 I know at your first meeting all your fears will be 
 at an end " — adding, however, in a tone meant to 
 be quite reassuring, that " Poems and Ballads " 
 would be about the last thing their author would 
 expect me to discuss or talk about to him. He 
 also said that if I " let myself go "on the amusing 
 subject of "Don Juan," Swinburne would only 
 be refreshed. 
 
 I returned to school very full of my adventures 
 of the week-end and brimming over with 
 enthusiasm at the success of my garden talk. 
 
 This was tremendous news to tell my Swin- 
 bumian governess. She was profoundly interested 
 in all I had to tell her. Our walk that Monday 
 was marked with a white stone. In spite of its 
 being a " French morning," when all one's talk 
 with her had to be in French, I insisted on walking 
 with her both to and from the "garden," as we 
 called the school's recreation ground. Instead of 
 wishing to " shunt " the exercise of that language 
 by walking with one of the girls, I opened the ball 
 
 26 
 
FIRST VISIT TO THE PINES 
 
 myself by suggesting, " Puis-je marcher wvec vous 
 ce matin, cherie} " I was bubbling over with 
 excitement, and in my indifferent French kept up 
 a flow of reminiscent talk, knowing I was pouring 
 it all into a ready and sympathetic ear. I can hear 
 the interested tones of her voice now as she asks 
 some question : " Je suppose que M. Swinburne?'' 
 or : " Est-ce que M. Watts vous a dit} " 
 
 With such an exceptionally happy start, I was 
 not going to allow the grass to grow under my 
 feet in acquiring all the knowledge I could about 
 Swinburne's poetry. I was fired by the desire to 
 become acquainted with "Poems and Ballads," and 
 for a year — in the interval of lessons — I read nearly 
 everything of Swinburne's I could lay hands on. I 
 was determined when I met him that he should 
 not find me the proverbial " Miss " of Byronic 
 satire, who " always smells, of bread and butter." 
 
 Swinburne at this time had just completed "The 
 Tale of Balen," and Walter, thinking it would 
 please me to see the handwriting of the Bard (as 
 A. C. S. was often styled and as I shall often style 
 him) gave me the MS . to read. Perceiving also that 
 my writing was clear enough to prove " a bit of 
 fat " for the printers, he asked me to make a copy 
 of Swinburne's MS., so that my copy could go to 
 be set up in type. 
 
 27 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 This was the first occasion that my eyes lighted on 
 the familiar blue paper on which Swinburne 
 invariably wrote. As I transferred his words to 
 my foolscap I noticed how very perfect the MS. 
 was : there were hardly any revisions : it seemed 
 to me that the whole long poem must have simply 
 flowed from his pen. But what struck me most 
 was the singular boyishness of the handwriting, 
 which despite its appearance of youth, was well- 
 formed and particularly characteristic. One could 
 imagine it to be the writing of a schoolboy of 
 thirteen or fourteen, so distinct and easy to read 
 was every word. Every up-stroke and down- 
 stroke of his beautifully neat letters suggested the 
 firm writing of a boy with the mechanism ot mind 
 and body in perfect order. 
 
 How proud I felt to be given this task, and 
 very carefully did I copy the great poet's words 
 in my big round hand, never dreaming as I 
 did so that one day I myself would play my 
 part in the home life of these two inseparable 
 companions. 
 
 But perhaps even as I copied the first stanza of 
 " Balen,"^' some fairy knew that years later I would 
 be literally dancing to its measure in the company 
 of him who wrote it. 
 
 23 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
 
 After this garden-talk Walter and I were con- 
 stantly in each other's society and I was so often a 
 visitor to The Pines that my encounters with 
 Swinburne were frequent. I would meet him in 
 the hall or the passages, and although he did not 
 appear to see me, he would stand like a sentinel 
 while I passed ; his arms stiff against his sides, with 
 the palms presented outwards, gave him a curiously 
 mechanical appearance — as of a toy-soldier. On 
 these occasions I felt somewhat Overawed, for 
 Swinburne would look at me with such a wondering 
 look, as much as to say — " Who are you, and what 
 are you doing here?" Then he would bow very 
 courteously, and disappear into his room. 
 
 Late one afternoon in winter when the snow 
 was on the ground and all was cold and dreary 
 outside, I happened to be passing his room, and 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 looking in upon him through the half -open door, I 
 saw him seated by the fire with a book in his hand. 
 He was laughing over something he was reading 
 and gave little gurgles of delight. It all looked 
 so delightfully cosy, with the curtains drawn, 
 the big fire burning, and Swinburne sitting near it, 
 looking so blithe and gay, that, wondering what 
 he had found in the book to make him feel so 
 jolly, I thought, for a moment, I must go in and 
 ask him. Of course I did not go in, but I went 
 downstairs and told Walter I felt tempted to do 
 so. He seemed quite pleased, and suggested that 
 the next day Swinburne and I should make our 
 first salutation. Accordingly, the following after- 
 noon Walter took me upstairs into the Bard's 
 sanctum and there at last we became knojvn to each 
 other. 
 
 Swinburne was reading when we came into the 
 room, and seeing who had entered, he laid the book 
 aside, face downwards, and came forward with 
 extended hand to meet me. 
 
 One might have supposed that my former 
 encounters would have made my face somewhat 
 familiar to him, since all the details of his 
 physiognomy were indelibly stamped on my mental 
 vision. But it was not so ; he appeared to be 
 meeting me for the first time. As he gave me one 
 
 30 
 
EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
 
 of his old-world bows, I felt he really had never 
 noticed me before that day. The poet then drew 
 forward a chair, and with somewhat elaborate 
 politeness, invited me to sit down. Then from 
 the depths of a dark recess in a corner he drew forth 
 a wonderful-looking volume — ^he must have known 
 just where to put his hand on it even in the dark, 
 for the room was full of shadows, and illuminated 
 only by candles. He hugged it gleefully to him, 
 and in a boyish ringing voice exclaimed : " Now I 
 am going to show you something that will surprise 
 you. I wager you've never seen such a book as 
 this." And indeed it was a most remarkable book, 
 the like of which I had never seen before. 
 
 He brought his chair close to mine, and opening 
 a page at random, he pointed to the most extra- 
 ordinary specimen of the feathered tribe. As far 
 as the body and beak were concerned, this " bird " 
 did not belie its name, but the creature appeared 
 to possess a neck far more like that of a giraffe 
 than anything else. The head was so curious, too, 
 and in its eye was a most audacious twinkle. 
 Swinburne pointed to this impossible neck with 
 delight, and excitedly asked, " Did you ever see 
 such a bird as that in your life? " He spoke in 
 what I can only describe as an angelically kinder- 
 garten manner. I thought that perhaps he had 
 
 31 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 under-estimated my age by a decade, for, ignorant 
 of the rarity and antiquarian interest of the book I 
 imagined that it was a book for children of tender 
 years, for whose delectation the poet was wont 
 to exhibit it. As he obviously expected me to 
 reply in equally emphatic language, I replied that 
 I certainly had never seen such a queer-looking 
 bird before, and never dreamed such a one had 
 even existed. " But is it really supposed to be a 
 bird ?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Swinburne, very earnestly. " I 
 never for moment hazarded such a doubt," 
 
 I had to believe it then. But noticing there was 
 a verse underneath the picture which might give 
 me a key to the riddle, I turned to the page again 
 and tried to read it. This was beyond me, for the 
 type in which it was written was almost impossible 
 for me to decipher. I asked Swinburne to read 
 it to me : he instantly complied, and in the most 
 amusing rhyme it is possible to imagine, I was 
 given the description and veritable history of his 
 mysterious " bird." The book was made up of 
 the queerest creatures of natural history, and the 
 next page revealed yet another weird specimen 
 which made me know at once that Swinburne had 
 been playing a practical joke on me in allowing me 
 to imagine in the first instance that the animals 
 
 32 
 
EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
 
 illustrated were like anything in heaven oi; on 
 earth. 
 
 In the most ingratiating manner he proceeded 
 to show me what professed to be a cat. The 
 Bard's face was wreathed in smiles as he exclaimed, 
 " Oh, but do look at this. What a dear creature ! " 
 
 The " dear creature " had a human face, and 
 rather an ugly face, too, I thought. Being anxious 
 to know if this four-footed specimen of creation 
 was of the male or female gender, I again 
 requested Swinburne to read from the verse under- 
 neath. He was overjoyed to do so, but unfortu- 
 nately we failed to arrive at any definite conclusion 
 — although this rhymed description was even 
 funnier than the one about the " bird." When I 
 suggested that this ambiguous grimalkin was 
 possibly a woman, Swinburne was quite ready to 
 fall in with my idea, and laughingly said, "Ah, 
 you are right ; yes, of course, it's prelty certain 
 to be a woman." 
 
 The volume containing these pictures was really 
 a fragment of a much larger book, and one of the 
 very earliest illustrated volumes ever printed. I 
 think Swinburne said it was about four hundred 
 years old. I am sorry to say I cannot remember 
 its name. Perhaps some of my readers will 
 identify ft from my description. I may add that 
 33 
 
The home life of swinburNE 
 
 the pictures included a man-headed serpent o£ 
 repellent visage, a mermaid with a smiling coun- 
 tenance, sirens of alluring appearance, grotesque 
 camels and impossibly-formed monkeys. Each 
 creature was the subject of a descriptive stanza so 
 ludicrous that it was difficult for Swinburne to 
 read it without laughing outright. 
 
 One or two of the pages :were torn here and 
 there. Supposing it might have been the 
 youthful Algernon who had mutilated them, I 
 enquired if he had done so when he was a little boy. 
 
 He looked quite pained, and said he was thank- 
 ful he had not committed such a heinous offence, 
 but he suspected that some naughty little child 
 hundreds and hundreds of years ago was the culprit. 
 
 I really think Swinburne prized this blackletter 
 fragment more than any other book in his valuable 
 library. He treated it with a reverence which did 
 not escape my notice. I could see he was very 
 nervous at my handling it, and preferred to turn 
 the leaves himself. He said in a touching voice, 
 full of quiet pathos, " My dear mother gave me 
 this book." 
 
 By this time the feeling of shyness and awe with 
 which the poet had hitherto inspired me was dis- 
 pelled. I began to feel quite at home in his 
 company, and thoroughly at my ease. I wanted 
 
 34 
 
EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
 
 to tell him I had i;ead " The Tale of Balen," and 
 when there was a pause in the conversation, I told 
 him how much I had enjoyed reading this poem. 
 He seemed delighted to hear me say so, and said : 
 " Have you though? I am very pleased you like 
 it." 
 
 Knowing he was a Northumbrian, I thought 
 perhaps he might be interested to hear I knew 
 well the rugged beauties of Northumberland, and 
 was familiar with that part of the coast in which 
 " Balen " is laid. When I told him this, he was 
 still more delighted. But when I proceeded to 
 add that I, too, was a Northumbrian, and was bom 
 and had spent my early childhood by the sea 
 within twenty miles of Capheaton, he was quite 
 astonished, and a French locution, ever afterwards 
 to be associated in my mind with him, escaped 
 from his lips. Looking hard at me out of those 
 wonderful eyes, he ejaculated two or three times 
 the word " Tiens ! " 
 
 On a table at my elbow near where I was 
 sitting, I could read the title of the book he had 
 been reading when we came in. It was " Uncle 
 Bernac " by Conan Doyle. Taking the volume 
 up, I asked Swinburne if it was exciting and if he 
 had ever read " The; Adventures of Sherlock 
 Holmes." 
 
 35 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 He ignored my first question, but answered 
 the second by repeating in large capitals, 
 " HAVE I READ ' THE ADVENTURES OF 
 SHERLOCK HOLMES ' ? RATHER ! Ask 
 
 Walter." The two friends exchanged glances, 
 and louJ guffaws followed the torrent of remini- 
 scent talk regarding the miraculous intuitive and 
 deductive powers of the epoch-making detective, 
 whom the poet considered a " marvellous man," 
 and pronounced a " great lark." It seems that 
 in common with nearly every schoolboy in the 
 kingdom, as well as thousands of people of both 
 sexes who are no longer at school, he had revelled 
 vicariously in the experiences of his " marvellous" 
 friend. He told me he had read every adventure 
 as they appeared in the Strand Magazine, and 
 that he liked nothing better than a good detective 
 story ; the more thrilling the better he liked it. I 
 said 1 had gone through the same phase myself, 
 and had read and enjoyed most of the "Adven- 
 tures." Then turning to me he enquired: "But 
 have you read 'The Sign of Four,' and 'A 
 Study in Scarlet? ' I warrant these two stories 
 will not disappoint you, and will provide you with 
 all the 'thrills ' you want." 
 
 I told him I had not done so, but, if they were 
 half as interesting as some of Sherlock Holmes' 
 
 36 
 
EARLY IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Adventures, I would certainly take his advice and 
 read them. 
 
 I never imagined that my answer in the 
 negative would result in my becoming the possessor 
 of these books in a most charming way. 
 
 At the conclusion of my delightful little visit, 
 Swinburne urged me to come as often as I liked 
 to " look at the animal book," and told me that 
 when I came again he would show me some of his 
 rare first editions of the Dramatists. I assured 
 him I would soon avail myself of his invitation, 
 and with another gracious bow at departure, and a 
 cordial hand-shake, we bade each other good after- 
 noon and " au revoir." I was charmed with him, 
 and when Walter and I went downstairs I told 
 him that never again should I be nervous ynth. 
 Swinburne. 
 
 Looking over that book with him, I felt that we 
 were contemporaries, and that I had spent the 
 afternoon in the company of a brilliant, intellectual 
 and enthusiastic boy, so young was he in heart 
 and spirit. He looked so full of life and vigour 
 that one forgot his years, such light was in his 
 eyes, such warmth in his smile, and he seemed so 
 blissfully happy, surrounded by his thousands of 
 books which lined the room from floor to ceiling. 
 
 This lithe, energetic man of genius literally 
 
 . 37 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 radiated Happiness. His whole environment spoke 
 of the peace of mind and harmony of life which had 
 been his from the moment he had set foot within 
 The Pines. 
 
 The almost adoring expression which came into 
 Swinburne's eyes when they looked at Walter 
 made me realize how deeply and gratefully con- 
 scious he was of the incalculable blessing the 
 magnetic presence of his friend had been to him 
 all the happy years he had spent under his roof. 
 Owing to Walter's vigilance and his interposition 
 between the poet and the interfering prose of life — 
 which would have spelt damnation to Swinburne's 
 art and temperament — the latter was enabled to 
 bring forth his later immortal works. In this 
 atmosphere of repose and freedom from worry, one 
 felt that Time had nothing to do with him, and that 
 he might go on living and working for ever. 
 
 Walter's self-effacement surprised me then and 
 astonished me later. The tender solicitude and 
 unremitting care which he lavished upon Swin- 
 burne, heedless of his own sacrifice of strength and 
 leisure for artistic achievement so long as he 
 furthered the welfare of " the dear fellow," as he 
 sometimes called the Bard, are unparalleled in the 
 annals of literary friendships. 
 
 38 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THAT ' LIMBER ELF ' " 
 
 For some time I had had access to Walter's library, 
 — a literary workshop that contained upwards of 
 eight thousand volumes. Books were everywhere, 
 towering from floor to ceiling ; they filled immense 
 bookcases and little bookcases, and occupied every 
 table and chair in the room and nearly all the 
 available floor-space besides. The effect of this 
 mountain of tomes all around me was somewhat 
 staggering until I got used to it, then it actually 
 grew upon me, and I became so accustomed to the 
 delightful disorder that I was quite miserable when 
 the day came for tidying up. All you had to 
 do was to stand in the middle of it all, and 
 after surveying it calmly, shut your eyes, 
 and then make a random bee-line with your 
 finger for a book and trust that this childish 
 methbd of procedure would bring you the luck 
 
 39 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 of " Little Jack Horner " when he pulled out a 
 plum. 
 
 This was invariably my habit when let loose 
 among Walter's books, and' it nearly always 
 brought a plum to me. 
 
 So lucky was I in hitting upon some unusual 
 volume amidst this heterogeneous collection that I 
 earned for myself the sobriquet of " limber elf." 
 Walter declared this almost uncanny method — or 
 rather want of method — so productive of special 
 " finds " which I never set out to obtain — 
 reminded him of the child in Coleridge's 
 " Christabel "— 
 
 A little child, a limber elf. 
 Singing, dancing to itself — 
 A fairy thing with red round cheeks, 
 That always finds, and never seeks. 
 
 One day I lighted on a volume which instantly 
 riveted me. I knew at once that I had " struck 
 oil " and had stumbled across something of more 
 than common interest. 
 
 It was a presentation book to Walter from 
 Swinburne, and at the beginning was written in 
 the poet's handwriting a sonnet on Massinger. 
 And — delightful discovery — this was a book of 
 plays, and I loved reading plays. I looked 
 
 40 
 
" THAT ' LIMBER ELF ' " 
 
 eagerly through it to find "A New Way to 
 Pay Old Debts," the name of which I knew 
 well. Ever since hearing this delightful title at 
 school during one of our weekly lectures on litera- 
 ture, I had wanted to read this play, but so far I 
 had never had an opportunity of doing so. I was 
 naturally overjoyed to see it here in print before 
 my eyes, and immediately began to devour it. 
 So interested did I become in its pages that I 
 was unaware of the presence of Walter at my 
 elbow. His " What has that ' limber elf ' got 
 hold of now?" brought me back to my surround- 
 ings. He was highly amused at my seizing upon 
 this particular book among the thousands in the 
 room. Handing him the volimie that had so 
 absorbed me, I asked him to tell me about it, for 
 I was anxious to know why Swinburne had written 
 this sonnet in his inscribed copy. Latterly I had 
 heard so much about Swinburne's interesting 
 quartos that I was considerably puzzled and wanted 
 to know just exactly what they were. Walter did 
 not at once answer my question, but told me to 
 take care of the Massinger while he hunted round 
 himself in order to show me the other copies of 
 Elizabethan plays which Swinburne had given him. 
 He soon discovered some others — I forget now 
 which they were, though I know there was a Ben 
 
 41 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Jonson, but I remember that in each Swinburne 
 had written a eulogistic and impassioned sonnet 
 addressed to the author and redolent of intense 
 hero-worship. 
 
 Then Walter told me about his friend's 
 adoration of the Elizabethan dramatists, and his 
 profound knowledge on the subject, and prepared 
 me for the feast that was awaiting me when I went 
 to see the poet's collection of first editions. 
 
 This made me even more eager to finish reading 
 "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," which the 
 entrance of Walter had interrupted. I found the 
 play so intensely interesting that I was impatient 
 to go on with it, so after he had carefully put away 
 the other plays in a place of safety, he left me to 
 continue my fascinating pursuit. 
 
 Perhaps I may be excused for telling a story of 
 my school days, bearing on Massinger's famous 
 play. 
 
 Every time I was in arrears over my monthly 
 debts to the school fine-box the title of this play 
 would roll glibly off my tongue. It became a sort 
 of by-word in my mouth, for I delighted in the 
 very sound of the words — which I used on every 
 pretext — and I detested to pay up. My fines far 
 
 42 
 
" THAT ' LIMBER ELF ' " 
 
 exceeded those of any of the other girls, and when 
 my "bad marks," which cost the large sum of a 
 penny each, were added up at the beginning of 
 every month, I never had enough money to pay 
 in full. Then out would come this very appro- 
 priate title. 
 
 To get out of the difficulty I would ask to have 
 the' debt "carried over " to the next month. 
 My governess, who was really quite fond of me, 
 never insisted on my paying up to the last fraction, 
 or thereby I should have been bereft of pocket- 
 money for the whole of the ensuing month. 
 According to what sort of temper she happened to 
 be in at the time, she would allow me to pay so 
 much " on account." My usual average was about 
 two or three "bad marks" a day, and at the 
 end of one term I was asked, I remember, to pay 
 my arrears to the tune of eighteen shillings ! This 
 " account rendered " scared me; I had not such 
 a sum in my possession. Nothing daunted, how- 
 ever, I suggested that it should be put down in the 
 school bill as "drawing materials." I was dis- 
 appointed that my suggestion did not meet with 
 approval. My governess pretended to be shocked 
 at such a Machiavellian scheme. But as she was 
 in a very sweet mood (the end of the term 
 accounting for this, no doubt) I felt a little 
 
 43 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 .wheedling on my part would do no harm. Three 
 minutes of this treatment proved so effective that it 
 brought forth two excellent results. My fine was 
 reduced to half, and my soft-hearted governess 
 confessed that she considered I had not really 
 deserved any more fines than some of the girls who 
 only had to pay nine shillings for the whole term. 
 
 The reading of Massinger's play marked my 
 introduction to the Elizabethan dramatists. When 
 I reflected that Swinburne had embarked with 
 intense enthusiasm on the study of the Elizabethan 
 dramatic poets at the time of his early school days 
 — or as he expressed it to me later, " when I was 
 a kid at Eton" — and had pursued the study with 
 ardour and energy ever since, it made me quite 
 angry to think how I had been encouraged to read 
 Racine and Moliere, while the early English play- 
 wrights were known to me by name only. 
 
 Of course I could only suppose the French 
 dramatists were convenahle for the '" English 
 Meess," while the old English dramatists were not 
 considered fit reading for the " young person." 
 However, I started making up for lost time, and 
 fortified by the perusal of Massinger's comedy, I 
 felt I could now face Swinburne with more con- 
 
 44 
 
" THAT ' LIMBER ELF ' " 
 
 fidence, as I had at least made a start with the 
 Elizabethans. A few days afterwards I met him 
 on the door-step going out of the house on his walk 
 to Wimbledon. Although I expected he had by 
 this time forgotten all about me, I was agreeably 
 surprised to find he had not done so. 
 
 I reminded him of his promise to show me his 
 quartos. In awaiting his answer, I was not at 
 all sure that he would remember having said any- 
 thing about such a favour. 
 
 But he had not forgotten, and said he would be 
 pleased to see me that very afternoon. For my 
 part I looked forward to visiting him again with 
 a very keen pleasure. 
 
 Swinburne's time foi; receiving visitors was 
 always in the afternoon about four, so without his 
 fixing the time, I knew I had to present myself 
 at that hour. 
 
 There is many a slip between the cup and the lip, 
 and I was astonished soon after lunch to receive 
 this telegram from Walter : — " Postpone visit 
 until to-morrow." The telegram was followed in 
 the evening by a rather enigmatic lettter, telling 
 me that Swinburne had changed his mind and 
 preferred my going the next day, " as something 
 he is giving you has not arrived, but is certain to be 
 there if you will call at 4-30 to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 45 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Needless to say, I ,was full of curiosity, and 
 arrived the next day long before the appointed 
 time, bent on hearing all about it from Walter. 
 Although I questioned him, as he declared, " like 
 an Old Bailey barrister," I could get nothing out 
 of him. My reiterated entreaties for enlighten- 
 ment only produced repeated shakes of the head 
 from left to right indicating " No," and the 
 answer, " I promised Swinburne I would not tell 
 you." Not another word on the subject could 
 I drag from him. The longer I questioned him, 
 the more decided became the head-shaking, 
 and the merrier and more prolonged grew his 
 chuckles. He seemed positively to enjoy my 
 suspense. His remonstrance, "Now, Serjeant 
 Ballantyne, don't you look at me like that " (as I 
 gave him a final glance full of withering reproach), 
 induced me to accept the inevitable and abandon 
 any further attempts at cross-questioning. I had 
 perforce to possess my soul in patience until I 
 could learn the truth from the lips of Swinburne. 
 I had not long to wait. 
 
 We had changed the subject and were talking of 
 other things, when Swinburne himself appeared 
 on the threshold. He came forward, and in a 
 manner most cordial and gracious shook me warmly 
 by the hand, and, signalling me to follow him, led 
 
 46 
 
" THAT ' LIMBER ELF ' " 
 
 the way upstairs to his sanctum. Without any 
 preliminary talk, or explanation of the slightest 
 kind, he pointed to a neat little case of books on 
 the mantelpiece. Of course I was nonplussed. 
 Swinburne never uttered a word, but continued to 
 wave his hand towards the books without speaking 
 — ^unless the soft hilarious whistle he emitted, in 
 low: staccato snatches, could be designated a form 
 of speech, and for a moment or two I did not know 
 what to say or do. But looking up for an instant 
 from the books to his face, I understood from his 
 dancing eyes and laughing expression the nature 
 of " the secret." He had anticipated my wishes 
 and procured from his bookseller at Wimbledon 
 the very fiction I said I wanted. The books 
 included two volumes of " The Adventures of 
 Sherlock Holmes," " Rodney Stone," " A Study 
 in Scarlet," and " The Sign of Four." Then it 
 appeared that Swinburne had made Walter 
 promise I should be kept in the dark until the 
 right moment came, and that he should be the 
 one to tell me that the non-arrival of the books at 
 the promised time was the reason of the postpone- 
 ment of my visit. 
 
 This little incident initiated me into Swinburne's 
 naive and child-like methods of working out any 
 little scheme. Charming traits of character of this 
 
 47 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 kind were so frequently peeping out from him that 
 it was difficult to think of him as the great poet 
 whom all recognised as a King of Song. But it was 
 only at first that it was puzzling, and before long I 
 appreciated his boyish ways as characteristic of a 
 personality which had all the transparency and 
 poetic qualities of an elfin child who was at the same 
 time a superlatively-gifted man. 
 
 The child-side of Swinburne appealed very 
 strongly to Walter, who understood his curiously 
 complex nature as did no other living being. I 
 remember that once when, soon after his 
 companion's death, I spoke of it to him, a far-away 
 look of wistful tenderness came into his face. 
 While the tears gathered in his eyes at the recollec- 
 tion, he turned to me and said : 
 
 " Dear Algernon, he was the simplest and 
 noblest-minded creature in the world, by far 
 the greatest poet, and one of the most lovable men 
 I ever knew." 
 
 43 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SWINBURNE AS A BIBLIOPHILE 
 
 It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast 
 between the idiosyncrasies of two men living under 
 the same roof than that presented by the difference 
 between Swinburne's tidy retreat upstairs and 
 Walter's untidy workroom downstairs. 
 
 Coming direct from one into the other was 
 positively startling, the difference being so marked 
 as to suggest a sudden change from one country 
 to another, such as genii could bring about in fairy 
 tales. 
 
 I was conscious of a feeling of exaltation and 
 repose in Swinburne's surroundings. The stillness 
 and the tidiness had the quieting effect on the 
 nerves that one feels on entering a cool cathedral 
 on a hot day. The very aspect of the room 
 breathed forth the spirit of its occupant's lofty 
 purpose in life. 
 
 D 49 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Passionate book-lover that he was, he had 
 arranged his treasures very carefully. Everything 
 was in its place. At a first glance the room 
 seemed to contain little besides books, but however 
 much they might monopolise one's attention, it 
 was impossible not to notice Swinburne's duster. 
 It was so very obtrusive that you wondered why 
 the back of a cane-seated Empire chair was chosen 
 for the display of the red and yellow-checked affair 
 which hung over it. But there it was, an object of 
 undignified importance, gaily disporting itself 
 almost in the middle of the room. I learned 
 that it was one of the poet's little fads to have his 
 own special duster always in sight, and easily got 
 at whenever he had occasion to use it. And this 
 was very often. He had a horror of even touching 
 a dusty book, so, to be sure his library was kept 
 in apple-pie order, he took the precaution of 
 looking after his books himself. If he wanted 
 to show you any particular book, he would first of 
 all see that not a speck was on it. I can see him 
 now, duster in hand, going carefully over the edges 
 and cover to satisfy himself that all was as it should 
 be before placing the volume in your hands. From 
 that day, whenever I happened to enter his room, 
 until the day he lay dying in this same room 
 in which I now write these lines, I always saw 
 
 60 
 
SWINBURNE AS A BIBLIOPHILE 
 
 Swinburne's homely duster spread out in the funny 
 .way I have described. 
 
 The overflow of books which could not gain 
 admittance to his shelves, found sanctuary on the 
 wide sofa near the window, the same sofa on which 
 Swinburne rested and sometimes slept in his Great 
 James Street days. It was an uncommonly long 
 sofa, and filled more than half one side of 
 the room not taken up by bookcases. But at The 
 Pines, in my time, he never used it to rest on ; it 
 was reserved solely for the repose of books, which 
 were piled high on it from end to end, not a 
 square inch being available for a seat. 
 
 He would invariably sit on an easy chair with a 
 circular back decorated with gold, the arms 
 of which terminated in gold-covered rams' heads. 
 There were two of these chairs in Tiis study, 
 and on the occasion of which I speak he pulled 
 one out of a corner and invited me to sit 
 On it, courteously remarking that he knew it to 
 be comfortable. He himself remained standing, 
 hovering over the writing-table, with fluttering 
 hands and breathing audibly in an excited way. 
 And now, with a look absolutely radiating with 
 pride of possession, he turned my attention to a 
 bundle of very old and rather shabby-looking 
 books. 
 
 51 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 I knew these must be the precious quartos of 
 first editions of the Dramatists, and when he took 
 up one to inspect it before pointing out its manifold 
 beauties to me, he uttered a rapturous "Ah!" as 
 if he were looking at it for the first time and had 
 discovered something new in it he had not noticed 
 before. The handling of the volume seemed to 
 afford him such delight that he could not refrain 
 from making curious little sounds, as if his mouth 
 were watering in anticipation of the succulent 
 flavour of a peach. He ;>vas in no haste for me to 
 inspect it, but turned to another and yet another 
 volume over which he repeated the same perform- 
 ance, for all the world like a connoisseur, who, 
 in order to enjoy the full flavour of a .wine, 
 inhales the bouquet first. Wihile the poet was 
 inarticulately ecstasising, I was able to take a 
 cursory glance at some of the volumes, in the hbpe 
 that I might find a Massinger among them. I was 
 becoming nervous at the rather long silence and 
 wondered when Swinburne would break it. 
 
 How thankful I was I had a topic all ready, and 
 could land on safe ground, and I began by telling 
 him I had read "A New Way to Pay Old Debts." 
 The news acted like a charm. I could not have 
 hit upon a happier announcement, for, at the mere 
 mention of this comedy, he became most animated, 
 
 62 
 
SWINBURNE AS A BIBLIOPHILE 
 
 and his words poured forth like a torrent. He 
 now brought forward his treasures with all the 
 delight of a schoolboy showing his prizes. 
 
 With delicious naivete he immediately jumped 
 to the conclusion that I was an ardent student of 
 the Elizabethan Dramatists. He took it for 
 granted I had actually read all sorts of Elizabethan 
 plays and shared his taste for them. 
 
 Poor Swinburne, child-like and simple in many 
 ways, was especially so m this one. He could not 
 conceive that one did not take his point of view 
 about everything. Afterwards, when I saw him 
 nearly every day and came to know him better, the 
 mere mention by me of a book or a poem with 
 which he was familiar and known to me perhaps 
 only by name was quite sufficient for him to 
 attribute to me a far greater knowledge of it than 
 I actually possessed. I can't help smiling now 
 when I think of it. 
 
 As he went on expatiating — ^his enthusiasm grow- 
 ing with every play to which he called my attention 
 — I began to repent of my first rash admission. I 
 know next to nothing of these Elizabethans 
 or their plays, and not without difficulty could 
 I have made out a line of the old-jvprld type 
 in ,Mrhich some of them were printed. With a 
 rapt look he gazed upon this archaic typography, 
 
 53 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 and as he tapped the page lovingly with his finger, 
 he ejaculated, "Ah ! Ah !" in a soft laughing tone 
 as he raised his eyes to the ceiling. It was 
 dehghtful to see him thus, but I felt instinctively 
 the radiant look would at once vanish from his face 
 if I told him that his idols were strangers to me. I 
 had not the heart to disillusionise him, and I 
 refrained from doing so. 
 
 Taking my courage in both hands I made an 
 attempt to turn the discussion into another 
 channel. My attempt did not meet with the 
 success I thought it deserved. Swinburne looked at 
 me with a shocked expression. What had arpused 
 his indignation I did not discover till afterwards. 
 Walter subsequently explained to me that if there 
 was a thing in the world more than another that 
 nettled the poet it was to have his conversation 
 interrupted — especially if he happened to be 
 holding forth on a favourite topic. On this 
 occasion Swinburne's chivalry saved me from 
 any spoken reproof, and I proceeded quite 
 airily to talk about our friend Lady Archibald 
 Campbell's production of " The Faithful Shep- 
 herdesse," in Coombe Wood, wherein she enacted 
 the part of Perigot. But here again I was fated 
 to upset the equanimity of my friend. I had 
 alluded to the play as by " Beaumont and 
 
 54 
 
SWINBURNE AS A BIBLIOPHILE 
 
 Fletcher." The mention of the word Beaumont 
 seemed to affect Swinburne as though one had 
 offered him a personal insult. He glared, he 
 shrugged his shoulders in a panic-stricken sort of 
 way as one who despaired of the ignorance of the 
 world. "Fletcher only I" he declared with 
 tremendous emphasis. " Beaumont never wrote 
 a line of it ! " I dare not ask him how I was 
 expected to know that ; Beaumont and Fletcher 
 were to me as inseparable as Marshall and 
 Snelgrove or Darby and Joan. 
 
 It was curious to notice how a literary lapse of 
 this kind roused Swinburne to fury. To me the 
 point did not seem to matter much one way or 
 the other. When betrayed into these little gusts 
 of ill-temper in my presence, he was almost irome- 
 diately penitent, and his contrition was as 
 wonderful an expression of himself as had been his 
 annoyance. After a while he began to talk quite 
 amicably and reasonably about John Fletcher. He 
 told me that when he went for his morning walk 
 on the Common he always felt that Fletcher had 
 once traversed the same spaces. He explained 
 that Fletcher had lived for some time at Fulham 
 Palace ; that there was contemporary evidence to 
 show that the dramatist had often walked about 
 the Wimbledon stretches of woodland while 
 
 55 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 staying at the Palace on the other side of 
 the water, and that it was while .wandering 
 in Richmond Forest that he conceived the idea 
 of " The Faithful Shepherdesse." "Ah! " he 
 added brightly, " who knows but what the notion 
 struck him as he passed by Lady Archie's delightful 
 place? " 
 
 This talk about Fletcher reminded me that some 
 time previously I had attended a rehearsal by some 
 enthusiastic amateurs of " The Two Npble 
 Kinsmen." I waited until the poet had come to 
 a full stop before venturing to mention this 
 circumstance. Here at all events I had struck a 
 sympathetic chord. His face lighted up wonder- 
 fully. He went over to the little mountain of 
 books lying on the table. 
 
 "Ah! " he exclaimed with childish delight, 
 " I wiU read you something from ' The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen.' " 
 
 But before the reading began a certain ritual 
 had to be observed. The twilight was upon us. The 
 poet lighted the three candles which always stood 
 on his mantelpiece in three separate candlesticks. 
 He hated gas as an illuminant though he was 
 enthusiastic about the gas stove which was fixed 
 in his bedroom fire-place — a contrivance he never 
 attempted to light himself. Walter and I had 
 
 56 
 
SWINBURNE AS A BIBLIOPHILE 
 
 often discussed the idea of installing electric light 
 fittings to resemble candles. Perhaps he might 
 have " taken to " the innovation. Perhaps not. 
 In any case the idea was never carried out, and 
 to the end of his days, when daylight began to 
 fade, Swinburne read or wrote by the light of his 
 three candles. His method of lighting was a fear- 
 some process. On the landing outside his sitting- 
 room door ,was an open gas-jet. He took one 
 candlestick and Ughted the candle at it, the grease 
 dropping from it the while in unrestrained abandon. 
 He returned to his room, the weapon in his hand 
 still spluttering fat, and having placed the candle 
 on the table, he lighted the other two from it. 
 Then, -with, ceremonial precision, he arranged the 
 three candles quite close together, almost touching 
 each other. This light he kept behind him as 
 he read. He seemed to know to a nicety the exact 
 spot from which the light would be most effectively 
 diffused, for the little circle of burning wicks 
 afforded the sole iUiuninatibn in his rather big 
 ,^udy. While the soft rays from behind him were 
 sufficient to make clear to him the printed page, 
 they cast eerie shadows on the ceiling and threw 
 wonderful high lights on the pictures and mirrors. 
 It struck me that many men, even poets, would 
 have had either two or four candles in compliment 
 
 57 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 to an unpleasant superstition by which three 
 candles (possibly because there were three crosses 
 at Calvary) are an omen of ill-luck. Whether or 
 not Swinburne had ever thought of this super- 
 stition, the use of three candles was quite 
 in keeping with his beliefs or misbeliefs. 
 
 But all my speculation about the superstition 
 ceased when in mingled twihght and candlelight 
 the poet began to read the passages in " The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen " leading up to the fight between 
 Palamon and Arcite, 
 
 There was a weird and subtle charm about 
 Swinburne's delivery of the poetry that he loved. 
 He had none of the arts or affectations of the 
 elocutionist. There were indeed qualities in his 
 method which the elocutionist would decry as 
 unsound and eccentric. The fact, however, 
 remains that his delivery captured the imagination 
 of the hearer, where the art of the elocutionist 
 left him cold. His methods may have been 
 " unsound " ; they were certainly effective. 
 When I took leave of him after that memorable 
 recital, it was with the sensation of one who had 
 been hypnotised. 
 
 What, I wondered, made the Swinburne reading 
 of an old dramatist so oddly arresting whereas 
 his readings about Mrs. Gamp and others in the 
 
 58 
 
SWINBURNE AS A BIBLIOPHILE 
 
 Dickens gallery ,was so marred by peculiarities 
 of voice and manner as to be almost unpleasant? 
 With the qualities of the Dickens recitals I shall 
 deal in a future chapter. The explanation is prob- 
 ably something like this : in Dickens he was most 
 of all concerned with impersonation. He acted — 
 or thought that he acted — ^the parts of the various 
 characters. Nature had not endowed him with the 
 equipment for accomplishing this ; so the perform- 
 ance left much to be desired. But when it came 
 to giving voice to the .words of an old dramatist 
 he was no longer concerned with conveying the 
 meaning to his audience. He surrendered himself 
 completely to the rhythmic laws of verse. He 
 rendered the music, not the meaning of the 
 dramatist, and so it happened that while his 
 rendering of Charles Dickens might be voted 
 rather distressing, his reading of an act by John 
 Fletcher arrested and fascinated the hearer. 
 
 59 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SWINBURNE WHEN FIRST I KNEW HIM 
 
 Even when I knew Swinburne only by fleeting 
 glimpses, the personality of the poet had struck 
 me as something quite out of the ordinary. 
 
 To begin .with, he looked what we call 
 " a celebrity." Having once seen him, much less 
 met him, no one could fail to understand he had 
 come into contact with a very extraordinary being, 
 for certain characteristics removed Swinburne 
 definitely outside the pale of ordinary mortals. 
 Had I met him for the first time in the street 
 or in a room, and not knowing he was Swinburne, 
 had been asked to guess what manner of man 
 he was by profession, I should unhesitatingly 
 at the first glance have said " Poet." A second 
 guess might have been " Musician." This was 
 not because he possessed the frenzied mane of hair 
 which is such a valuable asset to a pianist, for 
 
 60 
 
'■ ^W'^^' 
 
 BUST OF A. C. SWINBURNE BY DRESSI.ER 
 
SWINBURNE WHEN FIRST I KNEW HIM 
 
 when I first saw Swinburne his head was bald on 
 top, his hair being a tawny-grey in colour. His 
 face, however, reminded me of Paderewski. Both 
 men possessed brilliant, expressive eyes, the same 
 steady, intent gaze, and the same air of poetic 
 mystery. Oddly enough, the hair on the temples 
 and at the nape of the neck was rather thick, and 
 was much ruddier than his other locks, indicating 
 clearly that in his youth Swinburne had possessed 
 red hair. His small beard and moustache, 
 although streaked with grey, gave the same 
 suggestion of warm colour. 
 
 Often when he sat opposite me at meals I would 
 mentally frame Swinburne's head in the pianist's 
 wealth of copper-coloured hair and the resemblance 
 between them would then become positively 
 surprising. But his hair had never been copper- 
 coloured. When his cousin first showed me a 
 lock of Algernon's hair, I could hardly believe 
 such a colour could have grown on a human head. 
 It was not a bit like the hair so often described as 
 " the sort Titian would have loved to paint " ; it 
 was just a fiery red. 
 
 His eyes were what specially attracted me. 
 They were wonderful, and by far the best feature 
 of his face. If the eye is the window of the soul, 
 truly the eyes of Swinburne spoke for him. I 
 
 61 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 ^ould look at him long and searchingly across the 
 table to try to ascertain what colour they really 
 were. Sometimes they would look soft and tender 
 enough to suggest pansies, at other moments they 
 seemed to be greyish green ; and, again, I .would 
 think they must be blue. At last I came to the 
 conclusion that they were hazel. The peculiar 
 speckles in them made them marvellously 
 expressive. I have seen them dance and catch fire, 
 according to his various moods. When he read 
 aloud any passage requiring dramatic emphasis, 
 these speckles would grow more radiant and 
 quiver with every cadence of his rather high- 
 pitched voice. 
 
 Taking it for granted that Swinburne possessed 
 a superabundance of hair as a young man, 
 and wore it in the manner of " Struwwelpeter," 
 1 cannot agree with those who think that he 
 possessed a head too big for his body. I would 
 have been the first to have noticed any abnormality 
 of this sort, had it existed. In the days when his 
 figure was slender and boyish, the top-heavy look 
 with which he is credited was no doubt due to the 
 thick hair standing out bush-like from both sides 
 of his head. 
 
 Had Nature given Swinburne a body worthy of 
 his mental gifts, he jvould have been better looking 
 
 62 
 
SWINBURNE WHEN FIRST I KNEW HIM 
 
 than the Apollo Belvedere. But it was other- 
 wise decreed. His facial features were remarkably 
 good, but his figure was against him. He would 
 have been handsome if he had been a few inches 
 taller and his figure good. But he was short, and 
 his shoulders were far too sloping. 
 
 His physical imperfections had become less 
 noticeable when I knew him, for he had " filled 
 out " since the days of " Dolores " and 
 " Chastelard," and his limbs, unusually muscular, 
 for a man of his size, had taken on a more solid 
 look. 
 
 His hands were not beautiful or well-shaped, 
 and they were not particularly small. I would 
 often look at his rather podgy digits and prosaic 
 finger nails, and compare them with Walter's 
 long, tapering fingers and filbert-shaped nails. 
 Walter's hand often served Rossetti for a model 
 when the artist was painting one of his celebrated 
 " half lengths," but one had to think of the work 
 it did before one could be interested in Swinburne's 
 hand. I feel called upon to make these obser- 
 vations because a brilliant essayist wrote in a 
 leading review of Swinburne's hands and feet as 
 though they were almost fairy-like. 
 
 A propos de bottes I had ample opportunity for 
 knowing a good deal about the footwear of the 
 
 63 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Housemates. The same bootmaker made for both 
 of them. There was but Uttle difference in size, 
 Swinburne's feet being a trifle larger than 
 Walter's. The poet took what in the trade is 
 called " an eight and a half," so that to write of his 
 " tiny feet " is absurd. Swinburne had his boots 
 made of calf leather while Walter preferred a soft 
 kid. Often when I was out walking with Walter 
 I would notice that he had on a pair of calf boots. 
 I would say, " You've got Swinburne's boots on 
 again. Oh dear! Why will you not look? " 
 Walter would laughingly reply, "And the joke of 
 it is the poor boy can't get his feet into a pair of 
 mine." 
 
 In the days of his young manhood, Swinburne 
 may or may not have evinced a partiality for fine 
 clothes, but I am sure his good sense never allowed 
 him to adopt any sort of eccentricity of attire. 
 The poet of tradition and the stage has always 
 something of the guy about his clotliing. He 
 wears a pair of rusty black trousers, baggy at the 
 knees, a nondescript waistcoat, and a shabby 
 velveteen coat surmounted by a very low turned- 
 down collar with a huge bow under it. His hair 
 is long, and his hat is an umbrageous sombrero. 
 
 Swinburne's attire, as I observed it, flatly 
 contradicted this caricature. He took great pains 
 
 64 
 
SWINBURNE WHEN FIRST I KNEW HIM 
 
 to avoid advertising his metier. He did not wear 
 his hair long ; it only reached the nape of his neck, 
 and the little he possessed was often cut by the 
 barber. 
 
 He was always very plainly dressed, and I never 
 saw him wearing any other sort of tie than a plain 
 black silk one. At home, and sitting restfuUy in 
 his chair with a book, he offered no mark for the 
 caricaturist. But outside, when he had donned his 
 wideawake, he somehow looked eccentric. For 
 one thing he braced his trousers too high ; in his 
 absence of mind, he would pull them above the 
 ankles, showing several inches of white sock. 
 Furthermore, he had a curious prancing gait, and 
 his deliberate way of flinging out his feet before 
 him as he trod the ground reminded one of a 
 dancing-master or a soldier doing the goose-step. 
 
 With his head thrown stiffly back and his body 
 almost rigid from the waist upwards, Swinburne 
 out-of-doors seemed to me an individual distinct 
 from the Swinburne at home. Owing perhaps 
 to his deafness, he was averse from meeting even 
 his friends out of doors. He hated to come across 
 them suddenly, and even Walter or I, when we 
 happened to meet him, refrained from taking the 
 slightest notice of him as we passed. Often we 
 would meet him face to face as he was coming 
 
 B 65 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 down or we were going up the Hill, or vice versa. 
 But he would walk past us totally oblivious of our 
 proximity. It certainly ,was not because he was 
 short-sighted, for he had perfect sight, but that 
 directly he had left the house his mind was ready 
 to take flight, like a bird on the wing, to that 
 sphere of inspiration, his beloved Common. 
 
 He would compose his poetry in the open air 
 as he walked along. On wending his way down 
 the Hill on his return, his thoughts were generally 
 far away in the world of music he had created, and 
 when he re-entered The Pines he was still thrilled 
 by the song he Had been singing during his walk. 
 
 66 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HOUSEMATES 
 
 I HAVE never understood, and never expect 
 to understand, the motive actuating those persons 
 ,who, after the deaths of Swinburne and Watts- 
 Dunton, began to belittle the famous friends. 
 To me their intiriiacy is simple and beautiful. 
 The eyes of those who behold in it a 
 subject for ridicule or detraction must be the eyes 
 of the depraved. There is no chapter in literary 
 history dealing with men's friendship more lovely ; 
 and yet envy and spite have tried to disfigure the 
 public aspect of this sweet and sacred thing. 
 
 I do not propose to relate in extenso the story 
 of how my husband and Swinburne came to live 
 together. That has been done accurately in 
 " The Life and Letters of Theodore Watts- 
 Dunton." The authors of that book had their 
 evidence at first hand. They heard the narrative 
 
 67 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 over and ovex again from Walter's own lips, just 
 as I have heard it. They heard it from Mrs. 
 Mason (Walter's sister), who received the poet at 
 her own house when he first came to Putney with 
 my husband. I have frequently heard the story 
 from the same source. Mrs. Mason's narrative 
 never differed on repetition, and that of Walter 
 never differed circumstantially from that of his 
 sister. I really cannot conceive of evidence more 
 complete and convincing. Moreover, it is first- 
 hand evidence given by those who had personal 
 knowledge of the facts stated. Nevertheless, 
 certain publicists found scope for misrepre- 
 sentation, and the authentic story was met by 
 printed expressions of doubt and denial. 
 
 The extraordinary thing is that Watts- Dunton's 
 detractors deny statements made on first-hand 
 testimony by quoting those made on third-hand 
 evidence or no evidence at all. Perhaps I am 
 only tempting these unscrupulous writers to fresh 
 manifestations of spite by saying anything more 
 about Swinburne's move to Putney, but I will 
 take the risk. There is one pathetic passage in 
 connection with the poet's first visit to Putney 
 which was told me by Walter. It has not been 
 published before. When Walter visited the sick 
 poet, he was met by the landlady who, in answer 
 
 68 
 
THE HOUSEMATES 
 
 to my husband's enquiry about the health of her 
 
 lodger, said with an accent of deep concern : — 
 
 " Well, sir, he haven't eat anything for days. A 
 
 nice beefsteak 'ud do him a power o' good " ; 
 
 and when Walter went into his friend's bedroom, 
 
 he felt that the first part of the lady's information 
 
 must be true, whatever might be said for her 
 
 dietetic suggestion in the second part of it. He 
 
 looked terribly iU. When at length a visit 
 
 to Putney as Walter's guest in his sister's house 
 
 was proposed, Swinburne gazed at his visitor with 
 
 anxious eyes, and in a weak and broken voice asked 
 
 eagerly, " Can't I go now} " It would have been 
 
 quite impossible to have taken him then and there. 
 
 But the hope of going, coupled with proper 
 
 nourishment, worked a gradual change. When 
 
 at last the patient was pronovmced fit for the 
 
 journey my husband appeared with the vehicle in 
 
 which they were to travel. Swinburne was 
 
 pitifully weak, and was obliged to have the 
 
 assistance of Walter's arm in descending the stairs. 
 
 He looked up at him with a flush on his pale cheeks 
 
 and a wan smile on his lips. " Oh, I'm so glad 
 
 I'm going to Putney with you," he said, in the 
 
 manner of a boy who was going on a pleasure 
 
 jaunt with a friend. 
 
 At Hyde Park Comer there was a congestion of 
 
 69 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 traffic. The carriage was held up in the block, 
 and Lord Ronald Gower, who happened to be 
 crossing the road at the time, saw who were the 
 passengers in Walter's " growler." He went 
 up to it and cried out, " Hullo, Watts, you've got 
 Swinburne there. Where are you taking him 
 to? " At that time Lord Ronald Gower did not 
 know Swinburne, though naturally his appearance 
 was well-known to one who moved, as Lord 
 Ronald did, in literary and artistic circles. 
 
 Walter's reply to the enquiry was, " I'm taking 
 him with me to Putney." Then the pedestrian 
 proceeded to open the carriage-door exclaiming, 
 " I'm coming, too." " Oh, no, you're not ; we'll 
 send you a card later on to say when you can 
 come," was the prompt reply. As at that 
 moment the tide of traffic began to flow again, the 
 door of the " growler " was closed, and he went 
 on his way rejoicing — which was also his way. 
 Without any notion of doing an ill-natured thing 
 (Lord Ronald was quite incapable of that) but from 
 a pure love of fun, he started the rumour that 
 Swinburne had been abducted by Theodore Watts, 
 who had sternly refused him admittance to the 
 conveyance in which he was carrying off his prey. 
 I suppose the story never reached the ears of the 
 housemates, as they became when they agreed to 
 
 70 
 
THE HOUSEMATES 
 
 share the tenancy of The Pines. Lord Ronald 
 duly received his invitation, and he and the poet 
 immediately struck up a friendship which 
 developed into a life-long intimacy. No visitor to 
 The Pines was more welcome. Swinburne and this 
 friend had much in common, and each delighted 
 in the tastes and idiosyncrasies of the bther. 
 
 Lord Ronald Gower was skilled in more arts 
 than one. He _was a sculptor, and he presented 
 to Swinburne a bronze statuette of Victor Hugo, 
 a really fine work which the poet valued, not only 
 because it was a likeness of his Idol, but because 
 it was the work of a friend. The statuette is in 
 my possession, and a photographic reproduction 
 of it appears in this book. 
 
 It was not, of course, until I became Walter's 
 wife that I fully appreciated the exquisite 
 nature of the relations existing between the two 
 men. On Walter's side, the love for his friend 
 seemed to be largely composed of what, for 
 want of a better word, I must call the mothering 
 instinct. He seemed to anticipate every wish and 
 want of his companion. His anxiety for his 
 physical welfare, his great interest in his mental 
 output, his concern for his domestic comfort and 
 for his amusement were beautiful to witness. 
 
 Swinburne's satisfaction in his domiciliary 
 
 71 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 arrangement with my husband can easily be under- 
 stood. From his earliest correspondence it is 
 obvious that he could rely but httle on himself in 
 the prosy affairs of the world. In his days of 
 "roses and raptures" he found men who professed 
 themselves willing to relieve him from tire- 
 some responsibilities. But they turned out to 
 be broken reeds — mere boon companions, or that 
 less amiable class of individual with " axes to 
 grind." In Walter he felt he had found the ideal 
 friend upon whom he could rely, and his sentiment 
 of gratitude and admiration soon developed into an 
 indestructible brotherly affection. The infamous 
 fiction, that my husband placed Swinburne under 
 some kind of disciplinary restraint, would have 
 been fiercely resented by Swinburne himself. 
 Walter ruled him by love, guided him by advice, 
 and influenced him by suggestion. With infinite 
 patience and tact, he got him to change his habits, 
 and it was not long before he discovered that he 
 had by no means embarked on a hopeless task in 
 trying to persuade his friend to lead the healthy, 
 orderly life of which he was so much in need. It 
 says much for Walter's magnetism that he was 
 able to accomplish in a few months what the poet's 
 medical man, his family, and other friends had 
 given up as impossible. 
 
 72 
 
THE HOUSEMATES 
 
 The author o£ "Atalanta " was just a human 
 being who wanted to be loved and taken care of, 
 and directly he came to Mrs. Mason's house, under 
 Walter's guidance, his cure began. 
 
 Those who have read Mr. Coulson Kernahan's 
 clever narrative of the way in which Walter lured 
 Swinburne from brandy to beer will remember the 
 ingenuity displayed by my husband in bringing 
 about the desired result. 
 
 I have often heard W^alter tell the story, and 
 veritably Swinburne's cure was effected by the 
 art that conceals art. The Bard never detected 
 that from first to last it was a ruse, for on the 
 occasion of each change to a drink less potent 
 than its predecessor, some literary reason was 
 assigned which Walter guessed would awaken 
 desire to emulate some real or fictitious hero 
 beloved by Swinburne. As far as Algernon was 
 concerned, he simply gave up brandy because 
 Tennyson drank port, and changed from port to 
 burgundy because that was the tipple of Dumas' 
 immortal Musketeers. Then for an equally good 
 reason he proceeded to claret, and, finally, as it 
 was Shakespeare's drink, to beer. 
 
 Unfortunately, one day some time after my 
 marriage Walter got it into his head that a very 
 light beer, then extensively advertised and known 
 
 Y3 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 as " Pilsener," would be quite the thing for 
 Algernon and asked me to order some. Had he 
 taken the precaution of informing Swinburne 
 beforehand that this beer, he had reason to believe, 
 was the established drink of, say, WiUiam 
 Morris or Colonel Newcome, the Bard would 
 have adopted it gleefully. But the bottle was 
 placed before him one day at luncheon without 
 any preliminary explanation. He poured it out 
 quite unsuspectingly, and under the impression 
 that it was his a-^eustomed " Ind Coope." Having 
 tasted it, however, he flatly refused to drink the 
 " stuff," and ,with an angry glint in his eyes he 
 peremptorily ordered the maid to bring his usual 
 drink to him. 
 
 Nothing shows more effectively the success of 
 Walter's influence over Swinburne's early failing 
 than the fact that when he took his daily walks 
 across the Common to Wimbledon, he was 
 perfectly free to indulge in whatever beverage he 
 chose, but was never known to exceed his one 
 bottle of beer at his favourite inn. 
 
 I think I shall best indicate the attitude of the 
 housemates each to the other by quoting what on 
 two different occasions was said to me. Swinburne 
 told me one day, with an expression of infinite 
 tenderness in his eyes : " There is no one in the 
 
 74 
 
A. C. SWINBURNE AND T. WATTS DUNTON IN THE GARDEN OF 
 THE PINES 
 
THE HOUSEMATES 
 
 world like Walter ! " By the way, he never called 
 him Theodore as he is made to do by one writer of 
 reminiscences. 
 
 My husband said to me long before that tribute 
 was paid him by Swinburne, " It is because of his 
 helplessness that I love him so much." No 
 words of mine can more adequately than these 
 depict the sweet relationship existing between the 
 men, its quality and its cause, the unceasing and 
 ungrudging tenderness of the protector, the 
 unfailing and unfaltering gratitude of his friend 
 and housemate. 
 
 But prejudice and malice can make critics view 
 life through a distorting glass. Only this can 
 account for the fact that when Swinburne was 
 rescued from pitiable surroundings and mis- 
 chievous companionship, and placed in comfortable 
 quarters, the cry went round that the physical 
 improvement of the poet synchronised with his 
 mental decay. So highly placed ,was the originator 
 of the legend, and so impartial and judicial 
 appeared to be his tone, that it was repeated by 
 the smaller fry of critics, and accepted by the 
 denser sort of readers. 
 
 The opponents of the change wrought by my 
 husband in Swinburne's manner of living are fond 
 of asserting that his verse deteriorated in quality 
 
 75 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 after he left Great James Street. Apparently 
 they deplore the cessation of the moods to which 
 we owe " Faustine," " Dolores," or " Herma- 
 phroditus." They fail to appreciate the fact- 
 or, appreciating it, they disingenuously refrain 
 from stating it — ^that a continuous supply of 
 bitterly erotic verse from the same source .would 
 eventually have palled upon the public. We are 
 invited to suppose, however, that there are critics 
 who would never sicken of repetitions of the first 
 series of " Poems and Ballads," and when the 
 poet leaves his grandes amoureuses and lepers, then 
 — oh, most amusing paradox ! — ^they dub him 
 decadent. 
 
 I turn for relief from the raucous chorus of 
 detractors to the verdict of Mrs. Disney Leith, 
 whose capacity for judging was not diminished 
 by her cousinship with the poet. She has written 
 of his career with discernment and com- 
 prehension : — " The time of his vivid and fiery 
 youth was not that of his best production. It 
 was in the little home at Putney, with its quiet 
 household routine . . . that the great 
 imperishable works of his life w:ere brought forth." 
 In support of this statement, I surrender to the 
 temptation of quoting what from a technical 
 standpoint is one of the best sonnets ever written, 
 
 76 
 
THE HOUSEMATES 
 
 that which Swinburne addressed to Walter after 
 they had spent two years together at The Pines : 
 
 Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred 
 And all our wide glad wastes aflower around, 
 That twice have heard keen April's clarion sound 
 
 Since here we first together saw and heard 
 
 Spring's light reverberate and reiterate word 
 
 Shine forth and speak in season. Life stands crowned 
 Here with the best bne thing it ever found, 
 
 As of my soul's best birthdays dawns a third. 
 
 There is a friend that as the wise man saith 
 Cleaves closer than a brother : nor to me 
 Hath time not shown, through days like waves at strife. 
 
 This truth more sure than all things else but death, 
 This pearl most perfect found in all the sea 
 That washes toward your feet these waifs of life. 
 
 I dismiss an unpleasant subject by saying 
 that the argument against those who belittle 
 Swinburne's later work needs no exponent except 
 the " waifs of life " to be found in " Studies in 
 Song," " Tristram of Lyonesse," and the volumes 
 which followed them. 
 
 77 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE HAWTHORNS 
 
 In his wanderings over Wimbledon Common and 
 Putney Heath, Swinburne cultivated the acquaint- 
 ance of trees as other men cultivate the 
 acquaintance of their fellow-creatures. His prime 
 favourites were the Hawthorns. When the May 
 >vas in full blossom the poet's enthusiasm was 
 wonderful to witness. He never tired of talking 
 about the beauty of these sweet-smelling bushes. 
 His endeavour after one of his rambles seemed to 
 be to inspire us with an enthusiasm equal to his 
 own. 
 
 Swinburne's interest in trees dated from his 
 early experiences of Northumberland. He often 
 declared that the scenery of his beloved County 
 was wilder and more magnificent than any other 
 in England. He knew the name of a tree the 
 moment he saw it. No chance of the Bard 
 
 V8 
 
THE HAWTHORNS 
 
 mistaking an elm for an oak, or a beech for a birch. 
 And the difference between particular members 
 of the same sylvan species was to him as distinct 
 as the difference between one man and another. 
 Many of the trees he knew by the familiar names 
 bestowed upon them by the rustics of Northumber- 
 land. His lore concerning trysting oaks and white 
 poplars, about an old ash or a silver fir, was quite 
 interesting, and apparently inexhaustible. I was 
 always prepared to listen sympathetically to his 
 eloquent tributes to his sylvan favourites, but I 
 confess I was not prepared for the proposition he 
 made to me one day on this subject. 
 
 " When," he asked, without any prefatory 
 leading up to the topic — " When are you coming 
 with me to see the hawthorns? " 
 
 I was thinking of something quite different at 
 the time, and for just a moment his question 
 sounded as if he indicated an afternoon call on a 
 family of that name. A recollection, however, 
 of certain of his rhapsodies over the luncheon-table 
 made the illusion a momentary one. The 
 Hawthorns to whom he was anxious to introduce 
 me were arboreal friends of his, and not mere 
 creatures of flesh and blood. Nothing definite 
 was settled at the time of this first invitation. 
 Swinburne reverted to it almost daily. 
 
 79 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 On one occasion his tone had a pathetic and 
 pleading note in it. " Don't let us wait until the 
 blossoms are falling," he urged. " When are we 
 going to see the May? " Both Walter and I felt 
 that the expedition could no longer be put off, A 
 day and hour were settled. We arranged to meet 
 the poet on Putney Heath close to the house of 
 the late Sir George Newnes. It turned out to be 
 an ideal day when my husband and I started off 
 to keep our appointment, which to me seemed 
 a great adventure, for I had been but six months 
 married, and still felt romantically the novelty 
 of my position. 
 
 When we arrived at the try sting-place, we found 
 Swinburne already there pacing up and down, 
 watch in hand, in a state of great impatience. We 
 were, as our American friends put it, " on time," 
 if, indeed, we were not more than punctual. But 
 the poet had evidently been experiencing con- 
 siderable nervousness and anxiety. He would 
 not imagine us forgetful, but he had conjured up 
 some unforeseen and unfortunate circumstance 
 preventing us from keeping our appointment. 
 His relief at our arrival was great, and he was for 
 darting off on the instant to introduce us to the 
 " hives of the honey of heaven " which at this 
 spot were particularly luxuriant. Walter, however, 
 
 80 
 
THE HAWTHORNS 
 
 had a business appointment at home and he 
 left us together. I strolled of? ,with Sjvin- 
 bumie. I found that he knew each one separately 
 and individually, as one knows old friends. 
 He ran from one to another, jumping Over 
 the numerous intersecting dykes and ditches and 
 giving me his hand to help me to leap over 
 to his side. When he got to one large hawthbrn 
 of divine lovehness he paused for a long time in 
 front of it and drew in long deep breaths, as though 
 he were inhaling the subtle emanation of the 
 blossoms he so rapturously adored, and softly 
 and repeatedly ejaculated, "Ah-h-h! " In front 
 of another hawthorn, exceptionally tall and 
 weighed down with " the marvel of May time," 
 he said, " This is one I especially want you to see. 
 Of course it is rather too big for a hawthorn." 
 With this expression of opinion I thought he 
 dismissed the tree, but his respect for it was greater 
 than his disapproval of its dimensions would have 
 led me to expect. Before he turned to leave, 
 he took off his hat, and gravely saluted the big 
 beauty of the hawthorn tribe. 
 
 A little further on he said to me, " Now I will 
 show you one quite different — much smaller," 
 After some quick walking and occasional jumping 
 of ditches, he halted me in front of a short, stumpy 
 
 F 81 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 and very bushy tree perfectly .white in its mantle 
 of blossom. He gazed at it with the idolatrous 
 affection of a lover. Then he turned to me, and 
 asked with a sort of chastened enthusiasm, " Now, 
 is not that a little duck? " " Duck," I may add, 
 was a favourite word of the Bard's when alluding 
 to little things that he loved. I thought it strange 
 at the time that he did not appear to take any 
 great interest in the otlier glories of the heath — 
 the yellowing gorse, the ferns just showing their 
 fronds, the heather with its fascinating odour. He 
 was subconsciously aware of them, of course, but 
 his visit — and mine — was to the Hawthorns, and 
 for the time being, the other beauties of the heath 
 did not count. 
 
 Looking back on it now, I don't know which 
 of us enjoyed that " hawthorn time " the more, 
 or which of us was the younger of the two. I 
 think it must have been Swinburne. He was 
 absolutely indefatigable. All this jumping about 
 in the broiling sun in the hottest part of the day did 
 not affect him in the least, whereas it left me 
 decidedly limp. I was struck with his agility, 
 it resembled that of some free animal of the wood- 
 lands. He repeated as we moved on, and 
 apparently to himself, without any thought 
 of having a hearer, the lines : 
 
 82 
 
THE HAWTHORNS 
 
 In hawthorn time the heart grows hght, 
 The world is sweet in sound and sight. 
 
 But the hearer on this occasion recognised the 
 quotation. " Why," I said to him, " those are 
 the opening lines of ' The Tale of Balen ' !" He 
 stopped short in his stride, his expression one of 
 combined surprise and pleasure. " Have you read 
 ' The Tale of Balen '? " he asked. I told him 
 for the second time — for he had completely 
 forgotten about the talk at our first meeting — that 
 not only had I read " Balen," but that Walter 
 had asked me to transcribe it, and that I knew 
 every word of it. He seemed greatly interested 
 in my statement and gave me a look like an 
 unspoken benediction. 
 
 Swinburne abominated typewriting, and latterly 
 all his poetry was copied by hand before it went 
 to the printers who set up from copy while the 
 original remained in the poet's possession. I 
 remember how the Bard would snatch up his proofs 
 as soon as they arrived " to see what the devils 
 were up to " — meaning the compositors. Here 
 I may say that Swinburne's usual practice was to 
 publish everything he wrote directly he was 
 satisfied with it. Walter said to me, "Algernon 
 is the exact opposite to me. I am loth to publish 
 
 83 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 anything. Swinburne burns to see his work in 
 proof." 
 
 But to return to our walk. Swinburne's talk as 
 we gained the road was mainly about the gorgeous 
 sights and delicious odours from which we had 
 just emerged. But these did not provide the 
 whole of his subject matter. I happened to 
 mention the name of a man of whom — from the 
 expression that his countenance suddenly assumed 
 — he evidently did not approve. The poet stopped 
 and growled out a word which I could not catch. 
 It sounded like " Polly " something, and I 
 supposed my friend wished to convey the idea of 
 effeminacy in the gentleman whose name I had 
 mentioned. Some time after I asked him to tell 
 me what word he had used. He was in one of his 
 most amiable moods, and he not only repeated 
 the word but he wrote it down for me in very 
 large and distinct letters. I have still preserved 
 it as a memento. Here it is : 
 
 " polypseudonymuncle." 
 
 Asked about its precise meaning, he readily 
 answered that it meant " a horrible little sewer- 
 rat who had been convicted under a hundred 
 aliases." I expressed my surprise that one word 
 
 84 
 
THE HAWTHORNS 
 
 could convey so many. He declared that he quite 
 shared my feeling. As we were nearly home, 
 and about to cross the road, a pony-cart passed up 
 the hill. The cargo of the driver consisted of caged 
 birds. It was a miscellaneous lot. It appeared 
 to comprise all sorts and conditions of bird from 
 the canary to the cockatoo. Prominent among 
 the captives were some parrots, and I drew the 
 poet's attention to a depressed specimen crouching 
 at the end of his perch in a cage far too small for 
 him. Some association of ideas set the poet off 
 on a fresh conversational track. He asked me if I 
 had ever heard of a wonderful parrot at one time 
 in the possession of his sister. I shook my head. 
 He proceeded to expatiate on the recorded 
 exploits of the gaudy and gifted creature. His 
 sister's parrot- — so he said he had been assured — 
 both sang and recited " Malhrouck s'en va-t'en 
 guerre " with the utmost fluency. " Did he 
 swear?" I enquired. "Alas! No," said Swin- 
 burne. " Although he had been adopted by a 
 naval family, the creature was innately genteel and 
 Victorian." 
 
 After a silence he resumed his reminiscences. 
 He told me that one day Walter and he had gone 
 to lunch with his sister Alice. With a mock 
 tragic air he explained that it was a sad occasion. 
 
 85 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 The feathered pet had, in a tolerably green old 
 age, paid the debt of nature. His sister ,was 
 naturally much distressed at the loss of her bird. 
 And Alice being the Bard's favourite sister, he 
 was naturally affected by the depression of his 
 hostess. The meal was a dull affair, and on leaving 
 the house Swinburne again and again expressed 
 his regret that anything should have happened 
 to have upset her so gravely. " But," said 
 Swinburne, " my one regret was that my deafness 
 never allowed me to hear the talented creature 
 sing his famous little French song. How I should 
 have enjoyed that! " 
 
 I would dearly have Rked to continue our walk, 
 for Swinburne's ebullient spirits were contagious 
 and he was in a particularly lively mood. But the 
 luncheon-hour was approaching, and we were 
 obliged to turn our backs to the country and make 
 tracks for home. He appeared charmed when I 
 told him how much I had enjoyed seeing the 
 Hawthorns, and of my wish to pay them another 
 visit. He beamed with pleasure at the idea of 
 being again my " cicerone," as he called it, and 
 immediately suggested that his sister Isabel should 
 join our next expedition. " I'll write to her 
 this afternoon," he said, " and urge her to come." 
 
 I used to love the days .when Isabel came to 
 
 86 
 
THE HAWTHORNS 
 
 The Pines. To see the brother and sister greet 
 each other was a positive delight, such simple and 
 devoted affection did the one entertain for 
 the other. 
 
 On reaching home, Svfinburne followed me into 
 the room where Walter sat waiting for us. Full 
 of animation, the poet said, " Clara and I have 
 seen my beautiful Hawthorns ; and it was 
 like being with a hamadryad — absolutely a 
 hamadryad." 
 
 The letter to Isabel was duly despatched and 
 both Swinburne and I looked forward to showing 
 her " the little duck " and all the other wonders of 
 the heath. Alas ! on the day she elected to come it 
 poured with rain, and the visit had to be put off 
 until a more propitious occasion. Swinburne was 
 as disappointed as a child. 
 
 87 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MISS ISABEL SWINBURNE 
 
 Now that Damon and Pythias have passed 
 " beyond the veil," I think of the gentle, 
 affectionate and always courteous attitude of 
 Swinburne towards myself. I was admitted as 
 a privileged member of the inner circle. On my 
 part I did all in my power to make myself 
 acquainted with the literary topics they discussed, 
 and trained myself to take an intelligent interest 
 in their conversation, which often, I quite freely 
 admit, was miles above my head. Swinburne, 
 when first informed that Walter and I were to 
 be married, expressed himself very characteristic- 
 ally. " You know," he said to Walter, " I think 
 all this is very jolly." He took unusual pains in 
 the selection of a wedding-present for us, which 
 on this occasion did not take the shape of books. 
 Something different had to be thought of, and 
 
 88 
 
MISS ISABEL SWINBURNE 
 
 he had set his mind on " something beautiful in 
 silver." He applied to his sister Isabel to aid 
 him in his quest. He eventually selected an 
 exquisite dish in dull beaten silver, the signs of 
 the Zodiac in coloured enamels embellishing its 
 artistic column and base. I recall too that when 
 our marriage was announced he and Walter went 
 off at once to Onslow Square to convey what the 
 poet described as " the wonderful news " to his 
 sister. Then he became impatient in his desire 
 to make me acquainted with her. Miss Isabel 
 Swinburne was the last surviving member of the 
 poet's family and the youngest of his four sisters, 
 none of whom married, his younger brother 
 Edward being the only one of Admiral and Lady 
 Jane Swinburne's children to quit the single state. 
 When I saw Isabel for the first time she was about 
 fifty-four years of age. She was still very good- 
 looking, and as a girl must have been extremely 
 pretty. She was of medium height, inclined 
 perhaps to be a trifle stout, her complexion 
 was creamy in its smooth excellence, her eyes 
 angelically blue. Her movements had the agility 
 of youth. Elegance and refinement united in her 
 with esprit and subtle charm. Some might have 
 called her gushing, but in her case an effusion of 
 pleasant words implied to me sympathy and 
 
 89 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 tenderness. Moreover, she easily saw the funny 
 side of things. Swinburne invariably addressed 
 her as "Abbas," a nursery name. To her and 
 a few close friends he was " Hadji." 
 
 Walter accompanied me on my first visit to 
 Isabel Swinburne. The reception she gave me 
 was delightfully cordial and obviously sincere, and 
 we soon became great friends. She at once 
 insisted on my calling her "Isabel," and when 
 I forgot this friendly injunction, she reminded me 
 of it by saying, in her inimitably pretty way, that 
 she did not know who "Miss Swinburne" was. 
 As to Swinburne's attitude of brotherly affection 
 to myself, he took an early opportunity of assuring 
 me that he looked upon me as " something near." 
 In proof of this declaration he presented me with 
 a beautiful edition of " Lorna Doone " bound 
 in white vellum, with this inscription : 
 
 To Clara Watts-Dunton, 
 
 From her a£Eectionate brother-in-law 
 Algernon Charles Swinburne. 
 
 The gift afforded me unbounded pleasure, and 
 the inscription seemed to assure me that the 
 fraternal bond that held the two housemates was 
 undisturbed by my coming. The sumptuous 
 volume was illustrated with thirty-seven landscape 
 
 90 
 
MISS ISABEL SWINBURNE 
 
 views of the scenery round and about the Doone 
 Valley. I well remember how, on the day he gave 
 it to me, he enthusiastically cut open the pages 
 facing the illustrations and drew my attention to 
 a particularly lovely one depicting Porlock Bay. 
 He gazed on it for a long time, declaring it to be 
 worthy of Turner, whom he considered the greatest 
 landscape painter in the world.* But when we 
 came across a full-page illustration of three human 
 figures he hurried past it with an unmistakable 
 sign of annoyance, and confided to me that he 
 hated (Swinburne never disliked anything — 
 he always hated or loathed it) illustrated books 
 where human beings were portrayed. He told 
 me that one of his reasons for choosing that 
 particular edition was because he imagined it to 
 be free from such pictorial eyesores. Nothing in 
 a small way vexed him more than to find, even 
 in a magazine, an illustration to a story with a 
 fdotline of this sort : — " Suddenly, she looked him 
 
 * Turner gave Swinburne's mother, Lady Jane Swinburne, 
 six original water-colour drawings. She treasured them so 
 much that she would never go anywhere without them. When- 
 ever the family travelled abroad, a portfolio containing the 
 precious drawings always accompanied them. I was privileged 
 to see them on more than one occasion. They were unframed, 
 and kept in the portfolio always, and never allowed to be 
 exposed, in case the light should fade their wonderful colour. 
 
 91 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 straight in the face." My imagination refuses to 
 conjure up what he would have said if he had seen 
 the portrait of himself as a hairy Satyr delighting 
 an audience of naked babes, which adorns the 
 posthumous collection of his child-poetry entitled 
 " The Spring-tide of Life." 
 
 92 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Swinburne's constitutional 
 
 Swinburne's daily walk across the Common to 
 Wimbledon and back has been done to death. 
 Every yard of the way has been described ; 
 and, indeed, stretches of the heath which were 
 not included in his itinerary have been " written 
 up " and photographed. Imaginative writers 
 have boldly identified his favourite spots. But 
 these enthusiasts have, as a rule, ended their 
 narratives at the very point where cynics might 
 suppose the human interest of the story to begin, 
 namely, the village of Wimbledon itself. For the 
 limit of Swinburne's walk was the old-fashioned 
 inn known as " The Rose and Crown." Else- 
 where I have described one of my walks with the 
 poet over his beloved common, with the remarks 
 he made to me on his favourite trees. Here I 
 follow him to his favourite inn, and to the shop 
 
 93 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 at which he bought a daily paper and sometimes 
 ordered, from a catalogue, some rare old book 
 which the owner of the shop would procure for him. 
 At both the inn and the shop Swinburne's memory 
 is still cherished with affectionate reverence. 
 
 Visitors will find the exterior of " The Rose 
 and Crown " exactly as it was in the poet's day. 
 The interior has, alas ! been altered out of 
 recognition. I shudder to think what the effect 
 on Swinburne would have been had the architec- 
 tural transformation been effected in his time. 
 The cosy little " coffee room " which he entered 
 from the street has disappeared, and with it has 
 disappeared the chair in which he always sat. But 
 it is in safe keeping ; and I just loved the widow 
 of the late landlord when she told me that she 
 would not part with it for any sum that might be 
 offered. 
 
 When once Swinburne had established himself 
 as a daily customer at " The Rose and Crown " 
 he was spared the usual formality of ordering. 
 From the bar his entry was noted. They had 
 been keeping a look-out for him, and a waiter 
 " entered from without " bearing a bottle of Bass 
 .with a replica of the peculiarly thick tumbler which 
 the Bard used at home. It is related, with a note 
 of tragedy in the recital, how this sacred beaker, 
 
 94 
 
SWINBURNE'S CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 which was kept for his use, was smashed by a care- 
 less barmaid. Unfortunately there was not 
 another such glass in the house. Swinburne was 
 greatly " put out " by the accident. He did not 
 relish his Bass from any other vessel ; was moody 
 and silent during his stay, leaving the place 
 abruptly after but a very short rest. Happily, on 
 the same afternoon a stock of tumblers like that 
 which had been broken was procured, and from 
 the morrow until the end the poet was provided 
 with the vessel that he preferred. 
 
 The cosy little apartment which he used was 
 not much frequented during the time of his visit ; 
 but it was not, of course, a private room, and a 
 stray visitor would sometimes enter it while the 
 poet was in possession. Then one of two things 
 happened. If Swinburne had nearly finished his 
 bottle, he would get up and disappear into 
 the village High Street. If, on the other hand, 
 he had only just begun to refresh himself, he would 
 seek sanctuary in the landlord's private room. As 
 all his movements were watched by the host or 
 his assistants with a really pious solicitude, he 
 would immediately be followed to his retreat by 
 a servant bringing with him the bottle and the 
 glass which the poet had abandoned in the 
 "Coffee Room." It is as well to say here that 
 
 95 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Swinburne's intense love of privacy has given 
 rise to a vast amount of foolish and sometimes 
 spiteful talk about his inaccessibility at The Pines. 
 He was not inaccessible to those he desired to 
 see. 
 
 I have often thought when viewing Swinburne's 
 life at The Pines both before and after my 
 marriage, that Sydney Smith may have been quite 
 wrong in ridiculing the idea of a " Special 
 Providence." For surely some unseen power must 
 have arranged matters for the convenience of the 
 Bard. When he made his first excursions to 
 Wimbledon he at once discovered the very people 
 who seemed intuitively to understand how he 
 wished to be served. These admirable persons 
 may have been entertaining an angel. But they 
 were not entertaining the angel " unawares." 
 As we have seen, he daily found at an Inn (the 
 first and only one he went to at Wimbledon) a 
 host and hbstess who might have been appointed 
 by the Almighty to minister to his needs after the 
 very fashion he desired. 
 
 A little higher up the village High Street 
 he came, during his first exploratoiy ramble, on 
 the shop of a bookseller and stationer. Here he 
 
 96 
 
SWINBURNE'S CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 established himself on an excellent footing with 
 the proprietress, and here, for thirtiy years, he 
 repaired every week day of his life while he ,was 
 living at Putney to buy newspapers. Books he 
 also bought here, and, in December, Christmas 
 cards. Of his Christmas cards I shall have some- 
 thing to say elsewhere. 
 
 When the poet returned from his daily walk, 
 buoyant, excited and invigorated by the exercise, 
 the conversation at lunch often turned on the 
 Wimbledon book-shop and its amiable owner, Miss 
 Frost. Swinburne imagined that he had 
 discovered in her a survival of the gentle, placid, 
 efficient Englishwoman limned in the pages of 
 Jane Austin. Miss Frost knew the identity of her 
 illustrious customer, and was especially anxious to 
 make things pleasant for him. She succeeded 
 marvellously, and Swinburne was quite at ease in 
 her establishment. 
 
 There is a class of hero-worshippers who would 
 intrude on the privacy of an eremite for the sake 
 of telling their friends that they had interviewed 
 " a celebrity." Wimbledon had its proportion 
 of this unpleasant and persistent tribe ; and 
 it would happen sometimes that Swinburne was 
 tracked down by one of these persons. The 
 hunter was usually, I am sorry to say, a woman. 
 Q 97 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 She would come in, and under the pretence of 
 purchasing a " H.B." pencil or a pennyworth 
 of blotting-paper, endeavour to force herself upon 
 the notice of the poet. Miss Frost was prepared 
 for such emergencies, and if the obtrusive " Mrs. 
 Leo Hunter " were not forced to a retreat by the 
 great man's freezing glance, he would escape 
 molestation by withdrawing to the private room 
 of the sympathetic bookseller. It must be ad- 
 mitted that A. C. S was in the habit of accepting 
 considerate attention of this kind too much as a 
 matter of course. But that he was au fond grateful 
 and appreciative I have the very best authority for 
 stating. 
 
 On one occasion an aggressive lady, blessed with 
 one of those voices that are said to " carry,'' 
 actually went up to the poet and expressed a desire 
 to shake hands with him. He glared, irresponsive. 
 She repeated the request, raising her voice to the 
 whole extent of its carrying power. He made 
 a characteristic movement of the shoulders 
 indicative of deafness and despair, and rushed 
 out of the shop. On the following day when he 
 paid his visit to his bookseller, he exclaimed 
 abruptly to Miss Frost : " What a terrible woman 
 that was yesterday ! And oh, what an awful 
 voice!" He had evidently heard the request 
 
SWINBURNE'S CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 of the huntress. The voice had " carried " all 
 right. 
 
 Very curious I thought this desire on the part of 
 people who did not know Swinburne — and of some 
 who did -not even know his works — ^to shake hands 
 .with him. When I went into society, enthusiastic 
 persons with whom my acquaintance was of the 
 thinnest possible kind would come up and say : 
 " Oh, Mrs. Watts-Dunton, could you arrange for 
 my son (or nephew or daughter as the case might 
 be) to caU at The Pines just to shake Mr. 
 Swinburne by the hand." To these I would say : 
 " I will ask Mr, Swinburne and let you know." 
 Of course I never spoke to the poet of these hand- 
 shaking sentimentalists, for he simply loathed their 
 sort of homage and was extremely sensitive on the 
 subject. 
 
 Swinburne had a horror of drawing small 
 cheques. Only with difficulty could he be 
 persuaded to draw one for five pounds ; below that 
 he absolutely refused to go. Periodically he 
 got the bookseller at Wimbledon to change 
 him a cheque for twenty pounds. The money was 
 obtained in gold from the bank at the other side 
 of the street. He took it away in the little canvas 
 bag used by bankers, and this bag, when he 
 returned to The Pines was placed on a shelf 
 
 99 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 in the corner cupboard where he kept his 
 manuscripts. The bag was always open, and so 
 was the cupboard. From this store of gold he 
 drew for his daily requirements until the little bag 
 was empty. Then he would draw another cheque 
 for twenty and get Miss Frost to cash it. For 
 a long series of years, indeed, this lady played the 
 part of a fairy godmother to him. And it is not 
 everybody, I can assure the reader, who is qualified 
 to play fairy godmother to a genius. 
 
 Sometimes the Wimbledon purchases grew 
 to a considerable bulk. Swinburne in a book- 
 seller's was something like a schoolboy in a 
 tuck-shop. Temptation was on all sides of him, 
 and he found it irresistible. For the carriage of 
 his treasures he had two very large pockets in his 
 coat. We called them his " poacher-pockets." 
 One of the self-imposed duties of the kindly 
 bookseller at Wimbledon was to see that these 
 poacher-pockets balanced nicely. The poet 
 himself was not deft in stowing away his 
 purchases ; and with one heavy pocket weighing 
 down on one side and a light one on the other, 
 the walk home across the Common wbuld have 
 been fatiguing even to such an excellent 
 pedestrian. 
 
 I can fancy him now, impatient but tractable, as 
 
 100 
 
SWINBURNE'S CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 he stands while the adjustment of the parcels is 
 proceeded with, his relief when the balance 
 is decided to be " just so," his courtly bow 
 on departure and his quick, springy walk home 
 across the Common. 'And I can see him now as, 
 on his return, he comes into the dining-room, gay 
 and beaming and, to my thinking, beautiful. His 
 eyes would sparkle with sheer delight as he pro- 
 duced some of the morning's " finds." Perhaps it 
 was a rare old volume ordered long since from a 
 catalogue. Perhaps some freakishly small edition 
 of a classic. Dwarf reproductions afforded him 
 infinite pleasure. Perhaps it was a newspaper 
 containing a complimentary notice of some work 
 by a friend, or a notice, equally laudatory, of a 
 writer whose output he despised. The latter he 
 would read in impressive tones, exclaiming at the 
 finish, with a roguish twinkle in his eyes, " I should 
 much like to feel that person's ' bumps.' " This 
 phrenological phrase was often used by him when 
 referring to somebody who, in the direction of 
 bad art, might be regarded as capable de tout. 
 
 During luncheon he would talk brightly, vividly, 
 and at times eloquently, of books and men. With 
 a courtliness which was one of his most delightful 
 characteristics, he would lure me into the con- 
 versation, amusing me with gossip about what he 
 
 101 
 
THE H0M;E life of SWINBURNE 
 
 saw on Wimbledon Common and ask when I next 
 would accompany him on one of his walks. The 
 world will always — and rightly — honour him as a 
 great poet. To me he appealed also as a great 
 gentleman. 
 
 102 
 
w 
 
 H 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A poet's fads 
 
 I BEGIN writing this chapter in that upstairs room 
 at The Pines once known as " Swinburne's 
 Library." From the window: in front of .which 
 I am sitting, the garden on which the poet's eyes 
 so often rested, is in full view. He loved it. Its 
 green refreshed his eyes after poring over his books 
 or working at his manuscript. Spring was a season 
 that always appealed to him. The garden then was 
 a solace and delight. It is Spring now, and the 
 picture has not changed. The high ivy-clad walls, 
 the huge ferns beneath, which came from my 
 husband's home at St. Ives, and the tall trees in 
 the background all look as delightfully verdant as 
 they did in Springs when he was on earth. 
 
 Floriculture was not a hobby with either of the 
 housemates. There are masses of purple iris on 
 either side of the stretch of grass, and we boasted 
 
 103 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 of one rose-tree. It bears the fascinating name 
 of " Hebe's Lips," and was given to me by Lady 
 Leighton- Warren. I planted it by the statue that 
 stands in the middle of the enclosure — a replica of 
 the Vatican Venus, moved from Rossetti's garden 
 at 16, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, to its present 
 position. A thrush is singing somewhere in the 
 fringe of foliage. From the outer world comes 
 the hoot of a motor-horn and the rumble of heavy 
 traffic. In my loneliness the past comes vividly 
 back to me. And here, in this room — dedicated 
 to the greatest poet of the Victorian period — 
 recollections drive on me in waves ; my memory 
 is suddenly like a stream in spate. And the 
 difficulty with me is what to select as memorable 
 and what to reject as trivial. 
 
 Yet can anything that concerns the home life 
 of a poet like Swinburne — a genius so universally 
 acclaimed — be dismissed as trivial? I hope not. 
 For here, in the room that was once his, 
 the memories that crowd in upon me are not those 
 of the maker of glorious song, but those associated 
 iwith the affectionate friend, the lovable 
 companion. His greatness does not concern me. 
 My recollections are all of his httle personal traits, 
 his delightful idiosyncrasies, his fads and fancies — 
 a phase of the poet's personality unknown to the 
 
 104 
 
A POET'S FADS 
 
 outside world. It is of this aspect of Swinburne 
 that I now write, sitting where he often sat, and 
 wondering if he has discovered whether 
 
 His life is a watch or a vision 
 Between a sleep and a sleep. 
 
 Swinburne had no end of " fads." It was a 
 whim of his, for instance, never to allow himself 
 to be measured or fitted by a tailor. There must 
 have been an occasion, of course, and that, too, 
 when he had grown to manhood, when he was 
 obliged to submit to the indignity. And I can 
 imagine his restlessness and irritability when the 
 tape was thrown over and around his person, when 
 chalk marks were made on the "fittings," and 
 when plebeian hands patted his shoulders and fussed 
 over his limbs. But there came a time when he 
 declared he would no longer endure the ordeal. 
 And he never again did. If he wanted a new 
 suit, it had to be made on the model of an old one. 
 The tailor always protested : " I cannot do myself 
 justice," he would say. Whereupon A. C. S. 
 would consign all tailors to fire and brimstone — 
 to everlasting disaster in this world and to eternal 
 damnation in the world to come. The affair 
 would be happily arranged, and the result quite 
 wonderful. The clothes were always an admirable 
 
 105 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 fit, and though it was impossible foi; Swinburne 
 to wear clothes to the best advantage, he always 
 appeared well-dressed. From my woman's point 
 of view, the extraordinary circumstance is that the 
 tailor working under such harassing conditions 
 was able to show such good results. 
 
 Another curious fancy of Swinburne's was 
 about soap. He had discovered — or a friend had 
 discovered for him — a brand known as " Sam- 
 phire Soap," which was extensively advertised by 
 a quotation from " King Lear " : 
 
 Half way down 
 Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade ! 
 
 This precious tablet smelt of the sea. Or was 
 supposed to smell of the sea. A. C. S. believed 
 implicitly that it was highly charged with the active 
 principle of ozone. He sensed the wave in its 
 odour, and the suds in his bath were refreshing to 
 him as the foam of the ocean. Needless to say, 
 " Samphire " soap was a thing of which we never 
 permitted ourselves to " run short." I still keep 
 a cake of it as a souvenir of the happiest time of 
 my life. 
 
 Swinburne seemed constitutionally averse from 
 doing anything himself which he could get others 
 to do for him. For instance, he refused absolutely 
 
 106 
 
A POET'S FADS 
 
 to open himself any letters addressed to him except 
 those from members of his family. This duty 
 ,was supposed to devolve on Walter. But very 
 often it became mine. The handwriting and post- 
 marks sufficiently indicated the family letters, 
 which were given to the Bard unopened. The 
 others were what one would expect — ^letters from 
 admirers, from publishers, from "friends," and 
 a great number from autograph-hunters. With 
 appeals of the last-named the poet's post-bag .was 
 always well supplied — " full measure and running 
 over." Most of these applicants were unknown 
 persons having no claim whatever on the amiability 
 of the poet. Their missives were consigned 
 to the waste-paper basket. We had a printed 
 form which we sent to a selected few. In 
 this Mr. Swinburne " presented his compli- 
 ments " to the writer and regretted that he " was 
 obliged to make it a rule not to supply his 
 autograph. Some of the applicants resented this 
 polite refusal. But what was one to do ? Anyhow, 
 it was comparatively easy to deal with this class 
 of correspondent ; but Swinburne's disinclination 
 to open his letters once had embarrassing conse- 
 quences for me. 
 
 My husband had handed me a batch of letters 
 which from their covers appeared to be of the usual 
 
 107 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 circular sort, or of the autograph-hunting variety, 
 and I proceeded to open them mechanically. Then I 
 came to a politely-worded letter from Lord Curzon 
 to the poet. This, I at once felt, placed itself 
 in the same category as communications from the 
 family — a missive which should have been opened 
 only by A. C. S. himself. 'At once I jumped up 
 and ran with it to Walter. Although my husband 
 never in his life said an unkind word to me, I 
 judged from his expression that he was greatly 
 annoyed and distressed. He desired me to go to 
 Swinburne myself and explain the matter. I 
 went. I anticipated some irritation on the part 
 of the addressee of the note — perhaps words of 
 rebuke and reproach. Nothing of the kind 
 happened. He took the letter from me, read it, 
 smiled at my expressions of apology and regret, 
 and declared in his urbane way, " I am so sorry 
 you should feel troubled over so trifling a thing. 
 I will answer the letter myself after I have shown 
 it to Walter." Days elapsed before the answer 
 vy^as written. He came into our room with it and 
 handed it to my husband. " Do you think this 
 will do? "he asked. No one could have guessed 
 from his casual manner that the letter was of any 
 particular importance. It was, however, his reply 
 to Lord Curzon delicately but definitely declining 
 
 lOB 
 
A POET'S FADS 
 
 the honorary degree offered by his old University 
 of Oxford. 
 
 Swinburne's preference for a large foolscap 
 paper of an unusually deep blue will be recollected 
 by those who have seen his MSS. Ream upon 
 ream of this stationery must have been used up 
 during the years of his life passed at The Pines. 
 It was as permanent a household requirement as 
 the " Samphire " soap. Perhaps, like that toilet 
 requisite, it reminded him of the sea. 
 
 No doubt the reader will find it hard to visualise 
 the poet as a leader of fashion. Nevertheless, it 
 has to be recorded that in one article of attire he 
 set the mode. He was the pioneer of the 
 starchless collar and soft-fronted shirt, for he wore 
 them years before I was born. In the period to 
 which he always referred as " when I was a kid 
 at Eton," he had stiffness enough in his linen to 
 last him a lifetime). Freed from the tyranny 
 of the Eton " house " laundress, he forswore 
 starch and had the courage to sacrifice glossiness 
 for comfort. It is something to have lived to see 
 unstarched body-linen become as popular as the 
 " Poems and Ballads." 
 
 Fancies ought not to be confounded with fads, 
 
 109 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 but they have a sort of cousinship with them and 
 are not altogether inappropriate to this chapter. 
 Let me therefore say something here about 
 Swinburne's taste in newspapers. 
 
 Lord Burnham may be interested to learn that 
 Swinburne's morning paper was the Daily 
 Telegraph. The Bard had no sympathy :what- 
 ever for Matthew Arnold's fine disdain for this 
 organ ; he attributed it to jealousy. Arnold — 
 he told my husband — was wroth because the Daily 
 Telegraph was edited for years " by a fellow of 
 the same name." He would maliciously add " and 
 I understand that both these journalists employ 
 their moments of leisure in writing verses." The 
 Telegraph appealed to him as a youth. " There is 
 too much PTe-ishness about The Times, ^' I once 
 heard him say, the allusion being of course to the 
 stately editorial " We " of the leading article. On 
 another occasion a friend quoted to him a Times 
 article in which the "We" of Printing House 
 Square administered a solemn warning to a certain 
 foreign power. " It reminds me," said Swinburne, 
 " of an editorial article in an Irish paper called the 
 Skibbereen Eagle. The article began, " We have 
 our eye on Russia." 
 
 Readers of Swinburne's poetry know that, for 
 a poet, he was exceptionally interested in politics. 
 
 110 
 
A POET'S FADS 
 
 They might think, however, that his interest 
 depended on sudden excitements inflaming his 
 patriotism or his repubUcanism. On the contrary, 
 he was steadily interested in the pohtical affairs of 
 the world and discussed them daily with my 
 husband. 
 
 In the progress of science, strangely enough, 
 he took not the faintest interest, and Walter used 
 often to say to me that it was useless to try to 
 discuss a scientific subject with Algernon as it only 
 bored him. 
 
 In the afternoon the Bard had the Pall Mall 
 Gazette. If that evening paper failed to arrive at its 
 appointed time, he grew quite restless, pacing up 
 and down his room and exhibiting other symptoms 
 of impatience. It came and there was silence. 
 He liked to read the book-notices, and as far as 
 my personal knowledge of his newspaper reading 
 goes, I can vouch for the absorbing interest which 
 he would take in a paragraph, such as would appear 
 now and then in the Pall Mall Gazette, recording 
 the death of a centenarian or nonagenarian. When 
 he happened on one, of these stimulating items, he 
 woluld hurry down to us, paper in hand, and in a 
 joyous mood read and remark on some paragraph 
 like this : " Mrs. So-and-So has just died at the 
 age of ninety-nine in full possession of all her 
 
 111 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 faculties. Ah ! How very wonderful ! So splendid 
 of her! Quite beats my aunt Ju.^^ Swinburne's 
 "Aunt Ju" was invariably trotted out when 
 remarkably old ladies became a topic of conversa- 
 tion. Miss Julia Swinburne ("Aunt Ju ") was 
 one of his favourite aunts and a fine artist. She 
 was a pupil of Turner, and actually painted in the 
 open air when she was nearly ninety. The poet's 
 naive joy in these simple notices was on one 
 occasion transferred into extravagant anger. He 
 had come across an obituary notice headed " Death 
 of a Centenarian." It was a rather long obituary. 
 So he swooped down upon us before going through 
 it, his face radiant — full of the rapture of a great 
 discovery. He began to read. The providential 
 preservation of the old man's faculties, the facility 
 with which he " read the smallest print without 
 the aid of spectacles" — all these things were added 
 to our stock of useless knowledge. And then came 
 the words — unexpected by us and certainly not 
 anticipated by the reader — " As a yOuth he had 
 met the Great Napoleon. Ugh!!" Anyone curious 
 to know of what heights of violent vituperation the 
 poetic soul is capable should have heard one of 
 Swinburne's tirades when the name of a Bonaparte 
 was mentioned. Words and combinations of 
 words, weird but picturesque, issued from his 
 
 112 
 
A POET'S FADS 
 
 mouth like flames from a burning chimney. 
 The old man was forgotten — his centenarianism 
 appealed no more, his " faculties " and his mastery 
 of small print were no longer of the slightest 
 interest. The denunciation to which I listened 
 might have been uttered by a bargee with a liberal 
 knowledge of the beautiful Billingsgate of the 
 Porch. To me the experience had all the delight 
 of novelty, but after several similar exhibitions, I 
 began to wonder how a man could work himself 
 into such a passion about anything as Swinburne 
 invariably achieved at the mention of a Bonaparte. 
 Even Victor Hugo's literary castigation of 
 Napoleon III is mild compared with Swinburne's 
 impromptu diatribes against the first and the last 
 emperors of that name. 
 
 The Bard was noticeably addicted to the use of 
 catchwords. Mrs. Gamp supplied him with several. 
 A phrase having struck him as acutely humorous, 
 he would seize upon it, repeat it, domesticate it, 
 so to speak, and thenceforth trot it out on 
 innumerable occasions. One example must 
 suffice here. He was immensely tickled by the 
 remark alleged to have been made by Charlotte 
 Bronte's father when " Jane Eyre " was acclaimed 
 by the critics. The remark, addressed to Emily 
 and Anne, was " Charlotte has been writing a 
 
 H 113 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 book, and it is much better than likely." This 
 afforded the poet ecstasies of delight. He disliked 
 parsons, and he rejoiced in obtaining from 
 the Brontes' clerical father ,what he regai;ded as 
 a matchless specimen of critical and parsOnical 
 ineptitude. Hence jvhen some remarkable .work 
 was mentioned in the Bard's presence, he 
 immediately fired off his "it is much better than 
 likely " or " it's rather better than likely " with 
 all the pleasure of a schoolboy conscious of 
 doing something impish. In moods like this — 
 never displayed before visitors — ^he was quite 
 adorable. 
 
 Very characteristic of him are the marginalia 
 which he occasionally jotted against passages that 
 excited him to comment while reading. As a rule 
 these scribblings were not intended to be critical 
 in any serviceable way ; they were, for the most 
 part, mere tokens of a mood, flippant or not as the 
 case might be. Perhaps the note ;would be merely 
 an interjection. From this you would infer just 
 how the passage opposite to it had affected him. 
 He hated anytliing unctuous or hypocritical. 
 When he wished to indicate a passage which struck 
 him as reeking abominably of oily hypocrisy, he 
 would write on the margin, "Ah! " An ironic 
 use of "Alas! " appears elsewhere; and, opposite 
 
 114 
 
A POET'S FADS 
 
 a text of Scripture quoted in a pamphlet, he has 
 written a la Mrs. Gamp, " Sich was his Bible 
 language ! " 
 
 How many things come back to me now as I 
 gaze into the deserted garden ! 
 
 115 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE BARD AS A MAN OF BUSINESS 
 
 In some respects Algernon Swinburne was quite 
 business-like. In the ordering of his daily life he 
 was as methodical as a city man. His hours were 
 fixed and he was punctuality itself in observing 
 them. He knew the place of every book on every 
 shelf in his library. His manuscript was always 
 ready to his hand. If he laid down a book he had 
 been reading, he would take it up again, perhaps 
 days afterwards, and re-commence reading at the 
 place where he had left off. Were method and 
 punctuality the only qualities demanded from a 
 man of affairs, his equipment would have been 
 perfect. But there are others essential to the 
 complete city man. And in these he was 
 deficient. 
 
 Money holds a very important place in the 
 transactions of business men — even where money 
 
 116 
 
THE BARD AS A MAN OF BUSINESS 
 
 does not pass in coin or cheques. I have been told 
 that a mere nod from a great financial operator 
 may mean the transfer of hundreds of thousands 
 of pounds. To the poet such a tale would appeal 
 only as an example of Oriental magic, if indeed 
 he did not dismiss it as grotesque. In the small 
 monetary transactions of daily life the Bard was 
 hopelessly incompetent. To him money was 
 merely good hard coin. I believe the paper 
 currency of to-day would have maddened him, and 
 that John Bradbury or N. K. Warren Fisher 
 would have become the constant object of his 
 picturesque vituperation. Amounts on paper were 
 unrealities to him. His neglect of dividend 
 warrants and publishers' cheques was amazing. 
 
 Here for instance is a letter — there are others 
 of a similar kind — ^from his long-sixffering 
 publishers. It is dated 10th January, 1901 : 
 
 Dear Mr. Swinburne, 
 
 On looking through our pass-book, we noted that the 
 cheque we sent you for £200-11-9, drawn in your favour 
 on July 5th, 1900, for royalties then due, has not been 
 passed into the bankers, although the one for £115-9-9 
 which we sent you last week, has been duly presented and 
 paid. 
 
 As our previous cheque may have been lost, or 
 inadvertently overlooked, we think it best to bring the 
 
 117 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 matter under your notice. We shall be happy to issue a 
 duplicate if you are unable to lay your hands upon the 
 missing cheque — which we shall then instruct our bankers 
 to cancel, should it by any chance hereafter be presented 
 to them for payment. 
 
 With kind regards, 
 
 We are, dear Mr. Swinburne, 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 ChATTO & WiNDUS. 
 
 I am not in a position to say what reply was sent 
 to this particular letter, but it is certain that even 
 a letter of this kind, a model of courtesy, would 
 sometimes excite Swinburne to wrath. It would 
 interrupt and bore him ; and, hating to be inter- 
 rupted, or bored, he would consign, in a burst of 
 rhetoric, publishers and bankers, their methods 
 and their pejrsons to every conceivable sort of 
 Inferno. But this explosion would not be followed 
 by any attempt to make a search for the missing 
 document. Nor was the polite letter from the pub- 
 lishers usually regarded by him as anything calling 
 for reply or acknowledgment. Eventually, and 
 in despair, the firm would write to my husband 
 imploring his assistance and advice. A search would 
 then be made, and the cheque would, perhaps, be; 
 discovered tucked away with any old rubbish ; or 
 perhaps the document would have disappeared 
 
 118 
 
THE BARD AS A MAN OF BUSINESS 
 
 from the face of the earth and the promised 
 dupUcate would be forwarded in due course. 
 
 Swinburne's relations with Messrs. Chatto and 
 Windus were fundamentally excellent. They 
 were his publishers from 1878 to his death, and 
 Mr. Andrew Chatto attended his funeral. 
 
 I have said enough concerning the poet's 
 ineptitude as a man of business. I have now to 
 speak of the business faculty which he showed in 
 arranging his life's routine at The Pines. The 
 programme was his own, laid down in the days 
 when he and my husband were both bachelors, and 
 it was adhered to with pathetic fidelity. Nor was 
 there anything in the assignment of hours that 
 called for alteration when I — little more than a 
 girl in years — became chatelaine at The Pines. 
 
 At about ten o'clock a.m. the poet came down 
 from his bedroom and went into his library on the 
 first floor. Here breakfast was at dnce served. 
 He desired always to breakfast alone. One of his 
 little fads was to have his coffee made in an old 
 silver coffee-pot, engraved with his initials, his 
 companion since his not particularly joyous 
 'Varsity days. He then glanced at the daily paper. 
 At eleven o'clock or thereabouts he was ready for 
 
 119 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 his .walk to Wimbledbn. This, I think, was to him 
 the great event of the day. He thoroughly 
 enjoyed the exercise, and to his business-like 
 regularity in adhering to this daily practice must 
 be mainly attributed the excellent health he 
 enjoyed. He went out in all weathers. He 
 absolutely refused to encumber himself with an 
 overcoat, umbrella or gloves. One might as well 
 have offered an umbrella to an antelope or 
 mountain goat. 
 
 Towards one-thirty, he returned from his walk, 
 rushed upstairs to his bedroom with the elas- 
 ticity and noise of a boy, and changed all his 
 under-garments. The poet's laundry bill was a 
 formidable document — such dozens of shirts ! 
 Swinburne's passionate desire for personal clean- 
 liness is inconsistent with artistic Bohemia and its 
 traditions. Fresh as the proverbial daisy, at half- 
 past one he would bound into the dining-room, 
 ready for lunch, and eager to talk of his adventures, 
 his purchases, and his experiences generally. 
 
 Here, as illustrating a self-control with which 
 he is seldom credited, I record his avoidance 
 of those dishes which he knew from experience 
 were not good for him. For instance, he 
 avoided shell-fish, although he liked it. Lobster 
 or crab was never served. I remember once 
 
 120 
 
THE BARD AS A MAN OF BUSINESS 
 
 buying some aspic jelly which I made into 
 moulds with very pink shrimps showing through 
 the gelatinous transparency. He was immensely 
 pleased with the appearance of the dainty. " How 
 very pretty those little things look — almost too 
 pretty to eat !" was his comment. " 'But I think 
 I must this time because you prepared it." 
 
 Lunch at an end, the next item was the siesta. 
 For this he retired to his bedroom. It lasted until 
 about four, at which hour he descended to his 
 library and read or wrote until six. Next to that 
 of his morning walk, six o'clock was the hour he 
 anticipated with the greatest delight. Punctually 
 to the minute, he would announce himself in our 
 sitting-room downstairs, armed with the volume in 
 which he was interested at the time. It was usually 
 a work of Dickens — for the poet was a devoted 
 Dickensian. At first, let me confess, the evening 
 reading bored me, and I frequently avoided being 
 present. But when I saw the pleasure that 
 reciting his favourite " bits " afforded the poet, I 
 submitted with a good grace and even experienced 
 a sort of reflected pleasure in the exercise, 
 although the function usually lasted for an hour 
 and three-quarters — something of a trial for one 
 who is young and accustomed to the ordinary 
 pleasures of youth. 
 
 121 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 At eight o'clock, the reading having lasted until 
 a quarter to that hour, we moved to the dining- 
 room for the evening meal, and, that being over, 
 Swinburne went up to his library to browse among 
 his books. 
 
 Such was the daily routine, and my husband was 
 anxious that it should be observed with the most 
 religious particularity. Any slight departure 
 from the daily round affected Walter more than 
 it affected his friend. My husband never exhibited 
 any signs of annoyance or impatience, but I, who 
 read him, knew. For himself it mattered nothing. 
 All his fear was lest the Bard should be " put 
 out " by any slight departure from the appointed 
 happenings. The visits of friends, either of 
 Swinburne or of my husband, were not permitted 
 to make any difference in the settled programme. 
 " The Hours " were regarded as sacred at The 
 Pines. 
 
 Although the Bard exhibited a really unheard-of 
 carelessness in dealing with cheques for consider- 
 able sums, he had a curious business instinct in 
 asserting his commercial rights in small matters. 
 For instance, when he ordered a recently-published 
 book he always demanded the once obtainable 
 
 122 
 
THE BARD AS A MAN OF BUSINESS 
 
 discount of three pence in the shilling. And when 
 he ordered an old book from a catalogue, he 
 declined to refund the postage, observing that the 
 bookseller from whom he ordered received from 
 the dealer a commission which should cover any 
 charges of carriage. Not so bad for a poet, I 
 have often thought. 
 
 I end this chapter with an amusing example of 
 his more peculiar methods of transacting business. 
 He loathed coppers in change — ^unless they were 
 quite new and bright. This dislike was not, I 
 imagine, mere caprice, but arose from that passiop 
 for cleanliness which was part of his nature. 
 Coppers looked dirty, and probably were associated 
 in his mind with the dirty hands and dirty pockets 
 with which they had come into contact during 
 circulation. Now, he purchased at Wimbledon 
 every day a copy of the Daily Graphic. It was 
 not always convenient to buy five penny-worth 
 of something else and so make up the sum to six- 
 pence. So between them the accommodating 
 newsagent and the poet hit upon the following 
 device. On Monday morning Swinburne wovdd 
 tender a sixpence for Eis daily newspaper, and the 
 vendor would give him in change five beautiful 
 new pennies. These he placed in a waistcoat 
 pocket by themselves and on each of the five 
 
 123 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 succeeding days of the week he would tender a 
 penny out of this reserve, which would of course 
 be exhausted on the Saturday. Then on the 
 following Monday a sixpence would again be 
 tendered, and a similar set of clean pennies be 
 given in change. 
 
 Swinburne's explanation to the newsvendor of 
 this method of purchase was softened by the 
 remark that the five pennies made a sort of coin- 
 calendar for the week. When the waistcoat 
 pocket was empty, he knew that the day was 
 Saturday and that the dreaded Sunday loomed 
 ahead. 
 
 A business man — of sorts — was the poet, but a 
 boy always. 
 
 124 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SWINBURNE S HUMOUR 
 
 Save in the brilliant parodies collected in " The 
 Heptalogia," there is little trace of humour in 
 the poetry of Swinburne. Even in the dramas it is 
 very sparingly employed. His prose contains witty 
 passages and even a disguised " Limerick," yet 
 the general impression left by the perusal of 
 Swinburne's works is not that of a naturally 
 humorous person. The fact is, however, that he 
 possessed a keen sense of humour. Like his other 
 gifts, his humour was Swinburnian, in other words, 
 his own. As I recall it now, it appears to have 
 had three principal manifestations. There was his 
 mordant humour ; his playful humour ; his practical 
 humour. 
 
 I shall pass lightly over the first of these. It 
 was reserved for persons or things distasteful to 
 him. He was that " good hater " for whom Dr. 
 
 125 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Johnson professed a love. Indeed, I very much 
 question whether the great lexicographer ever met 
 a man quite as eloquent as Swinburne in the 
 expression of his hatred. I sometimes felt as I 
 heard him that he did not really hate the victim 
 so much as his language implied. When he 
 heartily meant his abuse, there was no mistaking 
 the animus behind his words. Picturesque, 
 extravagant, and full of unexpected phrases, his 
 denunciations were delightful to those whose 
 withers were not wrung. Often they would send 
 Walter and me into fits of laughter, laughter in 
 which the Bard would join with the utmost 
 abandon. These exhibitions of humorous wrath 
 were much less charming when they were made 
 in conversation with visitors. They had whatever 
 fun could be got out of his unsparing severity to 
 offending contemporaries, but they were not 
 regaled by any playfulness : they heard or saw 
 none of those inimitable imitations of the 
 idiosyncrasies of his victim which we of the house- 
 hold were privileged to enjoy. Before the 
 stranger within the gates he set bounds to his 
 fancies. With us he " let himself go." 
 
 I refrain from mentioning the names of persons 
 still living at whom he was accustomed to fling 
 his humorous gibes. But of those who have died 
 
 126 
 
SWINBURNE'S HUMOUR 
 
 I may mention Mr. James Anthony Froude as 
 the subject of some of his most amusing outbursts. 
 Swinburne simply loathed Froude, and if ridicule 
 could kill, the eminent historian would have been 
 gathered to his fathers long before the date at 
 which he joined the great majority, I suppose — 
 though the poet never actually said so — that his 
 hatred of Froude was aroused originally by that 
 historian's description of the person and estimate 
 of the character of Mary, Queen of Scots. 
 
 Swinburne's playful humour was called forth 
 by incidents he witnessed during his morning 
 rambles and also by items in the daily papers. He 
 would hunt about in odd comers for those little 
 " fill-up " paragraphs which the general reader is 
 apt to overlook. His " finds " in this field were an 
 unfailing source of interest and mirth. He would 
 rush down to us w:hen he found something that 
 tickled his fancy, read out the precious paragraph, 
 fire off a humorous comment, and rush off again. 
 
 Nothing amused him more than the proceedings 
 of the Church Congress when that ecclesiastical 
 assembly held its meetings at the Albert Hall ; 
 or perhaps I should say that nothing amused him 
 so much as the letters appearing in the correspon- 
 dence colunans of the Daily Telegraph commenting 
 on those proceedings. These letters were a real 
 
 127 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 joy to him day after day, and when they ceased 
 he was quite gloomy for a time. The letters from 
 curates on such subjects as " The Cure of Souls " 
 and " Disheartened Clergy " he read and re-read. 
 He caught the ordinary Oxford-bred curate's 
 brassy tone with wonderful accuracy. I can recall 
 even now his rendering of a passage from a corres- 
 pondent who was not a clergyman. Swinburne 
 gave it out with a wicked joyousness. The writer 
 said : — " There are rectors who in a very few years 
 have contrived to make almost every member of 
 their flock hate the inside of a Church." 
 
 When I complimented A. C. S. on his really fine 
 imitation of a priest intoning, " Did you not 
 know," he asked, " that I disappointed my family 
 by not entering the Church? Can you not imagine 
 Walter and myself in Holy Orders?" — this with a 
 perfectly idiotic sigh. It struck me at the moment 
 as being merely a joke. Walter subsequently 
 informed me, however, that it was a statement of 
 sober truth. The Church, I am sure, did not lose 
 much ; and the world has gained, inter alia, the 
 " Hymn to Proserpine," which would scarcely 
 have been in good taste had it come from the study 
 of a curate, in spite of the fact that we are indebted 
 to a Catholic priest for the beautiful story of 
 " Manon Lescaut." 
 
 128 
 
SWINBURNE'S HUMOUR 
 
 By Swinburne's practical humour I do not mean 
 elaborated practical joking of the kind that 
 Theodore Hook and E. A. Sothern indulged in. 
 Swinburne's practical jokes usually took a literary 
 turn. I select a couple of examples, in both of 
 which his object was apparently to excite my sur- 
 prise and curiosity concerning something which in 
 itself was not likely to arouse emotion of any sort. 
 
 The first of these jokes occurred some time after 
 my marriage, when the poet and I were on 
 perfectly easy terms. He came downstairs one 
 evening holding a little book. He seldom arrived 
 without a book, big or little, in his hand. He 
 proposed to read to us from " The Seven Poor 
 Travellers " of Dickens. Swinburne's face was 
 much more easy to read than some of the books on 
 his shelves. 'And it was not dijQBcult to see now 
 that there was mischief of some sort brewing. 
 There was an air of mystery about him as he 
 glanced with a sly expression from Walter to me. 
 In this instance it was not with me a case of 
 " forewarned, forearmed. ' ' The joke came off, and 
 I was fairly "had" — as Cockneys say. 
 
 He opened the little book and made what 
 lecturers call " a few preliminary remarks " on 
 the pecuUar merits of " The Seven Poor 
 Travellers " and the brutal density of i^eaders of 
 
 I 129 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Dickens who know nothing of this wonderful little 
 work of his. The ignorance of the average reader 
 did not appear to me so extraordinary when he told 
 us that the work consisted of eight chapters — ^the 
 first and the last being by Charles Dickens and 
 the other six by members of the staff of Household 
 Words, of which "The Seven Poor Travellers" 
 was issued as a Christmas number. George 
 Augustus Sala and Wilkie Collins were among the 
 contributors. Both these writers were favourites 
 with the poet. For Sala's work he always pro- 
 fessed a tremendous admiration — a circumstance 
 which will come as a blow to those devotees whb 
 picture the Bard as eternally jvallowing either in 
 Hugo or in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. And 
 a sight of the rows of "yellow backs" in 
 Swinburne's bedroom would probably have 
 horrified those who imagined that only "the old 
 nobility " of the world of books was interesting 
 to him. 
 
 To return, however, to my anecdote : having 
 concluded his prefatory remarks, Swinburne began 
 to read. The opening sentence to " The Seven 
 Poor Travellers " goes thus : 
 
 Strictly speaking there were only six Poor Travellers; 
 but being a traveller myself, though an idle one, and being 
 withal as poor as I hope to be, I brought the number up 
 
 130 
 
SWINBURNE'S HUMOUR 
 
 to seven. This word of explanation is due at once, for 
 what says the inscription over the quaint old door? 
 
 RICHARD WATTS, ESQ., 
 
 by his Will dated 22 Aug. 1597 
 
 founded this charity 
 
 for Six Poor Travellers, 
 
 who not being^ ROGUES or PROCTORS, 
 
 May secure gratis for one NIGHT 
 
 Lodging, Entertainment, 
 
 and Four pence each.- 
 
 All this elaborate prefacing, this air of mystifica- 
 tion seemed to enhance the effect of a substitution 
 of one Christian name for another in the first line 
 of the inscription relating to the charity of the 
 eccentric Rochester testator. Swinburne paused 
 before he perpetrated his joke. A flush appeared 
 on his cheeks. His eyes twinkled. Then he 
 uttered the words " Walter Watts." I confess 
 I was completely taken in. I was in no sense of 
 the word a Dickensian ; and before Swinburne 
 read it, was utterly ignorant of " The Seven Poor 
 Travellers." 
 
 Taking his manner in connection with the matter 
 which he had read to us, I came to the conclusion 
 that the Walter Watts of the altered inscription 
 was some ancestor of the Walter Theodore Watts 
 to whom I was married — the very misconception 
 
 131 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 which Swinburne meant to create. His joke 
 having succeeded, he took no further Hberties 
 with Dickens's text. It was not until Swinburne 
 left the room that I discovered how he had 
 imposed upon me. 
 
 The Bard's second attempt to get off a little joke 
 at my expense was not so successful as its fore- 
 runner. One day Walter asked me to read out 
 to him from " Chambers's Cyclopaedia of Enghsh 
 Literature " the account given of Maturin, the 
 author of " Melmoth the Wanderer." I had just 
 finished doing this when Swinburne came into the 
 robm. He looked over my shoulder to see what 
 I had been reading. His eye caught, on the top 
 of the page preceding that upon which I had been 
 at work, the name Matthew Gregory Lewis. 
 Instead of plunging into the merits and demerits 
 of " Melmoth," as I had half expected he would 
 have done, he politely asked me to give him the 
 volume. As he took it, he said, " I should so 
 much like to read you the most wonderful ballad 
 of the Eighteenth Century." I professed myself 
 delighted and was preparing myself for the enjoy- 
 ment of an intellectual treat. However, I noticed 
 that the two friends exchanged glances. My 
 husband had his tongue in his cheek, and 
 Swinburne's eyes were beginning to dance with 
 
 132 
 
SWINBURNE'S HUMOUR 
 
 mischief. I recognised the symptoms. Experience 
 had made me wary. I was not to be " had " a 
 second time. 
 
 As was his wont he began with a little prelude. 
 He explained the properties of the ballad, and 
 desired that in listening to this example of ballad 
 literature I should pay particular attention to the 
 awful fate that overtook the heroine. I dare say 
 a good many readers know the poem. Some of 
 them, perhaps, like it. But few, I imagine, ever 
 got a tenth part of the fun out of it that Swinburne 
 did on that occasion. His only failure was in 
 pretending that h^ was dealing ,with " the most 
 wonderful ballad of the Eighteenth Century." 
 For I knew " Alonzo the Brave and the 
 Fair Imogene " perfectly well, and, with all my 
 limitations, was capable of noting the difference 
 between the dross and the gold of literature. 
 Swinburne exhibited unbounded humour in his 
 delivery of this grotesquely sensational poem. As 
 its vogue is over, I quote two of its seventeen 
 stanzas. The ballad begins : 
 
 A warrior so bold, and a virgin so bright. 
 
 Conversed as they sat on the green; 
 They gazed on each other with tender dehght : 
 Alonzo the Brave was the name of the Knight — 
 
 The maiden's the Fair Imogene. 
 133 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 And this is the last stanza : 
 
 While they drink out of skulls newly torn from the grave, 
 
 Dancing round them the spectres are seen ; 
 Their liquor is blood, and this horrible stave 
 They howl : " To the health of Alonzo the Brave, 
 And his consort, the Fair Imogene." 
 
 " Monk " Lewis here brought gruesomeness to 
 a climax. His ballad naturally lends itself to 
 burlesque, and in burlesque I first made its 
 acquaintance. But no burlesque of this " most 
 wonderful ballad " could outdo Swinburne's serio- 
 comic rendering. He seemed to revel in the grim 
 idiocy of Lewis's incidents and situations. He 
 had enough sympathy with the macabre to take 
 some gruesome stories seriously ; but Alonzo and 
 Imogene were altogether too much for his sepse 
 of the ludicrous to remain dormant under the pro- 
 vocation of their remarkable woes. The tone he 
 adopted in rendering the lines which he most 
 desired to ridicule resembled the pecuUar unctuous 
 drawl of an intoning curate — the long O's being 
 dwelt on and drawn out in a highly diverting 
 manner. 
 
 He achieved a tour de force in the recitation of 
 the crowning stanza, which he made a crescendo 
 of gruesome horror. I shall never forget that 
 
 134 
 
SWINBURNE'S HUMOUR 
 
 amazing performance. The Bard as an entertainer 
 was at his best. The accidental nature of the 
 reading increased its charm. I never heard him 
 revert to Lewis's ballad again ; but this single 
 recitation was enough to prove to me beyond all 
 doubt that Swinburne's sense of humour was 
 exceptionally keen and alert. 
 
 135 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SWINBURNE THE DICKENSIAN 
 
 Any description of the home life of Swinburne 
 that omitted to mention Dickens, would be 
 grievously incomplete. The author of the 
 "Pickwick Papers " was simply adored by the 
 poet, who was as much at extremes in his admira- 
 tions as in his dislikes. My husband also admired 
 the great Victorian novelist's works, though in a 
 less ardent degree. Thus, during my married life, 
 I lived more or less in a Dickens atmosphere, but 
 I was bom more than a decade too late to share 
 the enthusiasm of those who read Dickens while 
 he was still alive. I had escaped the glamour 
 which "the inimitable " shed upon contempor- 
 aries. I belong to a generation which has set up 
 other demigods, the worship of whom would be 
 regarded by the true Dickensian as mere idolatry. 
 Nevertheless, I can understand the devotional 
 
 136 
 
SWINBURNE THE DICKENSIAN 
 
 enthusiasm of those who lived while Dickens was 
 still writing, putting forth — as he himself 
 expressed it — his two green leaves a month. They 
 would feel, as younger people could not, the truth 
 to life of Dickens's characters, and the realism of 
 the descriptions of scenes which have changed. 
 The great " Dust Heap " of oblivion which, like 
 Mr. Boffin's mounds, are supposed to contain so 
 much that is valuable, is not a dust heap to every- 
 body. The contemporaries of Dickens breathed 
 his atmosphere. We others are mentally too 
 removed from it to enjoy it as perhaps it deserves. 
 Unfortunately the Dickens readings to which 
 Swinburne so insistently treated us were not at all 
 calculated to create an enthusiasm. Even his 
 recitation of the dialogues between Sarah Gamp 
 and Betsy Prig failed to move me and the amours 
 of Mrs. Corney and the Beadle left me cold. At 
 school I had gone through a course of elocution. 
 I had " taken " to it, and was reported by my 
 instructor to show unusual aptitude. Therefore, 
 my attitude to reciters was, in a way, that of an 
 expert. When I found that, in his rendering of 
 Dickens, A. C. S. ruthlessly disregarded all the 
 rules of the game as I had been taught to play it, 
 I was first surprised, then bored, but finally — such 
 is the influence of a remarkable person, apart from 
 
 137 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 the success or failure of .what he happens to be 
 doing when one observes him — I became inter- 
 ested. 
 
 Swinburne's voice was curiously unsuited to the 
 interpretation of Dickens. I was amazed to read 
 that he possessed a "rich contralto! " To my 
 thinking the quality of his voice was distinctly 
 male, verging on falsetto when he was excited and 
 on its high notes. At its best, it was musical 
 and sometimes tender. He did not command 
 many tones, and his voice, in later life at any rate, 
 had an ineradicable metallic quality which inter- 
 fered with its flexibility. And when the reader 
 was carried away by the pathos or the passion or 
 the rollicking humour of his author, he had 
 a tendency to rise to a kind of involuntary shriek, 
 unpleasant to hear. 
 
 I confess that I w:ent through a stage of boredom 
 during these readings from Dickens — one might 
 almost say, these Dickensian devotions. Happily 
 this stage did not last long. The unalloyed satis- 
 faction, sometimes intensified to obvious rapture, 
 which the reading of his favourite writer of fiction 
 gave the poet, evoked a sympathetic response from 
 his audience of two One could not witness his 
 
 138 
 
SWINBURNE THE DICKENSIAN 
 
 excessive aflfeetion for the Dickens characters 
 without being moved by a kindred feeling. In 
 spite of his natural defects as an elocutionist, 
 Swinburne's peculiar manner of reading grew 
 upon you. You endured, you tolerated, and at 
 last you enjoyed and looked forward to it. 
 
 Moreover, his elocutionary exhibitions gave me 
 furiously to think. How came it that a man of 
 Swinburne's temperament, tastes, classical equip- 
 ment, and high poetic achievement should have 
 come so completely under the thraldom of 
 Dickens ? What in the name of wonder could the 
 author of "Atalanta in Calydon " and "Ave 
 atque Vale " have in common with the writer of 
 " Martin Chuzzlewit " and the " Pickwick 
 Papers "? 
 
 Some minor resemblances I have not failed to 
 note. Both these great writers, for instance, 
 wrote from time to time in dramatic form. 
 Neither wrote successfully for the stage. Here 
 let me point out that it has been stated that 
 " Locrine " was the only work by Swinburne to 
 be played in his lifetime, whereas the fact is that 
 " Atalanta " was staged in 1907, although he 
 himself took precious little interest in the 
 production. It is quite true that in his later years 
 A. C. S. disclaimed any desire to see his plays 
 
 139 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 staged. 'Almost the only time that I knew him 
 to be cross with me was in connection with his 
 uncomplimentary attitude to the theatre. He had 
 been reading to me from " The Duke of 
 Gandia," and when he came to the culminating 
 point of the wonderful last act, I could not help 
 exclaiming, "What a splendid curtain!" He 
 put down the book, regarded me freezingly, and 
 said in a tone of grave rebuke, " I never write for 
 the stage." I knew him pretty well by this time. 
 I knew all about the attempt that had been made 
 to get " Bothwell " acted — ^had indeed pored over 
 a copy of that work which had been cut about, 
 altered, and enriched by stage directions. So I 
 did not take the rebuke lying down. On the 
 contrary, I stood up to the poet, argued the point 
 with him, and saw his little mood of irritation pass 
 and his old boyish spirit return. He was quite 
 abashed at having had the temerity to rebuke me, 
 and when I told him that both Walter and I con- 
 sidered " Chastelard " had splendid dramatic 
 moments and ought to be put on the boards, he 
 looked extremely pleased and never attempted to 
 contradict me. 
 
 Both Dickens and Swinburne loved an audience. 
 Swinburne would go on reading to an audience of 
 two persons for hours. Dickens, as is well known, 
 
 140 
 
SWINBURNE THE DICKENSIAN 
 
 made large sums of money by his public readings. 
 The difference between the readers was of course 
 greatly in favour of the novelist. Dickens was a 
 born actor. His voice, we have been told, was 
 capable of wonderful inflections and his mastery 
 over the sympathies of his audience magnetic 
 and irresistible. Almost all that Dickens was 
 in this respect Swinburne was not. But the 
 attitude towards the audience in bbth men was 
 the same. 
 
 What are known as " socialistic leanings " 
 characterised both the novelist and the poet. Both 
 had ideals and envisaged a socialism that would 
 ameliorate the condition of the poor without 
 putting an undue strain on the social system as 
 it exists. And I imagine that the socialism both 
 of Dickens and Swinburne was founded quite as 
 much on hatred of the rich as on affection for the 
 needy. They both harboured unkindly feelings 
 towards the wealthy. Dickens has revealed his 
 attitude in Podsnap, Parsons, Mr and Mrs. Merdle 
 and Bounderby. He had no use whatever for 
 plutocrats, unless, like the Cheery ble Brothers in 
 " Nicholas Nickleby," they distributed their gains 
 to the deserving poor. But Swinburne's detesta- 
 tion of the rich was founded on no excessive 
 love for their less fortunate brothers. In 
 
 141 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 principle he made common cause with the 
 proletariat. In practice the needs of the people 
 troubled him no more than the claims of the 
 equator. His abstract hatred of rich men was, 
 however, very real. He would, if the man 
 possessed compensating qualities, just tolerate the 
 inheritor of riches. But for the citizen who had 
 made money in trade or in the city he harboured 
 the feeling of deadly malevolence. Some of the 
 most eloquent denunciatory outbursts I have heard 
 from him were on this subject. He did not value 
 money himself. He detested all those who did. 
 
 Perhaps the reader will be inclined to smile when 
 I say that another point of resemblance between 
 Swinburne and Dickens is that both the great 
 writers were poets. True, Dickens was a poet only 
 in a small way, and I do not rest his poetic claim on 
 his occasional lyrics — "The Ivy Green" for 
 example — but on his prose. Here he sang uncon- 
 sciously. One has only to read the account of the 
 funeral of Little Nell in "The Old Curiosity Shop" 
 to be assured of this. It is rhythmical throughout, 
 and with very slight alteration could be arranged 
 to run its course in blank verse. This was pointed 
 out to me by my husband. I have, I confess, 
 never heard Swinburne's views on the subject. But 
 it is reasonable to infer that the rhythmical quality 
 
 142 
 
SWINBURNE AT THE AGE OF FOUR 
 
SWINBURNE THE DICKENSIAN 
 
 of much of Dickens's prose appealed to the Bard 
 and cemented the sympathy which he extended 
 to everything Dickens wrote. 
 
 In Enghsh fiction Dickens was his first love. 
 In that small space of his life covered by his 
 expression " When I was a kid at Eton," the 
 time during which the Master was still putting out 
 his " two green leaves " a month, he came under 
 the Dickens spell, and he remained under it to the 
 last. He had the same sort of affection — if less in 
 degree — for Dickens that he entertained for those 
 members of his family who were the companions 
 of his boyhood. He admired Scott. He venerated 
 Hugo. He loved Dickens. 
 
 I agree with those critics who regard Swin- 
 burne's book, " Charles Dickens," as an unsatis- 
 factory performance. It could scarcely be anything 
 else, made up, as it is, of two " commissioned " 
 articles. It does not adequately inform us of the 
 writer's preferences. It is not a scientific piece 
 of criticism. It is literary adulation — eloquent, 
 interesting, but hardly illuminative. One or two 
 examples of critical insight redeem the essay. He 
 thinks, for instance, that Little Nell in " The Old 
 Curiosity Shop " and Oliver Twist in the novel of 
 
 143 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 the same name are too good to be true to nature. 
 Oliver, indeed, he dismisses as " rather too Uke 
 the literary son and heir of a maiden lady." 
 
 Sarah Gamp was one of his prime favourites. 
 He revelled in her conversational eccentricities. It 
 mattered not how often her aphorisms were quoted 
 by him, they never failed to excite him to ecstasies 
 of mirth. One passage was a- particular favourite 
 of his. I can hear him now. repeating it, and I 
 can catch an echo of the unrestrained laughter that 
 followed its delivery. I confess it always failed to 
 tickle my own sense of humour. This is the passage : 
 " ' I have know'd that sweetest and best of women,' 
 said Mrs. Gamp, shaking her head and shedding 
 tears, ' ever since afore her First, which Mr. 
 Harris who was dreadful timid went and stopped 
 his ears in a empty dog-kennel, and never took his 
 hands away or come out once till he was showed 
 the baby, wen bein' took with fits, the doctor 
 collared him and laid him on his back upon the airy 
 stones, and she was told to ease her mind, his owls 
 was organs.' " I accustomed myself to join in the 
 laughter that followed the recitation, feeling all 
 the while that I was an awful hypocrite. For a 
 time the cryptic statement " his owls was organs " 
 interested me. But Walter translated the sentence 
 into English for me, and after that, even the owls 
 
 144 
 
SWINBURNE THE DICKENSIAN 
 
 and organs failed to stir me to the slightest 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Wilkins Micawber and Dick SjviveUer were 
 persons whose views and adventures possessed an 
 unfailing attraction for the poet. He seemed to 
 regard them rather as friends .with whom he had 
 been associated all his life than as mere dramatis 
 personse in works of fiction. When he referred 
 to them, it was as though he were speaking of 
 living contemporaries. But of all the characters 
 in the whole range of the Dickens creation none 
 appealed so surely and directly to Swinburne's 
 sense of humour as one who never appears in 
 person on the novelist's stage — who is heard of 
 but never seen. I refer to Old Bill Barley in 
 " Great Expectations." Bill Barley, it will be 
 remembered, is a bed-ridden old blasphemer "with 
 the gout in his right hand — and everywhere else." 
 " Old Barley's sustained growl vibrated in the 
 beam that crossed the ceiling." . . . " The 
 growl swelled into a roar again and a frightful 
 bumping noise was heard above, as if a giant with 
 a wooden leg jvas trying to bore it through the 
 ceiling to come at us." 
 
 The particular passage that Swinburne loved to 
 repeat — and how often I have heard him ! — was 
 this : " As we passed Mr. Barley's door, he was 
 
 E 145 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 heard hoarsely muftering within:, in a strain that 
 rose and fell like the wind, the following refrain, 
 in which I substitute good wishes for something 
 quite the reverse : 'Ahoy ! Bless your eyes, 
 here's old Bill Barley. Here's old Bill Barley, 
 bless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley on the 
 flat of his back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat 
 of his back, like a drifting old dead flounder, 
 here's your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy ! 
 Bless you ! ' " Swinburne used to give this with 
 immense unction and emphasis, supplying in place 
 of the innocuous " Bless you " the form of 
 objurgation which old Bill Barley may have been 
 suppbsied to employ. In Bill Barley, Swinburne 
 had probably encountered a kindred spirit, for as I 
 have already said, his own vituperativ.e vocabulary 
 was most picturesque and was practically unlimited. 
 But with the magnanimity of true genius he 
 permitted Bill Barley to "go one better." 
 Whenever he had finished his rendering of Barley's 
 comminatory growl, he invariably indulged in 
 warmly appreciative comments, such as, " What a 
 wealth of language!" "How wonderful!" 
 " What a magnificent gift of metaphor ! " It was 
 impossible to say how much of this commendation 
 was intended to be taken seriously. But his 
 affection for the gouty old reprobate was unaffected 
 
 145 
 
SWINBURNE THE DICKENSIAN 
 
 and sincere, and the Bill Barley monologue was 
 one of Swinburne's most cherished "bits." 
 
 If Bill Barley was the character most endeared 
 to A. C. S., the novel in which Barley appears — 
 or rather in which he does not appear — was his 
 favourite book of the Dickens series. He greatly 
 loved " David Copperfield," but on the whole he 
 perhaps admired most " Great Expectations." 
 And there is a great deal to be said in favour of 
 Swinburne's choice. The monstrously unnatural 
 figure and absurdly unconvincing surroundings of 
 Miss Havisham, overshadow the pages and give 
 an air of unreality to the whole narrative. But 
 take out Miss Havisham altogether and enough 
 remains to justify and account for Swinburne's 
 preference. Jaggers and Wemmick, Joe Gargejy, 
 and Mr. Pumblechook, Orlick and Magwitch — 
 these are creations worthy of a great novelist. 
 And the story itself shows evidences of constructive 
 power which seem to me to be singularly absent in 
 those earlier works of Dickens which are considered 
 his best. The narrative proceeds without prolixity 
 and has artistic merits which are relatively rare. 
 On the whole then, Swinburne's selection of 
 " Great Expectations " is justifiable. 
 
 147 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 In this chapter I will endeavour to describe my first 
 Christmas (that of 1905) at The Pines in the com- 
 pany of Algernon Swinburne, and as it resembles 
 other equally joyous Christmases spent under the 
 same roof, this one may be'regarded'as typical of all. 
 
 Alas ! my inability to use more than a tyro's 
 skill in painting my picture demands that the 
 reader shall use his own imagination to assist him 
 to visualise a scene worthy of the pen of Dickens 
 himself. Indeed my recollection of Christmas at 
 The Pines mainly concerns the influence that " the 
 Master " exercised in our household at and about 
 December 25th. 
 
 We had a perfect glut of Dickens then. To 
 me it was a revelation : the idolatry by two poets 
 of a personage whom I only knew through the 
 medium of two or three novels. To Swinburne 
 
 148 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 and Walter, Dickens stood for the very spirit of 
 Christmas itself, and everything they did, and a 
 great deal they said, echoed the feelings with which 
 he animated them. 
 
 Sometimes I ask myself which of the two 
 friends did the most in bringing the Dickens 
 atmosphere into the home. One thing is clear : 
 Swinburne was mad — I can use no other term — 
 about nearly everything that Dickens wrote. 
 When he was regaling us with " Martin 
 Chuzzlewit " it was apparent that he knew long 
 passages of it by heart, so little did he seem to rely 
 on the book open before him. 
 
 Walter, with less exuberance, shared Swinburne's 
 admiration, and it was chiefly owing to his desire 
 to gratify his housemate and at the same time to 
 honour the famous dead, that the Christmas anni- 
 versary at The Pines became a Dickens festival. 
 Though Swinburne enjoyed it all, he was certainly 
 not the magician who permeated our home with 
 the Christmassy atmosphere of revelry. I cannot 
 picture him paying homage to Dickens by 
 planning a Christmas programme according to the 
 traditions * of Boz. It was Walter who kept the 
 torch of good fellowship burning, and who — so it 
 seemed to me — was symbolical of the genial Mr. 
 Wardle of " Pickwick." 
 
 149 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 It' was for me very new and wonderful, this idea 
 of celebrating Christmas in the good old-fashioned 
 manner, hitherto only known to me by what I had 
 read in books or seen illustrated in the Christmas 
 annuals. And this idea of bringing in Dickens — 
 a genial ghost — as the presiding genius, seemed 
 to me delightfully unique. 
 
 Strangely enough, the zest of the two friends 
 in Christmas was just as keen as when they first 
 celebrated it at The Pines in precisely the same 
 way twenty-six years before. Here, in 1879, as 
 they stood together before the Christmas tree of 
 little five-year old Bertie Mason,* they both 
 vowed that whatever of good Or ill-fortune the 
 passing year had brought to them, Christmas 
 would always find them young in heart and 
 spirit. 
 
 Walter wrote a sonnet to celebrate the occasion, 
 and as it* describes far more clearly than I can in 
 what attitude of mind both Swinburne and he 
 regarded the closing of the passing year, I quote 
 it here : 
 
 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 — 
 
 * The hero of Swinburne's " Dark Month." 
 160 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 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 head with leaf and berry. 
 
 And as for 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. 
 
 This vow the poets had literally and spiritually 
 kept, and the festival was looked forward to by 
 them with a joy resembling that of a schoolboy 
 home for the holidays. The delights of anticipa- 
 tion were apparent in their childlike demeanour ; 
 the years were rolled behind them, and many traits 
 of the boy peeped out in them at this season. 
 They were never too old for Santa Claus. 
 
 As the season advanced Swinburne would notice 
 during his walks if the holly trees promised a good 
 supply of red berries. If they did, he would remark 
 with all the glee of a ten-year old youngster, " I 
 expect there'll be a lovely lot of berries on the 
 hoUy this Christmas." 
 
 One fact that made this particular Christmas 
 stand out for me in bold and happy relief was that 
 it was the Christmas directly after my marriage, 
 
 151 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 which had only taken place in the preceding month. 
 Oh ! the dehghts of shopping with Walter in the 
 late December afternoons. My mind, reverting 
 to them, brings back a score of golden memories. 
 It was at dusk when the shops are brilliantly lighted 
 that he preferred to saunter with me in busy and 
 crowded Oxford Street and Regent Street. Many 
 a precious hour did we waste gazing into shop 
 windows at the temptations offered to our purse ; 
 but we voted the time well spent, and Walter con- 
 sidered it part of my education as a budding 
 Dickensian to observe and take full advantage of 
 the interesting scenes going on around us. 
 
 As we marched gaily along, he regaled me with 
 anecdotes of Old Scrooge and Bob Cratchit, so 
 that I could mentally see these Christmas creations 
 of the Master's fancy. Walter amused himself 
 by imagining whence the people came .whom we 
 saw staring at the shops. These, he would say, 
 were from the country ; those from the East End ; 
 in each case the West End was their paradise of 
 sightseeing. When we came across a shabby man 
 accompanied by a swarm of children whose noses 
 were glued to a shop window, he would nudge my 
 arm and remark, " Look, there goes the worthy 
 Bob and the little Cratchits." 
 
 There was fun, too, in returning home in the 
 
 152 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 evening with our purchases, and finding Swinburne 
 placidly ensconced in his cosy sitting-room, quite 
 unaware that all the afternoon we had formed a 
 part of London's jostling crowd of shbppers. To 
 imagine him one of them was impossible. Never- 
 theless, he did do Christmas shopping, though not 
 with crowds. He did it in his own leisurely way. 
 For years he pursued the same course, going about 
 it calmly and methodically in easy stages during 
 his walks to Wimbledon. 
 
 As Christmas approached he selected with great 
 care the gifts and cards he intended for his friends 
 and relations. There was something rather 
 charming about this proceeding on the part of 
 one who so heartily detested writing letters or 
 transacting business of any sort. He even found a 
 keen pleasure in his Christmas shopping, and gave 
 himself a lot of trouble about it. He never thought 
 of adopting the modern habit of ordering so many 
 dozens of the same card with the sender's name 
 and address printed thereon. On the contrary, 
 he made a distinct choice in the purchase of each 
 individual card. 
 
 In his arduous task he invariably called upon 
 Miss Frost of the Wimbledon book-shop to assist 
 him. He would sally forth across the Common, 
 the end he had in view imparting a spice of mystery 
 
 153 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 and adventure to his walk. We were not 
 supposed to know what was going on, and it was 
 not until the day before Christmas that anybody 
 knew the nature of his purchases. Then he would 
 gleefully show what he had been at such pains to 
 procure. He would show me first the Christmas 
 card he had got for Walter, asking me meanwhile 
 not to tell him. In a like manner he would tell 
 Walter not to say a word that he had also got one 
 for me " hidden up his sleeve." 
 
 He always seemed quite pleased with everything 
 he had bought, yet he appeared uncertain as to 
 what the recipient would think of the little gifts. 
 He would enquire anxiously, "Do you think he " 
 (or " she " as the case might be) " will like it? " 
 On being reassured on this head, he would give a 
 little satisfied sigh, as if the question were quite 
 momentous, and murmur with relief, " Oh, I'm 
 so glad you think so too ! " 
 
 I remember once how excited he was about a 
 card he had bought for Walter. No child could 
 have looked more pleased at finding the toy he had 
 sighed for in his "Christmas stocking." It was 
 a tiny reproduction of Turner's " Fighting 
 Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken 
 up." Swinburne's joy at having secured it was 
 something to remember. He was as pleased 
 
 154 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 as Punch. His amazement at seeing one of 
 his favourite pictures beautifully printed on a 
 fourpenny card was unbounded, and his exclama- 
 tions of surprise were astonishing. He wanted 
 to know how it could possibly be done for 
 the money, and deemed himself fortunate in 
 obtaining such a bargain. " I wonder what 
 Walter will say about it?" he exclaimed. "I 
 think it is a perfect little masterpiece. I do hope 
 he will like it," etc., etc. These ecstatic phrases 
 were repeated as he gazed at his prize. Even in 
 the matter of choosing Christmas cards as in the 
 case of babies and "the insuperable sea," he 
 showed a curious tendency to believe that every- 
 body's tastes must coincide with his own. Because 
 he adored the sea, he imagined all the Universe 
 must do likewise, and he rarely bought a card that 
 did not bear witness to the fact ; he once declared 
 in a letter to Clarence Stedman, when speaking of 
 this passion, " Its salt must have been in my blood 
 before I was bom." 
 
 At Christmas time the little shop at Wimbledon 
 ,was crowded with customers, so the pbet would 
 make straight for the owner's private parlour 
 adjoining. Here, secure from interruption and 
 offensive observation, he would sit at a table 
 apart, and leisurely turn over the cards on a tray 
 
 165 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 set before him. " Show me anything with ships 
 on it," he would say ; and if by some lucky chance 
 a ship in full sail ploughing the main revealed itself, 
 it was seized upon with avidity and borne off in 
 triumph. But he was not always successful in 
 procuring just what he wanted ; and when the card- 
 trays failed to yield the harvest he desired, he 
 would abruptly leave his seat and stalk out of the 
 parlour, murmuring to Miss Fost as he passed 
 through the shop, " I don't see anything else I 
 like." Next day he would return and enthusias- 
 tically resume the search, hopeful, as his friend 
 Micawber of immortal memory, of " something 
 turning up." 
 
 But Swinburne's quest for cards was a small 
 affair compared with the far more enthralling and 
 important task of selecting Christmas presents. 
 These nearly always took the form of books, which, 
 by the way, he was apt to bestow on his favourites 
 at any time in the year. But at Christmas he 
 let himself go with a lavish hand and always 
 chose expensive books. If an attractive book was 
 displayed on Miss Frost's counter, it did not 
 require much conjecture on the part of the book- 
 seller as to who would be likely to buy it. Directly 
 the poet entered he was automatically attracted 
 towards It. He would take it up, and after looking 
 
 166 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 through it attentively for a while he would say, 
 " This is very nice. I'll take it." But when 
 it came to choosing anything for Walter he was 
 seriously perplexed. He had given that man of 
 innumerable books almost every work he cared to 
 add to such a collection, and it was really difl&cult 
 to think of something for him .which would not be 
 like coals sent to Newcastle. For weeks before 
 Christmas, Swinburne would try to ascertain by all 
 manner of ingenious little devices what book or 
 books would be welcome to Walter. He would 
 pore over catalogues in the hope of finding some 
 treasure he thought might take his friend's fancy. 
 
 I can see him now, catalogue in hand, with his 
 finger on the page containing the descriptions of 
 the book he had in mind, his face lit up with the 
 hope that his question, " What do you think of 
 that.-* " would produce a response favourable to his 
 meditative generosity. But one Christmas a 
 surprise awaited Walter. His present was not a 
 book this time ! 
 
 On one of his pilgrimages Swinburne had espied 
 a bust of his beloved Dickens modelled in wax 
 hanging up in Miss Frost's shop. It was mounted 
 on a background of blue in a circular black frame. 
 Could he but succeed in obtaining it, a load iwould 
 be taken off his mind, and the problem of what 
 
 157 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 to buy Walter for a Christmas present would be 
 at once removed. As he gazed with longing eyes 
 towards the coveted object, he became positively 
 fidgety to buy it. If the proprietor would part 
 with it, it must become his. Yes, it was for sale, 
 he was told. , " How much? " enquired the poet, 
 thinking that such a treasure ought to be procured 
 regardless of cost. Four-and-sixpence was the 
 price demanded. " I'll take it ,with me now," 
 eagerly replied the poet as he at once closed with 
 the offer. 
 
 The eulogies exchanged between the giver and 
 the receiver when the waxen Dickens ,was 
 produced on Christmas Day, fully repaid the poet 
 for his trouble. Walter was delighted with it. 
 If it had cost its weight in gold it could not have 
 been more appreciated. I sometimes look at it 
 now as a memento pf never-to-be-forgotten days ! 
 
 Whatever Christmas appeals came to Swin- 
 burne's notice, none received more prompt 
 attention than that df a certain Society for aiding 
 Seamen. Forgetful and absent-minded as he ,was 
 about mundane affairs — and he included the 
 operation of filling in cheques among the curses 
 that beset mankind — he never allowed this appeal 
 
 158 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 to escape his memory. In fact, at Christmas it 
 was uppermost iii his mind. Whether it was due 
 to a sense of duty or of pleasure I do not pretend 
 to say, but the sending of his contribution to his 
 " Mariners," as he used to call his beneficiaries, 
 never irked him in the least. After he had written 
 his cheque, he would come downstairs and 
 announce to Walter in a pleased and happy voice, 
 "Here's my cheque for the 'Mariners! ' I'm 
 going to send it off now so that it will get there 
 in good time." After Swinburne died this duty 
 devolved on Walter, and although Isabel (Miss 
 Swinburne) would write to remind either Walter 
 or me not to forget "Algernon's Mariners," my 
 husband was always the first to remember it, and 
 however busy he might happen to be, "Algernon's 
 cheque " was always despatched. 
 
 Towards December 25th almost every day 
 brought bulky and interesting packages from 
 friends of either Swinburne or Walter. These 
 would often be opened by me, and sometimes the 
 contents proved both surprising and amusing. 
 
 The turkey deserves a special notice and a 
 description of this prepossessing bird may divert 
 the reader, for it stands out in the annals of 
 " Turkeydom " as, a unique specimen differing 
 from any other of its kind in one unusual 
 
 159 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 particular. It was a veritable plutocrat in 
 appearance and half covered with gold ! Shorn 
 of feathers and hanging up in a poulterer's 
 shop in the cold staring immodesty of the 
 " altogether," a turkey is by no means a pleasing 
 or edifying-looking object to the artistic eye, 
 although from a gastronomic point of view it makes 
 quite a different appeal. But the " gilded fowl " 
 that annually came as a present from Lady 
 Leightdn Warren — the sister of the poet Lord de 
 Tabley — was a very superior spectacle. When it 
 came it was paraded round the house as a huge 
 joke, and I christened it " Midas." Pinned to its 
 breast were many " orders " — rosettes of ribbon 
 of divers hues, and the head, feet and scaly shanks, 
 and the whole of its long, hideous, fleshy pro- 
 tuberance of mottled red and blue neck ,were 
 discreetly covered by a thick layer of gold paint. 
 
 Lying in state in a box lined with frilled pink 
 and white paper, and decked out with all the finery 
 of festoons of variegated holly and sprigs of mistle- 
 toe, the recumbent scion of a noble house looked 
 almost too gorgeous to be eaten. 
 
 For the purpose of buying Swinburne's present, 
 Walter and I decided tTiat a final rampage would 
 
 160 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 prove an interesting wind-up to a busy week. We 
 didn't know what to give the poet, and on 
 Christmas Eve when it was growing quite late, we 
 happened to be passing Buszard's in Oxford Street, 
 and seeing a large printed card in the window 
 bearing the inscription " Partridge Pies " we 
 entered the shop and Walter asked for one. 
 
 The place resembled a bee-hive, so crowded 
 was it with late shoppers. A harassed-looking 
 assistant came forward and conducted us to a 
 counter where wonderful erections, like miniature 
 haystacks, were on view. We chose a medium- 
 sized one for our joint present to Algernon, and 
 while it was being packed up, Walter walked to 
 another part of the shop and came back to where 
 I was sitting, bearing in his hands a box of crackers. 
 " Who on earth have ypu bought those for? " I 
 enquired, for I considered crackers quite a 
 ridiculous institution, and never intended buying 
 any. " Not for you," he retorted with an 
 amused chuckle, and an accent on the pronoun. 
 " I know you are far too old for that sort of 
 thing, so I've bought them for somebody who 
 will appreciate them, and you'll see who that is 
 — to-morrow ! 
 
 Our chief cbncern now was the safe transit of 
 the pie. As it made a heavy parcel, we carried 
 
 L 161 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 it in turns, and while I was custodian of the 
 crackers, Walter was responsible for the pie and 
 vice versa. In this manner we arrived home, 
 happy and hungry, to find that quite a transfor- 
 mation had been eflfected during our absence. The 
 house was gay with decorations, and I must say 
 that at The Pines we were not satisfied with half- 
 hearted exhibitions of festivity. There was always 
 a great piece of mistletoe hanging in the hall, and 
 even the staircase and passages were decbrated. 
 The " Christmassy " look of the home at this 
 festive season enhanced by holly and mistletoe 
 reaching nearly to the ceiling and adorning every 
 picture frame, delighted the Bard. 
 
 Whilst we were dining, a loud peal at the front 
 door-bell resounded along the hall. It surely 
 could not be the " Waits " — the two or three 
 wretched urchins who call themselves " carol 
 singers " would not ring until they had finished 
 afflicting us with " When Shepherds watch their 
 flocks by night," and similar dirges, for dirges they 
 were as tortured by these dreadful small boys. 
 Our surmise was correct ; the boys were still sing- 
 ing through the letter-box in their high treble 
 voices, and the maid came in with the announce- 
 ment that Mr. Macllvaine's butler had just left 
 a big box with his master's compliments. 
 
 162 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 This friend, knowing the predilections of the 
 housemates for anything savouring of Christmas 
 had always endeavoured to make his present 
 appropriate to the occasion. He certainly 
 achieved a coup this time. When the box was 
 opened, it revealed a Yule log. It was made of 
 some kind of composition or papier mache, and 
 hollowed out so that it could be lighted up inside. 
 1 determined to use it as a table decoration on 
 the morrow. This was a happy thought, for 
 Swinburne was charmed with it. 
 
 Christmas Day, as is usual in this country of 
 topsy-turvy climatic conditions, was muggy and 
 warmish, instead of the hoped-for cold and frosty 
 morning. This did not please Swinburne at all. 
 He resented any whimsical vagaries on the part 
 of the Clerk of the Weather. He declared at such 
 times he was being cheated out of his rights. 
 What would have pleased him was the scene of the 
 Christmas card of childhood's tradition, a land- 
 scape covered with snow, trees clothed in a frosty 
 mantle, icicles hanging from the water-spouts, and 
 all the rest of the paraphernalia of an old-fashioned 
 winter. When it was "blowing great guns" he was 
 happy, and cold weather so exhilarated him that 
 had there been a snowstorm, and he unable to be 
 out in it, he would have suffered like Tantalus. 
 
 163 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 It did not, however, really matter to the poet 
 what the weather was on Christmas Day. At the 
 best of times, the Sabbath Day was by no means 
 calculated to make his heart rejoice, for on that 
 day he was deprived of his usual walk, and on that 
 account alone he heartily detested it. Wimbledon 
 Common, on week-days so restful and unpopu- 
 lated, was invariably thronged on Sundays and 
 at holiday times. Swinburne never crossed the 
 threshold then, but remained indoors, a very 
 uneasy victim until the crowds had disappeared and 
 left him free to enjoy his walk in peace and quiet. 
 
 With Christmas Day and Boxing Day the 
 prospect of " half a week of Sundays " had to be 
 faced with as much resolution as the poet could 
 muster. So with the characteristic fortitude of 
 a Mark Tapley, he prepared to make the best of 
 it and took credit in being jolly. 
 
 The arrival of the postman proved a diversion, 
 and his budget of cards never failed to amuse him. 
 Naturally he got a goodly supply from strangers. 
 What became of these latter, I cannot say. They 
 disappeared — and that is aU one knew of them. 
 But cards from relatives and intimate friends 
 adorned his mantlepiece for days. These messages 
 of goodwill always contained some allusion to his 
 two pet subjects — the sea and the children ; and 
 
 164 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 Walter responded to Swinburne's gift of a 
 pictured ship by one at the New Year of a pictured 
 baby. It is before me now as I write : 
 
 To the Child-lover A. C. S. 
 
 From T. Watts-Dunton, New Year's Day, 1906. 
 
 On this same occasion a great triumph was 
 secured by the poet's sister, Isabel, ,who had the 
 happy thought of presenting her brother with a 
 set of reproductions of the ten Bambini by Andrea 
 della Robbia which ornaments the front of the 
 Ospedale degli Innocenti (Foundling Hospital) at 
 Florence. 
 
 These quaintly swaddled little bOys are not 
 of equal attractiveness, though doubtless all 
 are beautiful examples of skill in modelling. 
 But Swinburne was enthusiastic about them 
 all. He had seen the originals in Italy, 
 and as he showed the little pictures one after 
 another, he could not make up his mind 
 which baby bore off the palm for beauty. 
 How small a thing can gladden the heart of 
 a great man, and for the time being the Bambini 
 made him forget it was a sort of Sunday and 
 that there was no going out for him. As it 
 happened, he managed to fill in his day quite 
 comfortably. There were always his books — his 
 
 165 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 solace and his delight — to browse on. Moreover, 
 there were several chapters from "A Christmas 
 Carol " to be rehearsed for the Dickens reading in 
 the evening, and he devoted some time to getting 
 as near word-perfect as possible. As I have 
 mentioned, I was astonished when I first heard 
 him read "Martin Chuzzlewit " to find he did 
 not so much appear to be reading, as speaking a 
 part learned by rote. Walter told me that 
 Swinburne seldom read anything from Dickens 
 without having previously made a careful study of 
 the chapter or chapters before reading them aloud. 
 Here again was an instance of imitation being the 
 sincerest form of flattery. Dickens must have 
 done the same when reading his own works to 
 crowded audiences. 
 
 As in most houses, our Christmas dinner was a 
 family affair — a jolly and homely little gathering. 
 Our only guest, outside the circle of relatives, was 
 Mr. Mackenzie Bell, for whom my husband enter- 
 tained a great regard. For myself, who had only 
 been married a month, it seemed as if some 
 magician's wand had touched me when I found 
 myself presiding at this Dickensian dinner-table. 
 When the table was arranged, looking so pretty 
 with the Yule log in the middle, and little bundles 
 of crackers scattered at intervals over the cloth, 
 
 166 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 Swinburne slipped quietly down from his library, 
 and having got the maid to show him where each 
 member of the party was to sit, he placed an 
 addressed envelope by the side of each cover. 
 These contained the Christmas cards (duly 
 inscribed) which he had been at such pains to select. 
 In the performance of this ritual none of us was 
 ever forgotten by the poet. 
 
 A chorus of amusing sallies greeted the entrance 
 of the turkey, " done and dished," as we recalled 
 the golden glories of the " noble bird " now 
 guillotined and deprived of most of its splendours. 
 
 More fun came at the end when, the repast 
 being over, there was a general pulling of 
 Christmas crackers. Swinburne now appeared to 
 be thoroughly in his element. The fine cere- 
 mOniousness with which he bowed across the table 
 to his old friends. Miss Watts and Mrs. Mason, 
 as he requested the honour of a "tug-of-war," 
 was a " sight for sore eyes," and great was the 
 amusement we all derived from hearing the Bard 
 read the doggerel bits from the mottoes. He 
 kept the table in a roar with his witticisms, and 
 eagerly searched his end of the cracker in the hope 
 that it might contain a specimen of cracker poetry. 
 Eventually everybody's mottbes were handed to 
 him to read. This was a divine moment for such 
 
 167 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 an elocutionist. He carefully unrolled each little 
 slip of paper, and in as stirring tones as he could 
 command — and the more stupid the lines the more 
 pathos he contrived to put into his voice — 
 he would " pray silence " for the recital of some 
 absurd morsel. At the conclusion he w^ould cast 
 up the vi^hites of his eyes to the ceiling, and after 
 heaving a tremendous sigh, exclaim, "A sublime 
 line ! — a truly poetic line ! What would I not 
 give to have written it ! " When it came to the 
 turn of Walter's young niece, Miss Aimee Watts 
 —a charming girl hailing from Australia — or 
 myself, Swinburne's eyes sparkled with mischief. 
 He solicited us both in turn to be his cracker 
 partners, and the motto in each case of course 
 contained some rubbish about love. He 
 endeavoured to make the ridiculous verses more 
 ridiculous still, and loud were the laughs when he 
 read with emphasis and affected emotion such 
 amorous stuff as : 
 
 You are so fair that Cupid's dart 
 
 Can ne'er be pulled from my fond heart. 
 
 The motto that resulted from his " pull " with 
 me was more ambitious. Swinburne rendered the 
 lines as fervently as though they had come straight 
 from Sappho herself. Here they are : 
 
 168 
 
CHRISTMAS AT THE PINES 
 
 O valorous knight, whose eyes are as blue 
 
 As the sky which is calm above tempests that grieve, 
 
 My heart is my Christmas present to you. 
 
 So take it and wear it — ^but not on your sleeve. 
 
 "Ah! " he said with the most profound gravity, 
 " that person, whoever he is, deserves to be Poet 
 Laureate." 
 
 When the guests had departed, the poet had 
 quite thrown over the part of Master of the Revels. 
 He was now the serious Diekensian and read the 
 selected passages from "A Christmas Carol." The 
 peacefulness of the closing hours of the day was 
 in strange contrast to the mirth of the dinner, and 
 I cannot say that I was sorry when the evening 
 came to an end and Swinburne took leave of us 
 with a courteous bow and a cheery "Good-night." 
 
 169 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 Next to love of his friends came Swinburne's 
 love of the sea. And next to his love of the sea 
 ranked his love of babies. Admirers of the poet 
 may express some surprise that I do not 
 include his love of books. I purposely avoided 
 that inclusion. Books were his very life. They 
 were as essential to his existence as the food 
 he ate. And just as most people would sicken 
 and die without their daily bread, so would 
 Swinburne have collapsed without his daily 
 books. 
 
 Swinburne's love of the sea was the natural 
 emotion of one whose childhood's home was within 
 hearing of its waves. Moreover, in Admiral 
 Swinburne he honoured as sire one who had a 
 distinguished career as a sailor-man. So that both 
 heredity and environment united to invite and 
 
 170 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 continued to strengthen his splendid affection for 
 the sea, expressed in immortal words. 
 
 The Bard's love of babies presents a problem 
 which I have always found at once exciting and 
 baffling. It may be that he felt in looking at 
 babies that charm of a profound mystery suggested 
 by the beauty of someone newly arrived on earth. 
 However that may be, the admiration approaching 
 idolatry for the speechless infant which Swinburne 
 professed was not a pose : it was real. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that the poet 
 knew nothing of that type of child whose 
 conduct is summed up in the elastic description 
 " naughty." Had he ever had the dubious 
 privilege of nursing a fractious infant, he might 
 have been tempted to compose a lyric after the 
 manner of Thomas Hood, who voices the senti- 
 ments of a parent towards a kicking sleepless brat 
 of the male species in this way : — 
 
 Lullaby, oh, lullaby! 
 What the devil makes you cry? 
 
 Throughout Swinburne's numerous poems 
 about babies and children one hears nothing of a 
 peevish infant, a spoilt child, a sulky boy or a 
 greedy boy, although he got no end of fun out 
 of, and expressed the greatest admiration for that 
 
 171 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 delightful fictitious youth " the fat boy in Pick- 
 wick." As to the little girl, 
 
 Who wore a little curl 
 
 Right in the middle of her forehead. 
 
 When she was good 
 
 She was very, very good, 
 
 But when she was bad she was horrid, 
 
 perhaps in real life at some unlucky moment he 
 had encountered that young person, for he declares 
 the angelic temper and sublime qualities of 
 " Little Nell " as too good to be true, and incon- 
 tinently dubs her " a monster as inhuman as a 
 baby with two heads." But all his geese were 
 swans, and he ecstatically speaks of babes, from 
 birth upwards, as : — " adorable, sweet, living, 
 marvellous." In terms of extravagant adulation 
 he praises with bated breath their " dimpling 
 smiles," their " pink toes," their " rosebud 
 hands," their "heavenly eyes," their "flower- 
 soft fists," and so on — ad nauseam, a cynic would 
 say. Of a baby " Three weeks old," he sings : 
 
 Three weeks since there was no such rose in being ; 
 
 Now may eyes made dim with deep delight 
 See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing 
 
 Praise the chance that bids us bless the sight. 
 
 Three weeks old, and a very rose of roses, 
 Bright and sweet as love is sweet and bright, 
 
 Heaven and earth, till a man's life wanes and closes, 
 Show not life or love a lovelier sight. 
 172 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 Three weeks past have renewed the rose-bright creature 
 
 Day by day with life, and night by night. 
 Love, though fain of its every faultless feature. 
 Lends not words to match the silent sight. 
 
 It is very lovely, and I for one simply adore all his 
 poems in praise o£ babies. But if the poet had 
 seen a baby screaming itself purple in the face, he 
 wisely kept it dark. I very much doubt if he ever 
 had witnessed such a spectacle, for people took 
 care that he only saw their babies when on their 
 best behaviour. 
 
 I myself know a lady (Frances Forbes-Robert- 
 son) who is proud of the fact that Swinburne 
 nursed her in his arms the day she w:as christened. 
 When she told Walter and myself of this interest- 
 ing occurrence I was very curious to know how 
 she had behaved on this momentous occasion. She 
 was not able to enlighten me from first-hand 
 evidence of course, but I remember how earnest 
 she appeared to be in hoping that, " for the poet's 
 sake," she had refrained from making an 
 exhibition of herself. 
 
 The little infant of the slums was simply an 
 unknown quantity to the Bard, and the bare 
 idea of a dirty baby was not to be entertained 
 for a moment. He always thought one of the 
 funniest things in the electioneering episode in 
 
 173 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 " Pickwick " was the idea of the " twenty 
 washed men waiting at the street door to be shaken 
 hands with " — a most deUghtful touch. He had 
 heard of and possibly seen many a specimen of the 
 great unwashed, but an unwashed baby — never! 
 Truth to tell, his experiences of child-life were 
 confined to the region of " purple and fine linen," 
 and he never went near Famine street for his 
 types. To look even of a picture of a miserably- 
 clad little child would, I think, have made him 
 perfectly wretched, though he translated Hugo's 
 poem about Les Enfants Pauvres whom God had 
 sent with wings and retrouve avec des haillons ! 
 He loved to think of all babies as well fed and 
 continuously happy and of course smiling. He 
 loved to look at the portraits of fat chubby babies, 
 and I remember how he gloated over an exquisite 
 volume filled with portraits of children and babies 
 entitled Les portraits de Venfant by Moreau 
 Vanthier. I think his cousin, Mrs. Leith, 
 brought it for him One day, and after she went, 
 he called me in to look at it. How he raved over 
 all the babies — wonderful little Dukes and Prin- 
 cesses of a bygone age, some dressed in costly lace 
 robes, whilst others, half clothed, revealed arms 
 and legs as fat as butter! His beau-ideal of a 
 baby was that of Leopold de Medicis as an infant — 
 
 174 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 the original of which by Tiberio Titi hangs in the 
 Pitti Palace, Florence. Swinburne's small repro- 
 duction stood upon his mantelpiece, and he must 
 have gazed at it continually. He pointed out this 
 luscious little specimen to me the day the book 
 arrived, and not even in his extensive vocabulary 
 could he find adjectives sufficiently rich to express 
 his admiration for this little Italian baby. As he 
 bade me look at it, reclining in royal state on a 
 very gorgeous cushion, the little limbs only 
 partially covered by the most exquisite coverlet of 
 embroidered gold and precious stones, his finger 
 travelled lovingly over the fat baby arms and chest. 
 " Oh, the .little duck! Did you ever see such 
 darling dimples? Just look at those sweet little 
 arms! Isn't he perfect?" exclaimed this child- 
 worshipper, with a mouth almost watering as he 
 got to the end of his superlatives ; and thinking of 
 nothing more expressive to say, he had to resort 
 to " lip-smacking " as a pis aller. I verily believe 
 if Swinburne could have seen that baby in the flesh, 
 he would have been tempted to eat him from sheer 
 admiration of his perfections. 
 
 Of course his friends were aware of his infatu- 
 ation, and helped to foster the baby craze. Fond 
 parents literally pelted the poet with photographs 
 of their respective offspring. Not only did his 
 
 175 
 
THE HOME LIF:B OF SWINBURNE 
 
 relations send him the latest photo of " the 
 latest," but the relations' relations sent them as 
 well. Swinburne's collection of baby portraits was 
 distinctly large, ranging as it did over a wide field. 
 But he loved the lot. Catholic in taste, he wel- 
 comed the arrival of a photo of a baby in long 
 clothes with almost as much ardour as the parents 
 themselves. But he never wrote of his later baby- 
 loves at much length. His " first fine careless 
 rapture " had been expended years before in the 
 affection he lavished upon Walter's little nephew, 
 Bertie Mason. Some of the sweetest lyrics in the 
 world are written in his honour. The following 
 is his portrait : 
 
 Here is a rough 
 
 Rude sketch of my friend, 
 Faint coloured enough 
 
 And unworthily penned. 
 
 Fearlessly fair 
 
 And triumphant he stands, 
 And holds unaware 
 
 Friends' hearts in his hands; 
 
 Stalwart and straight 
 
 As an oak that should bring 
 Forth gallant and great 
 
 Fresh roses in spring . . . 
 176 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 Each action, each motion, 
 Each feature, each limb. 
 
 Demands a devotion 
 In honour of him : 
 
 Head that the hand 
 
 Of a god might have blest. 
 
 Laid lustrous and bland 
 On the curve of its crest : 
 
 Mouth sweeter than cherries, 
 
 Keen eyes as of Mars, 
 Browner than berries 
 
 And brighter than stars. 
 
 Nor colour nor wordy 
 
 Weak song can declare 
 The stature how sturdy. 
 
 How stalwart his air. 
 
 As a king in his bright 
 Presence chamber may be, 
 
 So seems he in height — 
 
 Twice higher than your knee. . . . 
 
 And well though I know it, 
 
 As fain would I write, 
 ChUd, never a poet 
 
 Could praise you aright. 
 
 I bless you ? the blessing 
 
 Were less than a jest 
 Too poor for expressing ; 
 
 I come to be blest, 
 
 m 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 With humble and dutiful 
 
 Heart, from above : 
 Bless me, O my beautiful 
 
 Innocent love ! 
 
 This little hero fully reciprocated his poet 
 friend's tender passion. But the sad fact remains 
 that a few of his infantile acquaintances with whom 
 he sought to ingratiate himself did not take to 
 him. His magnetism did not work quickly with 
 children, and failed with those of whom he saw 
 but little. His hard and futile efforts with some 
 children were enough to make the angels weep. 
 I know on the best authority that his propitiatory 
 antics sometimes met with a very cool reception, 
 the mites being either too bored or too frightened 
 to meet him halfway. With him, it was indeed 
 a case of un qui aime V autre qui se laisse aimer. 
 
 Most of the Bard's pictures of infants were gifts ; 
 but a few of them he had purchased. On the 
 table at which I am writing stands a specimen of 
 the latter. It is a miniature figure/ modelled in 
 some composite material. It represents a new- 
 born babe emerging from an egg-shell. The child 
 is of the tint of terra-cotta and has a very ugly 
 face. Presumably Swinburne saw some beauty in 
 the image or was fascinated by the modelling of 
 its limbs or by its mobility, for the figure 
 
 178 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 is mounted on a wire and wobbles when touched. 
 He was very proud of his purchase and set great 
 store by it. Where he picked it up I do not know ; 
 he had acquired the artistic treasure before I made 
 his acquaintance. More than once he called my 
 attention to the tiny work of art and expatiated, 
 sometimes humorously, sometimes seriously on its 
 " points." 
 
 Perhaps the most convincing proof that I can 
 adduce of the genuineness of Swinburne's child- 
 worship is this : a flippant comment on a baby 
 indulged in even by a writer so dear to him as Sir 
 Walter Scott caused the Bard to " see red." 
 
 In the " Journal of Sir Walter Scott " there 
 occurs under April 10, 1828, this passage : — 
 
 The baby is that species of dough which is called a fine 
 baby. I care not for children till they care a little for me. 
 
 In his essay on the " Journal," Swinburne 
 contrasts Scott's " tenderness for a dog with such 
 irreverence towards an infant " and denounces it 
 " as a disgraceful reflection on one of his grand- 
 children." He dismisses the offence against His 
 Majesty the Baby with the remark : ''After all, 
 Scott was neither a Homer nor a Victor Hugo." 
 
 When one reflects that no eulogy uttered by 
 Swinburne about Scott appeared to him excessive, 
 
 179 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 one cannot doubt that he .was every inch a 
 " babyolator " when he thus attacked the author 
 of " Ivanhoe." 
 
 Looking back now, I cannot understand why we 
 never secured a house or cottage of our own by 
 the sea — at least for the sununer months. The 
 two friends had never done so during all the long 
 period of their joint tenancy of The Pines, and it 
 never occurred to me to acquire a pied-h-terre in 
 any one selected spot. Had I done so, it might 
 have saved weary tramps in different localities in 
 search of a furnished house, or part of a house 
 that the Poet might like. He so adored the sea 
 that it is natural to wonder why he never acquired 
 a sea-side abode at one of his favourite places, 
 especially the Isle of Wight — ^the beautiful Vectis 
 of his dreams — or on the coast of his beloved 
 Northumberland. But Swinburne ,was not like 
 other men, and even if he had inherited a property 
 of his own he would not have known jvhat to do 
 with it. Walter was everlastingly on the look out 
 for a suitable place where he could take the Bard 
 for his summer holiday, and after my marriage I 
 joined in the hunt and in explorations of 
 inspection. No pilgrims in search of the Golden 
 Fleece encountered more drawbacks than fell to 
 our share in endeavouring to obtain the almost 
 
 180 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 unobtainable. Walter from long experience knew 
 to a nicety what Swinburne would like, and he had 
 given me such minute directions on the subject 
 that I was considered qualified for the post of 
 "investigator-in-chief." It was so difficult to get 
 the right thing. 
 
 The conditions demanded for the Poet's com- 
 fort and well-being were manifold. Hardly 
 anything seemed to be just right. I don't know 
 whether it was the house or the place or the 
 bathing that came first in importance, but Swin- 
 burne's contentment with all three was absolutely 
 essential. The place had to be secluded and quiet, 
 what the Bard called an " esplanady " place 
 being anathema to us all. The house had to be 
 within easy distance of the sea, and must contain 
 no " lodgers " except the party from The Pines. 
 Above all the Bard insisted on a sandy beach 
 where deep-water bathing was possible at all 
 tides ! Walter was often far too busy to look 
 after the preliminaries himself, so I was told 
 off to orienter (as he expressed it), with 
 injunctions to report progress as soon as possible. 
 When I thought I had hit upon an ideal spot 
 complying with all the required conditions as nearly 
 as possible, I would write off excitedly for him 
 to come and inspect my find. He would arrive 
 
 181 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 in a hopeful mood, fully prepared to praise my 
 discovery and with no intention of finding flaws. 
 But gradually his trained eye would discover some 
 drawback that I had not thought of, and the weary 
 search would be renewed. Perhaps the house itself 
 was not just right for Swinburne. Perhaps the 
 walks around the neighbourhood were too danger- 
 ous for one who could not be relied upon to hear 
 and get out of the way of an occasional motor car 
 passing along the road ; or if other things were 
 right, the bathing might be wrong, for it was of 
 the utmost importance that Swinburne's bathing 
 place would permit of his plunging into the water 
 in puris nattt/ralibus. He, of course, was quite 
 ignorant of the elaborate plans made for his enter- 
 tainment, and to do him justice I am sure if he 
 had known of all the efforts made on his behalf, 
 he would have been more than sorry to be the 
 cause of so' much labour. He was not fussy, and was 
 so simple in his tastes and requirements that an 
 inexperienced person would have thought it quite 
 an easy matter to select a place that he would like. 
 I remember soon after my marriage going on a 
 visit of inspection in the hope of finding the exact 
 thing, and starting off joyously confident of 
 success. We selected a small seaside village in 
 Kent where, during a stay at Margate, I had 
 
 182 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 espied a little house in an unfrequented by-way, 
 which I considered would be most suitable. The 
 country round about was very charming, and I 
 hastened to inform Walter of the desirability of 
 taking it as being eminently suitable for 
 Swinburne's requirements. He came down to see 
 what I had found and I shall never forget the way 
 in which he entered into minute particulars about 
 everything. Joy ! the house was all right. He 
 carefully measured the distance from the house to 
 the shore and pronounced that nearly all right, but 
 alas for my rising hopes, when he came to inspect 
 the beach and saw the sea retiring in the distance, 
 he regretfully announced that the tides would be 
 all wrong for Swinburne's bathing. On this part 
 of the coast the sea would never come up high 
 enough to enable the poet to plunge conveniently 
 into deep water. And the idea of his walking 
 through the sea till he reached a swimming depth 
 was not to be considered for a moment. Hence 
 my toil and hope on this occasion were wasted 
 from this cause alone. 
 
 Another thing which weighed very considerably 
 was the romantic interest of any part of the coast- 
 line overlooking a part of the sea covering sub- 
 merged territory. Hence the fascination that 
 Dunwich held for them both. In fact, any part 
 
 183 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 of a coast formed after the sea had swallowed a 
 piece of Old England had on the Bard the effect 
 of a potent and awe-inspiring spell. For this 
 reason the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk were 
 preferred to almost any others. The shelving 
 cliffs of Suffolk inspired Swinburne's magnificent 
 poem " By the North Sea," and it was at Cromer, 
 years before, that part of "A Midsummer 
 Holiday " was written. Curiously enough it was 
 at this latter place that my first visit to the sea 
 accompanied by the poet took place. 
 
 For various reasons, chief among them the 
 tremendous climb that a bathe would entail in 
 Older to reach the sea owing to the great height 
 of the cliffs at Overstrand, the Mill House, .where 
 the two friends had often stayed before, ^as 
 no longer eligible, though Walter and I paid a 
 visit there together to see if we could somehow 
 make it serve. It grieved us to have to seek other 
 lodgings, for the poet and Walter had been 
 honoured guests, and Mr. Jermy, the miller, and 
 his daughter now gave me hearty welcome also. 
 They tried hard to persuade us, and with a note 
 of regret in his voice, the old miller, now dead, 
 enquired, " What is Mr. Swinburne busy with 
 now? I was looking forward to hearing him read 
 again." I could hardly believe my ears, fpr it 
 
 184 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 sounded so odd coming from such a quarter. But 
 it was nevertheless genuine, and Walter replied 
 that the poet was very busy indeed preparing his 
 poems for the press. "More proofs then?" 
 hazarded the miller. " Ah, yes, tp be sure, more 
 proofs," said Walter with genial alacrity. 
 
 It seems that on the poet's previous visits he 
 had been in the habit of reading proofs aloud to 
 his host, and many a summer evening would these 
 two spend together in the garden of the Mill 
 House. Long yarns jvould the .worthy miller spin 
 about Swinburne, telling how in the morning, or 
 after lunch, the inevitable package having arrived 
 for the poet, he would propose reading out some 
 of the poems in the evening, " If Mr. Jermy would 
 be kind enough to listen! " (how characteristic 
 and delightful of the Bard!) " How I looked 
 forward all day long to the evening, when, after 
 my work in the fields or at the mill was over, I 
 should sit down beside him and listen to him. I 
 think he liked reading to me," proudly remarked 
 the old man with a very mse shake of the head. 
 Such a confession inwardly entertained me, for it 
 fully confirmed my opinion that Swinburne so 
 appreciated an audience that he positively felt lost 
 without one. We all shook hands at parting, and 
 as I felt the rough horny palm of this son of the 
 
 186 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 soil between my fingers, I came away with the 
 conviction that Swinburne could not have had a 
 better listener. As we stood on the roadside 
 whilst father and daughter waved their farewells 
 from the old white gate, the miller's cheery voice 
 rang out : " Give my best regards and kind 
 remembrances to Mr. Swinburne." These I duly 
 conveyed to the poet when he arrived at Cromer 
 some few days later, and all sorts of messages and 
 good wishes were returned that filled the heart of 
 his old friend, the miller, with joy. 
 
 Walter and I made tracks in a westerly direction 
 and engaged rooms on the Runton Road — some 
 distance from the little town of Cromer — where 
 there was a fine stretch of sandy beach, and where 
 the Bard could bathe in utter seclusion. Then he 
 went home to fetch Swinburne and I stayed behind 
 to await theii; arrival. How well I remember 
 meeting them at the Railway Station a few days 
 afterwards. Swinburne was very gay, and all 
 excitement at again smelling the sea. As we 
 drove to the house, I could not help noticing how 
 really smart he looked. There was something 
 different about him that I had never noticed before, 
 but in the b\istle of finding the luggage and getting 
 clear of the station, I could not define just what 
 it was. It was not the overcoat he carried over 
 
 186 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 his arm, exceptional though this was. Then, as 
 he sat opposite to me in the cab, it suddenly 
 dawned upon me that his restless hands were 
 encased in quite a smart pair of tan gloves — ^how 
 he must have hated them ! I was deeply interested 
 in this astounding innovation, and as soon as 
 Walter and I found ourselves alone after arriving 
 at the lodgings, I asked the reason for such an 
 unheard-of proceeding. His face assumed a wistful 
 and tender little smile as he unfolded the story of 
 the gloves. It seems that for this special occasion 
 the poet had surreptitiously unearthed a pair of 
 gloves, and put them in his pocket before leaving 
 home. Much to Walter's astonishment, during 
 the journey he produced them, asking to be 
 reminded to put them on a little time before their 
 arrival at their destination, remarking, " I should 
 not like Clara to meet me at the station without 
 any gloves on," 
 
 So, he had put on these uncomfortable gloves 
 solely for me ! How this sweet little admission 
 touched me ! When Swinburne afterwards joined 
 us at dinner I could only look at him with a 
 renewed feeling of tender regard for such a 
 graceful and naive act of courtesy. 
 
 He was so unmindful of any sort of weather 
 conditions that it was difficult for him to adapt 
 
 187 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 himself to them. In fact he never could do so. 
 He did not readily understand that it might be 
 unwise to go swimming except under favourable 
 conditions with regard to the elements. He was 
 for taking a plunge the day after his arrival, no 
 matter what the weather would be like, and for 
 the purpose of doing so he and Walter went down 
 to explore the beach. 
 
 The very sight of the sea seemed to fire this 
 stormy petrel to instant action, and a yearning to 
 strip and plunge headlong into the waves was not 
 to be resisted. A boat had been engaged before 
 his arrival, and about noon he gave orders to the 
 boatman to row him some distance out to sea in 
 order that he could dive from the stem into very 
 deep water. Walter told me what a splendid dive 
 he always gave, but although on this occasion he 
 appeared to enjoy the exercise quite as much as 
 usual, he got into the boat in a very cold and 
 exhausted condition. The sea that he loved so 
 well did not appear to have the same beneficial 
 effect as of yore, and instead of invigorating, it 
 seemed to weaken him. Swinburne put this 
 down to the roughness of the sea, but he did admit 
 that the water was rather cold. Not that this first 
 attempt deterred him in the least, although it 
 rendered his companion nervous and apprehensive. 
 
 188 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 The next day found him as eager as ever to test 
 his swimming prowess, with alas, no greater 
 success fhan before. This second trial did nbt 
 improve matters. He again emerged from the 
 water white and exhausted, and almost blue with 
 the cold. This condition of affairs became alarm- 
 ing. Swinburne confessed to feeling extremely 
 tired, and it distressed Walter to see him looking 
 so unlike himself. Afterwards he was asked to 
 forgo his swimming altogether — at least for the 
 time being. As it was obviously doing him harm 
 Swinburne reluctantly consented, but not without 
 many pangs and heartaches. It was an intense 
 disappointment to them both. The Bard would 
 roam aT)out the beach, looking seaward with 
 longing eyes. What were his thoughts, I often 
 wondered. To have to deny himself the luxury 
 of swimming in his beloved sea was very cruel. 
 But he bore it bravely, and so enjoyed walking by 
 the shore that the temptation to board the boat 
 was soon cast aside. He would take long walks 
 inland, too, sometimes alone, and often accom- 
 panied by Walter and me. 
 
 One day we made a sort of bet as to where we 
 would find the greatest number of landslips — in 
 a southerly or northerly direction. Swinburne de- 
 clared that he had noticed several huge gaps in the 
 
 189 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 cliflfs going north, and Walter thought the inroads 
 of the sea had played more havoc with the land 
 southwards. So we first of all went south to observe 
 the effects of a recent landslip that had occurred 
 the year before. Swinburne had no hesitation in 
 agreeing with Walter when he saw a great yawning 
 mountain of earth reaching far away into the sea, 
 and he exclaimed that he had seldom seen a more 
 wonderful and awe-inspiring sight. Both he and 
 I ventured so near to the edge that Walter was 
 in a constant fear that the earth would give way 
 under us and we had repeated peremptory orders 
 to " keep away from the edge for God's sake." 
 
 Swinburne admitted that his friend knew far 
 more about the effects of landslips than he or than 
 most people, and all the way home and during 
 dinner interesting talk took place about receding 
 England and submerged towns. I sat at the head 
 of the table listening to it all, and carving the roast 
 duckling which more often than not seemed to 
 be the meat set before me. We all loved it, and 
 if it was a case of toujours canardeau it was because 
 we preferred it to any other. 
 
 One day I remember this delectable bird did not 
 appear to be as young as it ought to have been, and 
 I experienced some difficulty in carving it. Whilst 
 witnessing my eflForts, Walter began telling 
 
 190 
 
o 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 < 
 
 C 
 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 Swinburne a very amusing story about one of 
 Rossetti's dinner-parties. The Bard loved to hear 
 any sort of anecdote about the poet-painter, and 
 I revelled in the stories they would unfold around 
 "Topsy " (William Morris) and " Gabriel." I 
 was commanded to listen while I wrestled with 
 the anatomy of my recalcitrant bird. 
 
 Rossetti, I was told, always persisted in doing 
 the carving himself, though he was by no means 
 a master-hand at the game. His method of 
 carving was as follows : Savagely preparing 
 himself for an onslaught, he would spear the joint 
 or fowl with the carving fork, and go for it with 
 the knife somewhat in the manner of a barbarian 
 trying hurriedly to kill a foe. One night at Cheyne 
 Walk there was a grander dinner party than 
 usual, and a goodly number were sitting at the 
 feast. For the occasion Rossetti had ordered two 
 ducks to be placed on the dish at the same time. 
 He began attacking a bird in his accustomed 
 manner, jerking both ducks from side to side in 
 the dish and incidentally splashing everybody 
 within range with gravy. One of the birds being 
 of grandmotherly toughness, his endeavours to 
 dissect its limbs resulted in his depositing the 
 whole of the other bird on the knees of George 
 Augustus Sala, who was sitting sedately by the 
 
 191 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 side of his host in full and blameless evening-dress. 
 Gabriel paused in his work, and discovering where 
 he had landed the other duck, he stared at his 
 astonished guest, and quite unabashed by the 
 mishap calmly drawled — " I say, Sala, just hand 
 me back that duck." 
 
 Swinburne's fondness for making up nonsense 
 rhymes never wholly left him, and his wonderful 
 memory enabled him to recall some of the trifles 
 that either he or Rossetti had scribbled in 
 " honour " of their mutual friends. I know that 
 Rossetti has been credited with the amusing 
 limerick written around Dr. Franz HuefPer, the 
 accomplished son-in-law Of Ford Madox Brown, 
 but I fancy the Bard had some hand in its compila- 
 tion — he was then seeing much of Rossetti, and 
 the pair were in the habit of concocting this form 
 of jingle together. Walter's story of Rossetti and 
 the duck set the ball rolling about old times, and 
 this limerick was spouted anew for my benefit. 
 Edth Swinburne and Rossetti were very friendly 
 with Dr. Hueffer, who besides being a great 
 scholar and man of scientific learning, was an 
 accomplished musician to whom England is 
 indebted for his championship of the music of 
 Wagner. As an exponent of Schopenhauer, 
 however, he was dogmatic and emphatic, and this 
 
 192 
 
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 J^ 
 
 
 -S 
 
 9< 
 
 Q 
 
 rs 
 
 (U 
 
 Xi 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 g 
 
 n3 
 
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 193 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 cult not being to the taste of his jovial friends, 
 they " served him up " the following doggerel, 
 which, it may be added, very much amused 
 Hueflfer himself : 
 
 There's a metaphysician called Hueffer 
 A hsrpochondriacal buffer, 
 
 To proclaim Schopenhauer, 
 
 From the top of a tower, 
 Is the ultimate mission of Hueffer. 
 
 I have given it as I remember hearing it : there 
 exists another version. 
 
 As was their wont, my husband and Swinburne 
 had brought bundles of MSS., reams of foolscap 
 and books galore to beguile the time during their 
 sojourn by the sea. Swinburne had brought the 
 proofs of certain of his poems for the " Collected 
 Edition," and the dedicatory epistle in prose which 
 he had written for it. He suggested reading it to 
 me — another instance of his innate courtesy, for he 
 knew how much it would please me. This long 
 essay, filling twenty-nine pages of Vol. I of his 
 collected pdems, stands out as a piece of masterly 
 prose and reveals Swinburne at his best in scholar- 
 ship. He introduced the opening sentence with 
 a reminder : — " This is for Walter, you know," 
 and proceeded to read, ever on the look-out for 
 some mistake in the text. If so much as a comma 
 
 194 
 
13 
 
 u 
 
 o . 
 
 " a 
 
 •go 
 
 .& a 
 
 3 
 
 <a 
 
 ■a 
 
 CO 
 
 
 195 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 was omitted or wrongfully introduced, down would 
 go his pencil on the offending line, and his vituper- 
 ative comments were somewhat of a relief from 
 the strain of following his magnificent prose. As 
 he read on, I was awed by the burning intensity of 
 his language. Two sentences in particular made 
 me very uncomfortable as Swinburne stressed 
 each insulting or bitter word, making me feel the 
 sting of the old saying : " If the cap fits, wear it." 
 His eyes seemed to pierce me through and through 
 as I listened : 
 
 The half-brained creature to whom books are other 
 than living things may see with the eyes of a bat and draw 
 with the fingers of a mole his dullard's distinction between 
 books and life : those who live the fuller life of a higher 
 animal than he know that books are to poets as much part 
 of that life as pictures are to painters or as music is to 
 musicians, dead matter though they may be to the 
 spiritually still-born children of dirt and dullness who find 
 it possible and natural to live while dead in heart and brain. 
 
 Marlowe and Shakespeare, ^schylus and Sappho, do 
 not for us live only on the dusty shelves of libraries. 
 
 The concluding sentence, which gave me visions 
 of the unexplored dusty top shelves in the library 
 at home, made me so unspeakably wretched that 
 at the conclusion of the reading I went almost 
 weeping to Walter to receive his assurance that 
 Swinburne did not mean me. Well, however, 
 
 196 
 
THE SEA AND THE BABIES 
 
 was I rewarded for my suffering. When the 
 volumes appeared the Bard gave me the whole set 
 for a birthday present, and inscribed them to me, 
 enriching the fly-leaf with the following lines : 
 
 The waves are a joy to the seamew, the meads to the herd, 
 And a joy to the heart is a goal that it may not reach. 
 
 The book on the tapis at this time, I well 
 remember, was " The Woman in White." The 
 pitch of enthusiasm to which Swinburne worked 
 himself whilst reading it to Walter was unforget- 
 table. He became short of breath at the thrilling 
 situations. The characters gripped his imagination 
 to such an extent that for the time being he hved 
 inside the parts created by the novelist. I had 
 not been present at the beginning of the narrative, 
 so I only heard it fragmentarily. The story was 
 not being read for the first or even the second 
 time. Its present innings had started at Putney, 
 and Swinburne had taken care not to leave 
 it behind. Just before sitting down to dinner one 
 evening, the Bard — Shaving concluded a wonder- 
 fully exciting chapter — ^held up his glass of beer, 
 and just as he might have been toasting an absent 
 friend exclaimed, alluding to Fosco who drinks the 
 health of Miss Halcombe, " And well might he 
 drink her health ! So do I." 
 
 197 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 TABLE TALK 
 
 Fortunately for his guests, before he came to live 
 with Walter at The Pines, Swinburne rarely made 
 any attempt at hospitality beneath his own 
 bachelor roof in Great James Street. He was in 
 the habit of lunching or dining with Walter, when 
 they were neighbours in Great James Street, 
 either at the Cock Tavern in Fleet Street or at 
 the London Restaurant at the corner of Chancery 
 Lane. 
 
 The very idea of the Bard grappling with the in- 
 tricacies of a cuisine, especially under the auspices 
 of a " laundress " (that is, I fancy, tlie correct 
 name for the female who " does," in more ways 
 than one, for her lodgers) makes me laugh — or 
 weep. With the assistance of the egregious 
 "Mrs. Crupp," David Copperfield did have the 
 forethought to order a well-chosen menu from the 
 
 198 
 
TABLE TALK 
 
 pastrycook's on the occasion of his httle dinner at 
 his chambers in Buckingham Street. 
 
 Would that Swinburne had done likewise when 
 he invited Justin Huntly MacCarthy to lunch with 
 him. A day or two before this festivity the Bard 
 had met this extremely nice young man at 
 a private view of the Blake Exhibition. Wish- 
 ing to show him hospitality, Swinburne with 
 great cordiality exclaimed, " Come to lunch," 
 and forthwith appointed a day. Delighted and 
 honoured by the invitation, the guest duly 
 presented himself and was ushered into the sitting- 
 room where Swinburne was waiting for him. On 
 a table were a few plates, a tin of biscuits, a pot 
 of jam, a bottle of hock — and nothing else. The 
 guest, thinking that the poet's " laundress " 
 woiild shortly appear bearing at least a dish of cold 
 meat to augment the repast, listened enraptured 
 to his host's conversation and politely awaited 
 his invitation to take his seat at the board. No 
 hbspitable female appeared, however, and after a 
 short time, Swinburne, waving his hand towards 
 the jam and the hock, airily said, ^^ Shall we 
 have luncheon now? " and proceeded to place 
 himself before the tin of biscuits and hand the 
 pot of jam to his guest, inviting him to " help 
 himself." He then placed the biscuits within 
 
 199 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 his guest's reach and poured out two glasses of 
 hock. 
 
 This weird luncheon proceeded until they had 
 both satisfied themselves with the two solitary 
 comestibles, and emptied the bottle of hock. 
 
 Mrs. Disney Leith, in her recollections of her 
 famous cousin, prints a letter from Swinburne to 
 . his mother. This letter is written from The Pines 
 and contains this passage : " What stuff people 
 talk about youth being the happiest time of life ! 
 Thank God . . . I am very much more than twice 
 as happy now as I was when half my present age." 
 
 An assured and undisturbed happiness in his 
 environment, his pursuits, his intercourse, was 
 the dominant note of his life at Putney Hill. And 
 there was no period of the day when that conscious 
 joy in existence was more manifest than during 
 meal times. For if the poet was a master of 
 monologue, he was by no means incapable of the 
 delightful small talk, the conversational give-and- 
 take, the apt allusions, the appropriate quip. In 
 this unstudied converse he " was quick at the 
 up-take." Meal time was never a dull interlude 
 in the day's duties and distractions. 
 
 His manners at the table were of the old courtly 
 school and were charming. He would never 
 think of helping himself until he was quite sure 
 
 200 
 
TABLE TALK 
 
 that you had everything you wanted. The salt or 
 the mustard he would pass to you with a little 
 smiling bow and an air of genuine courtliness. 
 He was punctilious over the small observances of 
 the table. For instance, it would never occur to 
 him, at the end of the repast, to throw his napkin 
 down in an untidy heap for a servant to collect 
 and adjust. It was the hero, so to speak, of quite 
 a little ceremony. The roUing-up of it seemed 
 to afford him a real pleasure. He would fold the 
 ends together and smooth out the creases with 
 religious solicitude before slipping it back into its 
 ring. And should the folding and rolling fail to 
 come up to his idea of artistic perfection, he would 
 undo the work of his hands and perform the 
 ceremony all over again. When he was really 
 sure that all the requirements of the case had been 
 met, he would look up at us with a happy, boyish 
 smile and a satisfied ejaculation of " Ah! " as if 
 he had accomplished some difficult feat. 
 
 Comment having been made on the remarkable 
 thoroughness with which he conducted this perfor- 
 mance, he explained that when he was a little boy 
 in the nursery his mother had taught him to be 
 particular in this matter, and that he still took a 
 pride in following her instructions. 
 
 Talking of napkin-rings reminds me of a little 
 
 201 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 incident. My husband on one occasion gave the 
 poet a celluloid ring, and he explained to me while 
 purchasing it, "I will give this to Algernon for a 
 lark — he will think it is ivory." It cost, I think, 
 a shilling or eighteen pence, and the inexperienced 
 eye would suppose it was real ivoiy. I doubt if 
 Swinburne had ever heard of celluloid. A little 
 oblong picture of French design was let into the 
 surface of the ring. This decoration had the effect 
 of an exquisite miniature by some artist of the 
 Watteau school, giving an air of expensiveness 
 to what was merely pretty. 
 
 When my husband gave his little present to 
 Swinburne, the latter waxed quite eloquent, 
 " Beautiful! " " Charming! " were among his 
 fervent exclamations of delight and appreciation. 
 When he was told what the napkin-ring had cost, 
 he found it difficult to believe it. He shrugged 
 his shoulders and ejaculated repeatedly " Tiens ! 
 Tiens ! How can such things be? " 
 
 When in the mood, he would notice and 
 comment on any trifle on the table, and anything 
 new or pretty immediately arrested his attention. 
 For example he never tired of commenting on a 
 little Queen Anne mustard-pot I had bought. 
 When he had recourse to it, he would gaze on it 
 with an expression of the utmost satisfaction. Its 
 
 202 
 
TABLE TALK 
 
 quaint shape and fluted pattern appealed to 
 his artistic sense. " I like this little thing, it is so 
 pretty," he would say as a sort of apology for 
 lingering over its qualities instead of taking his 
 mustard and getting on with his meal. There was 
 one table decoration which he could not stand. 
 He hated to see cut flowers used for ornamentation 
 or indeed for any other purpose. He had an idea 
 that it hurt the poor things to cut them. He 
 describedi them as innocents who had undergone 
 execution, beautiful heads that had been guillo- 
 tined, severed from their fair fragile bodies and 
 consigned to the sawdusty basket of M. Sanson. 
 To him flowers presented a tragic spectacle 
 unless they were " all a-blowing and a-growing." 
 Apropos this peculiar and rather pathetic trait, 
 another incident comes back to me. One spring- 
 time I had been into the country and I came upon 
 a wood wherein blue-bells were spread like a 
 carpet. Had I been a poet, the scene would 
 doubtless have conjured up to my mind's eye many 
 exquisite ideas. But I could only think of one, 
 of unseen fairies dancing between the lovely bells, 
 their tread leaving every flower undisturbed. I 
 felt like a female Gulliver in a lovelier Lilliput. 
 From sheer joie de vivre I took off my shoes, 
 meaning to join in the revels of the fairy host. 
 
 203 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Then something stopped me. I shrank from the 
 idea of trampling like a giant among such exquisite 
 and fragile things. I put on my shoes again. On 
 my return I told Swinburne of my experience, 
 describing the beauty of the scene, the suddenness 
 of the temptation, the equally sudden revulsion 
 of feeling, and I saw that the poet was really 
 moved by my idea. 
 
 "It was better not; you might have hurt 
 them," he said. 
 
 I do not wish it to be inferred that our table-talk 
 was solely concerned with " trifles light as air." 
 Some chance allusion to French affairs would, 
 perhaps, bring up the name of Napoleon III, the 
 Napoleon le Petit of Victor Hugo. This roused 
 the poet to alternate rage and rapture, for he 
 regarded the Emperor as one of the most odious 
 and contemptible of throned criminals, while he 
 worshipped Hugo as the greatest of the literary 
 immortals. To describe his outbursts on these 
 topics as picturesque, passionate, and perfervid is 
 to do them very much less than justice. The 
 atmosphere of the room became electrical, and 
 sparks seemed to crackle in all directions. 
 
 When Hugo was the theme, there was no con- 
 
 204 
 
TABLE TALK 
 
 versation : Swinburne declaimed and we listened. 
 I remember, however, a notable exception to this 
 rule. One day at table he was unusually quiet. 
 He was looking dull and despondent. I asked 
 my husband if Algernon would like to hear me 
 recite a poem I had learned ati school. Upon 
 being assured that the poet would be delighted to 
 listen to me, I went over to him and knelt on the 
 floor by his side. I told him that I knew a little 
 poem by Victor Hugo. At the mere mention of 
 " The Master " his unhappy mood passed, like a 
 mist dispelled by the effulgence of the sun. His 
 face became radiant, his attitude that of eager 
 attention. The poem was addressed to a jeune 
 file. The composition was tame, and convenable 
 to the last degree. But in the eyes of his English 
 singing brother, Victor Hugo was sacrosanct. He 
 fairly beamed on me as I proceeded, and when I 
 had finished he thanked me in his polite way 
 and assured me that I had afforded him great 
 pleasure. His melancholy mood had entirely dis- 
 appeared, and he began to talk of the days when 
 he " was a kid at Eton." 
 
 There was naturally much literary talk at our 
 table. Walter was anxious that I should be 
 qualified to take part in it when the topics were 
 within my intellectual range. There came an 
 
 205 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 occasion when he suggested to me that I might 
 find Border Minstrelsy an interesting field of 
 study. It was a topic frequently trotted out 
 by the housemates at The Pines. I bought a 
 copy of "Border Ballads" and soon discovered 
 as much fascination in " Clerk Saunders " and 
 " The Wife of Usher's Well " as any literary 
 husband could hope for or desire. 
 
 There are two stanzas in " Clerk Saunders " 
 which Walter and the Bard delighted to recite 
 alternately. My husband would begin : 
 
 Is there ony room at your head, Saunders? 
 
 Is there ony room at your feet? 
 Is there ony room at your side, Saunders? 
 
 Where fain, fain, I wad sleep? 
 
 Well I can recall the pleasure Swinburne 
 derived in replying : 
 
 There's nae room at my head, Marg'ret, 
 
 There's nae room at my feet; 
 My bed it is full lowly now, 
 
 Amang the hungry worms I sleep. 
 
 It was weird, but beautiful in a way, and I felt as 
 greatly moved in listening as Swinburne obviously 
 was in reciting. 
 
 On the subject of Swinburne and the Border 
 Ballads I reoeived from Lady Archibald Campbell 
 a very interesting letter which I Have great 
 
 pleasure in reproducing here : 
 
 306 
 
TABLE TALK 
 
 Coombe Hill Farm, 
 
 Kingston-on-Thames, 
 
 ,, ^ September 27th, 1919. 
 
 My dear Clara, ^ 
 
 As you tell me you are writing a monograph of 
 
 Swinbiu-ne (and no one is more fitted to do it than yourself), 
 
 it has struck me some little incidents might interest you 
 
 which occurred in the early days of our friendship with him 
 
 and your husband, when they came together to see us. Of 
 
 course you know that our friendship with your wonderful 
 
 " Bird " * began when he was seeing much of Rossetti. 
 
 But of course we knew him before he had met either the 
 
 poet-painter or Swinburne. 
 
 It was a friend of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland 
 
 who brought him to see us. She had often told me what a 
 
 wonderful man he was. She had made his acquaintance at 
 
 Rossetti's. Afterwards when he and STvinburne became 
 
 friends I remember one of my first ventures to please him 
 
 was half-reciting — ^half-singing — some of the old Border 
 
 Ballads. He listened with rapt attention, and with that 
 
 fascinating politeness of his remarked, " Walter had not 
 
 told me you had the art of expressing the life of the 
 
 matchless Scottish Ballads ! I in a small way have attempted 
 
 that form of Ballad myself." I remember his pleasure over 
 
 " The Twa Corbies" — ^how he bent his ear near to the piano 
 
 the better to hear every word ; and how " Lord Randal " 
 
 delighted him — especially about the poisonous eels — when 
 
 his Mother asks him : 
 
 " Where gat ye your dinner. Lord Randal, my son? 
 Where gat ye your dinner, my handsome young man?" 
 
 " I gat eels boil'd in broo ; mother, make my bed soon. 
 For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie doon." 
 
 Lord Randal's reply saying he dined off " eels boiled in 
 broo " — presumably poisoned by his " true love " — 
 delighted him, and how he laughed ! 
 
 * One of the three pet names for Walter, 
 207 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Here is the couplet : — 
 
 "01 fear ye are poison'd, Lord Randal, my son ! 
 
 I fear ye are poison'd, my handsome young man!" 
 "O yes! I am poison'd; mother, make my bed soon, 
 
 For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wald lie doon." 
 
 Their adorable simplicity in everyday life riveted me, 
 and many other countless memories they call up, which 
 make my heart too full to speak of otherwise than as radiant 
 beacons in my life, which threatened at one time to become 
 for me a slough of Philistine darkness, oppression and 
 repression — certainly a curious combination I 
 
 Of course you are coming on Monday, so until then, 
 Au revoir. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Janey S. Campbell. 
 
 On the wall at the left-hand side of the dining- 
 room door at The Pines there hung — and still 
 hangs — a water-colour painting by Miss Elizabeth 
 E. Siddal, who became the wife of Dante Gabriel 
 Rossetti. It is dated 1856. It represents an 
 episode described in the border ballad of " Sir 
 Patrick Spens." Sometimes when Swinburne 
 left the table after lunch, he would stop for 
 a moment to look at this little drawing. It linked 
 him with the past. It has often occurred to me 
 that his first ballads in the archaic style of the 
 Border Minstrelsy were written shortly after Miss 
 Siddal finished her picture. He was, as is well 
 known, an enthusiastic friend of Rossetti. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A WELCOME VISITOR 
 
 Visitors at The Pines were usually impressed by 
 Swinburne's affability and courtesy, but in the 
 majority of cases they made very little impression 
 on him. One notable exception is worth a small 
 chapter. 
 
 The welcome visitor was Marion Crawford, 
 the novelist, whose writings Swinburne much 
 esteemed. The visit came about in this way. 
 Walter had written to Mr. Crawford telling him 
 how A. C. S. and he had been enthralled while 
 reading "A Cigarette Maker's Romance." The 
 letter ended like this, " When you are in England, 
 we should much like to meet you." Crawford was 
 evidently pleased, and when he next came, to this 
 country, one of his first visits was to The Pines. 
 
 I can still recall vividly the occasion on which 
 he came to us. It was a splendid day in mid- June, 
 
 209 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 about four o'clock, and he was shown into the 
 dining-room which overlooks the garden, at that 
 time a glowing perspective of flower and foliage. 
 When I entered the room, our guest's back was 
 turned towards me. He was standing at the window 
 admiring the scene. He turned quickly as he heard 
 me enter. My first impression was that he looked 
 very much of a man. He stood well over six feet, 
 and his figure was in the nicest proportion to his 
 height. He was bronzed, and his hands were 
 beautifully shaped. What struck me most about 
 him was the very bright blue of his eyes. So 
 bright was the blue that I found it hard to believe 
 what I heard subsequently from one who knew 
 him well, that the blue never was so brilliant 
 as when he was on his beloved sea sailing his yacht 
 "Aeda." This was his ruling passion. He was 
 more proud of having himself sailed the "Aeda " 
 from New York to Sorrento than he was of the 
 success of his most popular work. As I looked at 
 him, the thought flashed through my mind that 
 Marion Crawford looked more like the hero of a 
 novel than the writer of one. 
 
 Our greeting was cordial. I at once felt myself 
 at ease with him. Having exchanged polite 
 commonplaces, Mr. Crawford expressed his 
 admiration for the garden on which he had 
 
 210 
 
A WELCOME VISITOR 
 
 just been gazing. " Why," he said with his 
 bewitching smile, " you seem to be in the very 
 heart of the country here, and yet in the front of 
 your house you are in the midst of traffic and the 
 hoots of the motor horns." We talked together 
 for some time before my husband appeared. The 
 pleasure of both men on becoming acquainted was 
 too genuine for any disguise, but Walter had in 
 the drawing-room a business man whom he was 
 bound to rejoin, so it fell to my lot to pilot the 
 visitor to Swinburne's sanctum. 
 
 The poet had been told of Marion Crawford's 
 arrival, and never was introduction more easily 
 effected. I cannot recall how the introduction 
 was phrased, and I am inclined to think that there 
 was no formality, but that the men just met and 
 shook hands after the manner of old friends who 
 had not seen each other for a long time. Of course 
 they had many tastes in common. Both loved 
 Italy. Both loved the sea, and each of them had 
 a sincere admiration for the literary output of the 
 other. It was a delightful conversation, especially 
 as Swinburne had not the slightest difficulty in 
 hearing what Crawford said. A pleasant change, 
 this, from the boredom he so often experienoed 
 when a visitor's voice failed to " carry." On this 
 occasion, both visitor and host seemed to generate 
 
 211 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 an atmosphere of harmony and repose. So 
 " enthused " did Swinburne become, that while 
 discussing Italy, he dropped into the language of 
 that delightful land. But as his acquaintance with 
 the language was that of a reader and not a speaker, 
 he soon dropped out of it again, notwithstanding 
 Crawford's tactful compliment on his fluency. The 
 deviation into Italian happened when the two men 
 were discussing the " Orlando Furioso " of Ariosto 
 which Swinburne had taken down from his shelves. 
 I confess that a good deal of this part of the talk 
 was a little beyond me ; but I shall always recall 
 with gratitude the gallant efforts of our visitor to 
 keep me participating easily in it. When con- 
 versation veered round to the sea Mr. Crawford's 
 kind wish for me to join in it was less difficult to 
 comply with, for I, also, loved the sea. 
 
 Crawford at last expressed an eager desire to 
 hear Swinburne read one of his own works. And, 
 nothing loth, the Bard read aloud the completed 
 part of " The Duke of Gandia." The novelist 
 appeared greatly impressed. Our visitor stayed 
 with us the whole afternoon, for it was close on 
 dinner-time when he rose to leave. When the 
 visit was at an end, and the two men bade good- 
 bye to each other with many hopes expressed for 
 another meeting, I left the poet's library with 
 
 212 
 
A WELCOME VISITOR 
 
 Mr. Crawford. As the door of the sanctum closed, 
 
 he said to me, ' ' I shall never forget this day . ' ' He 
 
 turned and looked at the shut door and said, " It 
 
 has been wonderful! wonderful! " In silence he 
 
 came down; and as he said " Good-bye," neither 
 
 of us imagined the good-bye was said for the last 
 
 time. By a coincidence these two great men of 
 
 letters died within twenty-four hours of each other, 
 
 Crawford on the 9th of April, 1909, Swinburne 
 
 on the 10th. I have two letters which bring back 
 
 very vivFdly that day in June. The first is from 
 
 Swinburne to Marion Crav^ford. The two men, 
 
 so greatly attracted one to the other, naturally 
 
 engaged in correspondence. The receipt of a 
 
 letter from the novelist was always regarded by the 
 
 poet as a specially interesting event, and it made 
 
 him happy for the whole day. Here is the letter 
 
 of A. C. S. : 
 
 The Pines, 
 
 September 4th, 1907. 
 Dear Mr. Crawford, 
 
 Many thanks for Richepin's book. I am quite inclined 
 to believe in the fidelity and accuracy of his Borgian Study. 
 The authorities I never believe in are such " Tedeschi " as 
 " Gregorovius the unreadable " — I would as soon put my 
 faith in " Mommsen " or " Freeman." 
 
 What a singularly original and touching story is the 
 Histoire de V autre monde! But, indeed, as much might 
 be said for the other two, I need not say how gratified I 
 
 213 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 am by your recollection of my unfinished play. I am about 
 to publish what is written of it as " The Tragedy of the 
 Duke of Gandia." 
 
 With all good greetings from Watts-Dunton. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 A. C. Swinburne. 
 
 Mrs. Watts-Dunton is especially delighted with the 
 admirable portraits you sent her, and is writing to you to 
 say so. 
 
 It is, perhaps, unnecessary to explain the 
 allusions in the above letter. " Tedeschi " is 
 simply the Italian for Germans. Swinburne who 
 had no love for the Germans as a people, hated both 
 Gregorovius and Mommsen with a perfect hatred. 
 What his grudge against poor Freeman may have 
 been I do not know, but him also he regarded with 
 great dislike. The book by Jean Richepin that 
 occasioned the communication is doubtless Les 
 Ddbuts de Cesar Borgia, the second chapter of 
 which is entitled Le Cadavre du due de Gandie. 
 The other letter is one written by Marion 
 Crawford to me from Italy a few months after his 
 visit to us : 
 
 S. Agnello di Sorrento (Napoli) 
 Torre San Nicola, 
 San Nicola Arcella, 
 
 Provincia di Cosenza, 
 
 Sept. 12th, 1907. 
 Dear Mrs. Watts-Dunton, 
 
 Many thanks for your kind and welcome letter, and 
 
 214 
 
A WELCOME VISITOR 
 
 for the Book Monthly, when it comes. It ought to come 
 dawdling along a couple of days after the letter itself, but 
 this is an out-of-the-way place. I wish you could see it. 
 Walls eighteen feet thick, sea, rocks, more sea and more 
 rocks, and no habitation visible except a haunted house 
 below, near the beach, and the big half-ruined building on 
 the hill where my farmer lives. 
 
 I cannot tell you how much I value your husband's 
 high opinion of " The Cigarette Maker," nor how grateful 
 I am for his open praise of it. I wish I had written twenty 
 better, but there is hardly one I think so good. Mr. 
 Swinburne told me he liked the " Roman Singer " — it must 
 be our Italy that appealed to him, for he loves it as well 
 as I do, and has written undying words about it, which I 
 never shall. 
 
 May I ask you a question — " on the sly," as you put it? 
 Or even two ? The first is this. In a very unscholarly way, 
 I am very fond of the Greek poets, and I potter amongst 
 the gardens of the Anthology on my own account. I found 
 lately a very beautiful Epitaph of four lines, by an unknown 
 author, " On a friend." Do you think that by any diplo- 
 macy it would be possible to bring it to Mr. Swinburne's 
 notice, in the bare hope that he might do it into his 
 matchless English, for all men and for all time? If you 
 think so, I will copy the lines and send them to you. No 
 one, living or dead, ever turned Greek into English as he 
 does here and there through his poems. I do not believe 
 he even knows that scholars have picked out gems here and 
 there and have printed them as his, in their notes. 
 
 The other question is, can Mr. Watts-Dunton let me 
 have the sheets of " The Tragedy of the Duke of Gandia " 
 a little early, in order that I may write a review of it in one 
 of the big English Reviews? I think I might do it — not 
 
 215 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 as it deserves — but as well as a professional reviewer, and it 
 would be a labour of love. 
 
 Forgive this long letter, I am glad you like the photo- 
 graph — ^yes, Mr. Swinburne wrote that you had received it 
 and were pleased. 
 
 I leave here on the 15th for my real home, and shall 
 be there oS. and on all the winter. 
 
 With warm greetings to your husband, and sincerest 
 thanks to Mr. Swinburne for his interesting letter about the 
 " Tedeschi " and " Gregorovius the unreadable." 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 
 Marion Crawford. 
 
 216 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MISCELLANEA 
 
 About anything of a mechanical nature Swinburne 
 had the most primitive ideas. He could poke a 
 fire — after a fashion ; and, as we have seen, he 
 could light his candles — after another fashion. But 
 he regarded all machinery as belonging to a world 
 outside his ken. This inability to understand 
 enhanced the awe and admiration with which he 
 regarded the simple contrivances intended to add 
 to the ease of everyday life. His intelligence was 
 so confined to poetry and imaginative literature 
 that even the mechanism of a soda-water syphon 
 was beyond him. When for the first time I man- 
 ipulated one in his presence, he gazed fixedly at 
 me, evincing conisiderable apprehension for my 
 safety. I succeeded in releasing a gentle stream 
 into my glass. When I stopped, he said with an 
 accent of admiration and surprise, " How cleverly 
 
 217 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 you did that; I couldn't have done it." I could 
 disclaim the compliment, but-I could not truthfully 
 contradict the second part of his comment. I have 
 seen him approach a refractory window-sash with 
 the reluctance of one about to grasp a bunch of 
 nettles, but if the sash remained obstinate under 
 his treatment he would hurl at it a dazzling 
 selection of epithets in at least three different 
 languages. It was a liberal education in swear- 
 words to hear him. I tried to catch the phrases 
 as they dropped in quick succession from his lips ; 
 but knowing only English and French, most of his 
 angry eloquence was lost to me. Some of it was 
 no doubt imprecation in the purest Attic Greek. 
 
 Foremost among the mechanical arts of which 
 he approved was photography. He spoke enthusi- 
 astically of its results and pronounced them 
 "tremendously clever." He raved eulogistically 
 over some snapshots of children done by a cousin 
 of his. The meaning of the phrase, " You touch 
 the button, we do the rest," would have floored 
 him utterly, for he regarded the little pictures 
 almost as works of art. 
 
 Although I have seen Walter scores of times 
 with a pad before him writing his own letters, he 
 more often than not dictated them. He was never 
 slow to employ any mechanical device which he 
 
 218 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 thought would make life easier. In his enthusiasm 
 for science he was eager for experiments. Not 
 so the Bard — in this he was Walter's exact 
 opposite. He never enquired the why and the 
 wherefore of such things, or whence and by 
 whom came any invention. I believe Swinburne 
 resented even a business letter that was 
 type-written, whereas Walter welcomed the 
 machine-made epistle as affording him relief from 
 deciphering the sometimes awful vpriting of his 
 correspondents. Under the impression that such 
 a method as typewriting would, with practice, 
 enable him at least to write his own letters, he was 
 eager to purchase one of the numerous machines 
 on the market. We wrote to several ciompanies 
 and for weeks we were deluged with correspon- 
 dence, descriptive catalogues — and machines. I 
 had learnt to type on a hired machine in anticipa- 
 tion of the day when we should acquire one df 
 our own, and in order that I should be able in 
 turn to teach Walter. 
 
 Never shall I forget the arrival of those 
 type-writers ! Their escorts from the different 
 companies would leave them at The Pines for a 
 week or more on trial. At one time we had 
 four of them simultaneously in the house. Poor 
 Walter was worried to death between the lot of 
 
 219 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 them, not knowing which to choose, and .with 
 each agent praising his own wares. The man 
 from " Remington's" and the " Smith Premier" 
 man would meet in the hall and glare fiercely at 
 each other one day, whilst on another, the 
 " Hammond " agent would barge into the 
 " Blick " or the " Yost " clerk as he entered or 
 departed with his own particular machine. Even- 
 tually one was selected, and Walter began his 
 lessons in peace and comfort. 
 
 What fun we had in the evenings ! He proved 
 quite an apt pupil, and when he didn't forget to 
 " shift the key " or strike the lever that produces 
 the spacing, or make some other minor fault, his 
 progress was satisfactory, if slow. I was begin- 
 ning to feel quite proud of my pupil, and one day 
 when we went to Onslow Square to visit 
 Algernon's sister Isabel, I carried a specimen of 
 Walter's best and latest effort with me. She 
 thought it wonderful ; and turning to me with an 
 eager smile on her charming face, she exclaimed 
 excitedly, " Oh, Clara, if you would but teach dear 
 Algernon how to type, how delightful that would 
 be ! " The incongruity of such an idea had the 
 effect of making Walter and me almost double up 
 with laughter. But Isabel, thinking, no doubt, that 
 this contrivance had come as a boon and a blessing 
 
 220 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 to relieve her brother from the tiresome effort of 
 wielding a pen, was oblivious of the fact that 
 Algernon would not and could not be taught. 
 
 In his ineptitude with regard to mechanics 
 Swinburne was untrue to the doctrine of heredity. 
 His immediate! forbears found a great attraction 
 in them. On this point I may quote an obser- 
 vation made by my husband. 
 
 In dealing with the poet's little book on Dickens 
 he says, "It is interesting to remark that Swin- 
 burne's father, Admiral Swinburne, was in his 
 own way almost as remarkable as his grandfather. 
 His ability showed itself in a direction in which the 
 poet was strangely deficient — mechanics. He spent 
 much of his time in his carpenter's workshop. He 
 invented more than one mechanical device for 
 which he ought to have taken out a patent. I 
 myself possess one of these devices given me by 
 Lady Mary Gordon. It has always been a special 
 wonder to visitors to The Pines." 
 
 Far from being astonished at A. C. S.'s lack 
 of mechanical knowledge, I am disposed to 
 wonder how a man who added so many 
 treasures to English literature managed to get 
 through so much general reading as he did. 
 Barring scientific works, he could read pretty 
 nearly anything, from poetry, history and 
 
 221 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 philosophy down to " Yellowbacks " and lime- 
 ricks. And he usually found something to admire 
 in them aU — and often something to abominate. 
 He was, I remember, extremely fond of Thackeray. 
 " The Newcomes " was one of his favourite novels, 
 and Ethel Newcdme was his favourite heroine in 
 fiction. Ethel, I have always thought, must have 
 appealed to him as resembling some member of his 
 own family, perhaps one of his sisters. 
 
 He never wearied of discussing his favourite 
 novels, and dwelt with pathetic insistence on the 
 peculiarities of the various characters. He was 
 as zealous as an evangelist in his endeavour to 
 secure converts to his literary beliefs. He tried 
 to convert me — sometimes with success. He 
 introduced me to Jane Austen's " Emma " — ^the 
 characters in that book being to him living and 
 faithful friends. 
 
 When I had finished reading " Emma " he put 
 me through quite an examination on the book. 
 His every question began with " Do you 
 remember? " or, "I know you have forgotten." 
 He was delighted that I had noticed how fussy 
 Mr. Wodehouse became about the way in which 
 his gruel was prepared, and asked me if I would 
 have taken the samei pains as Emma in order to 
 meet her father's taste in it. He had a fervent 
 
 232 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 and almost affectionate appreciation for the work 
 of Jane Austen, and was fond of picturing the 
 England she knew through her eyes. Often I 
 heard him exclaim when referring to " Emma " : 
 " What a queer little England it must have been 
 then, to be sure ! " 
 
 Swinburne knew; no German, nor do I remember 
 having seen a German book on his shelves. He 
 disliked the Teuton, and entertained no exalted 
 opinion of his literature. His passionate love of 
 France and of everything French was attributable, 
 I imagine, to the fact that Victor Hugo was a 
 Frenchman. 
 
 With Hugo he had a very voluminous corres- 
 pondence, and he kept a large number of his 
 letters. These I was asked to translate into 
 English. The task was not an easy one, owing 
 to the characteristically literary handwriting of the 
 Master. ^ 
 
 When talking about Hugo, the Bard would often 
 lapse info French, and although he had never 
 stayed long in France, he spoke it with a true 
 Parisian accent, and with the ease of one talking 
 in his mother tongue. His achievements in French 
 prose and poetry are convincing proofs of his 
 mastery of that language. 
 
 Believing that biography should not avoid the 
 
 223 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 amusing simply because the smiles evoked are at 
 its subject's expense, I give the following story, for 
 which I am indebted to Mrs, Alys Eyre Macklin 
 who had it direct from her friend Tola Dorian. 
 When Swinburne and my husband visited Paris in 
 November, 1882, to witness the performance of 
 Hugo's Le Roi s'amuse, it was arranged that they 
 should meet the great Frenchman at a dinner at 
 his house. Tola Dorian was an almost daily 
 visitor there, and being Swinburne's translator 
 and friend, she was asked to be hostess on the 
 great occasion. This is how she described the 
 meeting : 
 
 " It was a cold, dreary day, and poor Hugo was 
 feeling very irritable and nervous, full of aches 
 and pains, more than usually deaf, and in one of 
 his worst moods. It was pitiful to see how he 
 struggled with his >veakness ; he was like a lion in 
 a net. I told them not to bring the visitors 
 straight in to him, feeling I had better see them 
 first to explain that their host was not in a normal 
 frame of mind, but when Swinburne arrived alone, 
 I saw that he also was in a highly nervous condition. 
 
 " ' Watts was not able to come,' he burst out 
 excitedly. ' He has toothache. The poor fellow 
 is suffering agonies. I ought never to have left 
 him. I must get back as soon as possible.' 
 
 224 
 
STATUETTE OF \ICTOR HUGO 
 (u.NE OF Swinburne's most chekished possessions) 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 " Now, Swinburne also was deaf, and I shall 
 never forget the scene that followed. Trembling 
 with agitation, he went off into what sounded like 
 a carefully prepared speech foil of Eastern hjrper- 
 bole : Victor Hugo was the great sun round which 
 the little stars, etc., etc., etc. Hugo sat with his 
 head bent forward, his hand to his ear, and his 
 efforts to catch the words gave his face a 
 threatening expression, and his terse ' What does 
 he say? What does he say?' sounded liEe a growl. 
 This did nothing to tranquillise Swinburne, who 
 grew more and more nervous as he began at the 
 beginning again. 
 
 " The result was the same, and I had to come 
 to the rescue as interpreter. 
 
 *' Had it not been so pathetic, it would all have 
 been intensely fonny. AH through the meal I had 
 to continue to act as interpreter, and at intervals 
 Swinburne kept on saying to me in an undertone, 
 ' I ought never to have left him. AH alone in 
 the hotel — and the poor fellow was suffering 
 agonies!' The climax came when, at dessert, 
 Victor Hugo drank the health of his guest, and 
 Swinburne, raising his glass to toast the 'great 
 master,' in homage, threw the empty glass over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " Victor Hugo did not grasp the full meaning 
 
 p 225 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 of the action, and he only stared at the shattered 
 fragments. A kind of childish avarice had 
 developed in him with advancing years, and this 
 got the upper hand of him as he muttered : 'And 
 one of the best glasses too! One of the best 
 glasses ! ' And that was his refrain long after the 
 poet had left." 
 
 A funny story may be too good to lose, but I 
 should not like the readers of this one to regard it 
 as any sort of anti-climax to the sincere and glow- 
 ing praise .which Hugo bestowed on " le premier 
 poete anglais actuel " who touched the " deux 
 cimes " of lyric verse and tragic drama. 
 
 In order to complete his book " The Age of 
 Shakespeare," Swinburne wished to see a copy of 
 two plays by William Rowley "All's Lost by 
 Lust" and "A New Wonder: a Woman Never 
 Vext." So one day the Bard, Walter and I 
 started off for the British Museum. The way was 
 made smooth for us by a letter written before- 
 hand to the late Mr. Fortescue. 
 
 When we arrived at the famous library, we were 
 met by Mr. Fortescue and conducted through a 
 private door into a very secluded little library. 
 Sitting working at a table in this apartment was a 
 
 226 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 tall, white-bearded and strikingly handsome man 
 ,who flashed a keen glance at Swinburne when we 
 entered. 
 
 When the official brought Swinburne his 
 precious Rowley, he directed the poet to a seat 
 near that of the venerable student whom I have 
 described. Once absorbed in his Rowley, Swin- 
 burne had eyes for naught else, so my husband and 
 I left him to his labours and went for a stroll 
 through the galleries of the Museum. When we 
 were fairly out of earshot Walter confided to me 
 that Swinburne's good-looking old vis-a-vis was 
 Dr. Furnivall, the eminent Shakespearean scholar, 
 with whom, years before, Swinburne had carried 
 on an epistolary duel in the press. The epithets 
 which the antagonists hurled at each other during 
 their quarrel were both ingenious and indecorous, 
 to say the least of it. When we returned to 
 Swinburne we found that he had completed his 
 study of Rowley ; but he was evidently still 
 in complete ignorance of the identity of the gentle- 
 man with whom he had been sharing the room. 
 After we left the private library and were in a quiet 
 comer, Walter said to Swinburne, " I say, do you 
 know who it was you had sitting next you?" " No. 
 Who was it? " asked tlie other. " Your friend, 
 Furnivall," was my husband's illuminating 
 
 227 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 reply. " Tiens! Was that the dog?" exclaimed 
 Swinburne, without a trace of ill-humour. 
 
 During our Museum visit Mr. Fortescue took us 
 into the King's Library and led us to a glass-case 
 in which was enshrined the extremely rare first 
 edition of " Hamlet." He unlocked the case, took 
 out the precious volume, and, with great solemnity, 
 placed it in Swinburne's hands. I shall never 
 forget the look of rapturous awe on the poet's face 
 as he turned the pages of the priceless book. He 
 spoke no word. His wonder and reverence were 
 too deep even for the customary "Ah-h-h! " He 
 simply gazed — silent and transfixed. Then with a 
 look of thanks in which I could see a trace of 
 emotion, and with the inevitable bow he handed 
 back the treasure to Mr. Fortescue. That gentle- 
 man did not immediately return the book to its 
 place. With polite indulgence he handed it to 
 me in order that I toio might inspect it, and 
 that I might be able to say I had read some of 
 Shakespeare's " Hamlet " in a first edition. 
 
 To Swinburne and Walter it had been a most 
 satisfactory day. To me it was a very memorable 
 one. 
 
 During our walk from the Museum to the 
 Holborn Restaurant where we were to lunch, 
 A. C. S. talked with eloquence and with some 
 
 228 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 excitement of the Elizabethans. It seemed queer 
 to have for our objective instead of a Mermaid 
 Tavern (or even a Rose and Crown !) an ultra- 
 modern place like the Holborn. I made a remark 
 to this effect as we took our places at a little side- 
 table. But by this time the poet had come back 
 to earth and was gazing all round him at the 
 marble walls and the gold-latticed ceiling. 
 
 Walter told him that the fine marble pillars had 
 come from Baron Grant's architectural " folly " 
 at Kensington. It was quite characteristic of 
 Swinburne that his comment on this should take 
 the form of a question : "And who, may I ask, 
 is Baron Grant? " The band had more interest 
 for him than the Baron, and although he could 
 not hear the music of the fiddlers, he seemed 
 absorbingly interested in the antics of the con- 
 ductor, who, violin in hand, was swaying his body 
 about in the most wonderful rhythmic gyrations 
 to the strains of " The Blue Danube." 
 
 As I watched Swinburne, I could not help 
 speculating as to what his thoughts must be. He 
 had<;hambers for a long time in the neighbourhood 
 of the Holborn. In those far-off days — so Walter 
 had told me — a dancing saloon stood on part of the 
 site now occupied by the restaurant. Had the 
 Bard, I wondered, ever gone into the old Holborn 
 
 229 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Casino on the site of which he now sat sober and 
 sedate, enjoying his luncheon and drinking the 
 pint of claret that on this occasion replaced the 
 usual beer. I was doomed to continue wondering, 
 for allusions to the old uses of the floor failed to 
 draw him. His expression became like that of 
 the Heathen Chinee, " child-like and bland." To 
 him the past was past indeed. The hectic roysterer 
 of the sixties was gone : the grave and affable 
 patrician of the twentieth century had taken his 
 place. 
 
 After luncheon that ghastly contrivance known 
 as a " four-wheeler " with the usual Rosinante 
 between its shafts, was hailed for us, and we drove 
 back to Putney. 
 
 In the cab Swinburne kept up an animated con- 
 versation about objects which he noticed en route. 
 He was like a schoolboy out for a half -holiday. 
 
 At Piccadilly Circus we were " held up " for a 
 bit. He put his head out of the window. "Ah! 
 That's Swan and Edgar's. I had to go there with 
 my mother when I was a little chap. She quite 
 liked the place. I hated it. Fortnum and Mason's 
 further down was more my sort of shop. It is 
 associated in my mind with all sorts of good things 
 to eat — delicious preserved fruit, pate de foie gras, 
 and everything else that is nice." 
 
 230 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 During the journey home the friends discussed, 
 not poetry, but the great question regarding the 
 manufacture of this appetising dish. Walter told 
 us horrid details about the sufferings of the 
 wretched goose, confined and overfed with fatten- 
 ing foods until his liver should become just right 
 for a perfect pate. Swinburne gave a very quaint 
 twist to the discussion at this point. Turning to 
 Walter he said, " It always has been a puzzle to 
 me why they send across the Channel for goose's 
 liver when we have so many fat geese here." My 
 husband looked at him with an obvious note of 
 interrogation in his eyes. Swinburne smiled his 
 ineffable smile and answered the unspoken question. 
 " Fat geese in England!" he chirruped gleefully, 
 
 " Well, there's and there's and there's 
 
 ." And he went on with, a list of names of 
 
 men eminent in literature, men whom I had been 
 taught to regard with respect. We both laughed, 
 so he proceeded : " Now their livers carefully 
 treated ought to make excellent pate de foie gras ! " 
 
 I fear it may come as a shock to the aesthetic 
 devotees of Swinburne to learn that the hideous 
 word " bloke " was not foreign to his vocabulary. 
 Coming from him it sounded dreadful, and when 
 
 231 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 first I heard him use it, I was ahnost scan- 
 daUsed. I spoke to Walter about it, and he 
 informed me that Swinburne had picked up this 
 bit of slang from Dante Gabriel. The poet-painter 
 maliciously revelled in the use of the argot of the 
 slums as he had been told that the outside world 
 believed that he and his friends always spoke in a 
 " mediaeval " style. My ear soon became inured 
 to the prosaic monosyllable, for Swinburne would 
 often say of a man he liked, "A very affable bloke, 
 so-and-so." Such turns of speech would be out of 
 place in a " Hymn to Proserpine " ; but heard in 
 the home circle they sounded — thanks to the 
 speaker and his tone — quite pleasant when I got 
 used to them. 
 
 The Bard made many quaint " finds " in the 
 book line. One day he brought home from 
 Wimbledon, " for a lark," as he expressed it, a 
 tiny Coleridge in the Miniature Series. It con- 
 tained " Kubla Khan " and other masterpieces, 
 and was charmingly bound in brown suede. He 
 was greatly excited and delighted that it included 
 " Christabel," — my husband's favourite among 
 Coleridge's poems. He presented this little book 
 as a veritable gem from Aladdin's Cave, 
 
 232 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 saying not a word then about the naagnificent 
 " Christabel," illustrated by a facsimile of Cole- 
 ridge's MS., which came to Walter a few days 
 later. 
 
 Another " find " was a diminutive volume (two 
 inches tall and a little less in width) entitled, 
 Verhum Sempiternum or " The Thumb Bible." 
 The work is a reprint by Longman '(1849) of an 
 opuscule by John Taylor the " water-poet," from 
 an edition published in 1693, about forty years 
 after that " literary bargee's " death. Taylor's 
 art of summary prbduces something to make 
 historians and prophets turn in their graves. 
 
 Swinburne's favourite passage in the little book 
 was the address to " The Reader." It was a rare 
 treat to hear him read the lines in his funny 
 solemn tones and with appropriate gestures. I 
 wish I could reproduce the accent and the move- 
 ments. Here, however, are the verses : 
 
 With care and pains out of the Sacred Book, 
 This little Abstract I, for thee, have took. 
 And with great reverence have I cull'd from thence, 
 All things that are of Greatest consequence. 
 And all I beg, when thou tak'st it in hand, 
 Before thou judge, be sure to understand : 
 And as thy kindness thou extend'st to me, 
 At any time I'll do as much for thee. 
 233 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 J. Taylor's method of conveying the truths of 
 Scripture in tabloid form will be most easily appre- 
 ciated by one example. The whole of the Book 
 of Proverbs is disposed of in- one couplet : 
 
 The wisest Man that ever Man begot, 
 
 In heav'nly Proverbs shews what's good, what's not. 
 
 However much " kindness " one " extends " to 
 J. Taylor, it is difficult to believe that his " Thumb 
 Bible " put much strain on his piety. 
 
 Swinburne's recitation of Taylor's introductory 
 verses was invariably followed by a torrent of 
 complimentary extravagance : " Prodigious and 
 wonderful! " " The greatest of us all." 
 
 I recall an incident which illustrates at 
 once the casual manner in which Swinburne 
 read ordinary correspondence and the attitude 
 he adopted towards poets who had not yet 
 " arrived." 
 
 On a date between 1897 and 1903, Countess 
 Benckendorff sent to Swinburne for his perusal and 
 advice a four-act play by Mr. Maurice Baring. 
 A. C. S. wrote a reply, placed it with the play, 
 and then forgot all about the matter. After his 
 death the play and the letter were discovered. The 
 following is the Bard's reply. It will be read with 
 some surprise by his admirers : 
 
 234 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 The Pines [undated] . 
 Madame, 
 
 Vous me demandez si votre niece a du talent, et si elle 
 pent esperer du succes. 
 
 Quant a cela, moi, qui vis hors du monde des lettres, je 
 n'oserais pas hasarder un avis. 
 
 A. C. Swinburne. 
 
 Two things will appear strange to the reader in 
 this communication. The first is how in the world 
 Swinburne could have spoken of Mr. Baring as 
 the niece of the Countess. Eventually a solution 
 of the mystery flashed upon me. The poet 
 evidently misread the word " Maurice " in the 
 Countess's handwritten letter as ' ' ma niece.' ' The 
 whole blunder is characteristic. Mr. Maurice 
 Baring, who, since the date of this little 
 misunderstanding, has taken a recognised place 
 among the literati of the day, will no doubt, 
 be merely amused by it. I confess that I 
 cannot explain Swinburne's description of 
 himself as one living outside the world of letters. 
 He who was honoured by its high priests, a 
 voluminous contributor to the literature, poetical 
 and critical, of his time — " outside the world of 
 letters " ! Why, he just palpitated with the life 
 of that world. He knew no other, cared for no 
 other. As to fearing " to hazard an opinion," 
 
 235 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 he had no such fear when he took pen in hand ; 
 nor did he seem restrained by any such feehng 
 when he aired his opinions for the benefit of the 
 home-circle. It was a case — this plea of severance 
 from the world of letters — of " any excuse is better 
 than none." He simply refused to look at the un- 
 published work of any literary beginner, and there 
 was no one in the world of letters to whom a novice 
 could appeal with less hope of success than the 
 author of "Atalanta in Calydon." It sounds a 
 very unsympathetic attitude, but his day was too 
 occupied by his own work for him to find any 
 reserve of time to devote to the task of advising 
 literary aspirants. 
 
 It seems hardly credible, but Swinburne one 
 day gave me a sermon — a veritable sermon 
 preached by a real priest of the Established 
 Church, He had kept the thing by him for years, 
 why, I cannot say. It was part of a collection of 
 miscellaneous odds and ends that he had accumu- 
 lated. 
 
 The author of the sermon was a certain Mr. 
 Purchas who had a cure of souls in Brighton. 
 Purchas had indulged in certain practices at the 
 altar which had caused him to be "persecuted " 
 
 236 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 by the evangelical party. The persecution caused 
 the name of Purchas to be known far and wide — 
 though his ritualistic candles and genuflexions 
 were as trifles to the practices that are accepted 
 now as a matter of course in thousands of our 
 churches. 
 
 Now the Purchas persecution sjnichronised with 
 the persecution, by the same party, of the author 
 of the " Poems and Ballads." When Swinburne 
 presented me with the printed discburse he 
 expressed a hope that it would help to build me 
 up in my most holy faith, and he told me that 
 it had been accompanied by a letter in which 
 the Brighton vicar expressed sympathy with the 
 poet under the attacks which had been made upon 
 him. 
 
 " I have never read the sermon," said A. C. S. 
 to me, " and I am confident that my reverend 
 correspondent never read the ' Poems and Ballads.' 
 Had he glanced through them he would scarcely 
 have ranked me in his holy regard as a sort of 
 Christian martyr." He struck an attitude, finger- 
 tips of both hands touching and held over 
 his breast; his head bent sideways over one 
 shoulder, and the whites of his eyes showing. One 
 almost saw the halo which he imagined. A droll 
 pictiu-e ! 
 
 237 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 We always tried to make Swinburne's birthday 
 a festive occasion. On every anniversary shoals 
 of congratulatory letters and telegrams and flowers 
 would arrive at the house from strangers, at none 
 of which would the poet give even a glance. But 
 he would beam all over with pleasure at being 
 remembered by his friends and relatives. It was a 
 matter of some difiiculty to select a suitable present 
 for him other than a book. He never smoked and 
 hated the very smell of tobacco. Walter told 
 me that the Bard really liked sweet biscuits, and 
 I was wont on anniversary occasions to present 
 him with these dainties in a pretty box. Once 
 to my great delight I came across a tin case 
 designed to represent a series of volumes of Sir 
 Walter Scott or Charles Dickens — it is so long 
 ago that I forget which of the authors had been 
 honoured in this way by the biscuit manufacturer. 
 Nor does it matter very much — as the sequel will 
 show. To all appearances it looked like a row of 
 books in handsome bindings, and no One would have 
 suspected that it was filled with a choice variety of 
 toothsome cakes. In my unwisdom, I thought this 
 would be quite the thing for his birthday present 
 and prove a tremendous surprise. I purchased 
 it imagining the while how pleased Swinburne 
 would be. How he would inspect the supposed 
 
 238 
 
MISCELLANEA 
 
 volumes ! How he would try to pull one out, 
 and his sensations when he discovered that a prac- 
 tical joke had been played on him and that he had 
 been presented not with food for the mind, but 
 with edible delectabilities ! Fortunately, I told 
 my husband of my purchase. Walter was aghast. 
 When he saw the dummy books, he exclaimed 
 with genuine horror, " Take it back at once. Get 
 anything but that. Algernon would be so 
 disgusted — so enraged to think that the mind of 
 man could sink so low and insult literature to such 
 a degree as to imitate the outside covers of his 
 beloved authors in tin ! And worse — far worse — 
 the inside to be filled with biscuits! " 
 
 I took the offensive box back. And I purchased 
 for the illustrious man the inevitable book. 
 
 239 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE TWO SWINBURNES 
 
 After I had known Swinburne for some time — 
 say a year after my marriage — I became im- 
 pressed with the fact that He possessed a dual 
 personality. 
 
 One Swinburne, and this the more lovable, was 
 the man we knew in the intimacy of the domestic 
 circle. The other was that aspect of himself which 
 was presented to the visitor, the acquaintance, or 
 the stranger within our gates. 
 
 When Walter and I were alone with the poet 
 he was absolutely natural, cheerful, sometimes full 
 of fun, and always interested in the little things 
 of life. When visitors were present, Swinburne 
 was quite a different man. He was restrained 
 and reticent until something was said about a 
 writer or an orator or an emperor whom at the 
 moment he either loved or loathed. Then the 
 
 240 
 
THE TWO SWINBURNES 
 
 sluices were opened. He burst into a flow of 
 eulogy or vituperation, amazing and torrential. 
 
 If the presence of visitors brought but a 
 Swinburne quite different from the gay and blithe- 
 some boy whom Walter and I knew, it also 
 discovered a Swinburne physically different. Quite 
 a number of those M^ho weTe admitted to The 
 Pines have, after departure, considered it quite 
 the right thing to publish their recollections of the 
 visit. And those persons have invariably noted 
 the poet's deafness. Less excusable and some- 
 times, to speak bluntly, more detestable have been 
 the physical personalia which have spiced articles 
 on Swinburne in scores of magazines and news- 
 papers. 
 
 Now what is the truth? As to the deafness, 
 neither Walter nor I found the slightest difficulty 
 in making him hear all we said, and that without 
 unduly raising the voice. The same may be said 
 of Mrs. Mason,- Walter's sister, who was a great 
 favourite of the poet and possessed a particularly 
 soft and flexible voice. When Swinburne had 
 become accustomed to the timbre of a voice as in 
 the case of the individuals IJ have mentioned, con- 
 versation was perfectly easy as well as delightful. 
 For Swinburne had a fine sense of humour; 
 his persiflage was invariably brilliant, and his 
 a 241 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 more serious utterances attained real eloquence. 
 If visitors found him very deaf, I offer this explan- 
 ation. He himself was conscious of defective 
 hearing. He had the super-sensitiveness that is 
 inseparable from the poetic temperament. The 
 consciousness of his affliction reacted on his nerves, 
 and his nerves, in their turn, reacted on his ear. 
 He was hard of hearing, but in the presence of 
 strangers his deafness temporarily increased. 
 
 As to certain spasmodic movements of Swin- 
 burne, a jerkiness of arms and shoulders, an 
 uncontrollable mobility of legs and feet, I can only 
 say that these signs of electrical overcharge, or 
 defect in whatever Nature employs to maintain 
 equilibrium, have been exaggerated by journalists 
 beyond the limit of decency. 
 
 It is true that he was so carried away by 
 excitement that he seemed unable to keep his 
 feet or legs still when he recited either tragic or 
 purely humorous sentences. In fact his whole 
 body vibrated on these occasions. 
 
 But under ordinary circumstances — when 
 strangers were not present — ^this eccentricity of 
 sensitiveness was never observable. He made no 
 convulsive movement in the intimacy of our 
 domestic circle or when he was in the company 
 of his relatives or old and much-loved friends. 
 
 242 
 
THE TWO SWINBURNES 
 
 People with whom he was on less familiar terms 
 sometimes affected him adversely with the result 
 that inconsiderate or malicious writers have 
 depicted Swinburne as a grotesquely restless being 
 — a sort of human aspen. 
 
 My own opinion is that he was morbidly excited 
 by the presence of those with whom he intuitively 
 felt that he was not en rapport. To mental atmos- 
 phere he was wonderfully sensitive. The strangers 
 who took note of his spasmodic movements — and 
 seemed incapable of noting anything else — were 
 blissfully unconscious of the fact that they them- 
 selves were the cause of the " symptom" which 
 they deplored. 
 
 Swinburne was apt to resent the presence of 
 persons with whom he knew himself to be entirely 
 out of sympathy ; and he sometimes avenged him- 
 self by making with apparent seriousness, weird 
 statements which were by no means his real 
 convictions. Thus he has been debited with the 
 assertion that he took no interest in the work of any 
 poet who began to sing after the year 1850. This, 
 to my knowledge, is untrue. He was deeply 
 interested in such of the younger poets as evinced 
 genius and wrote with distinction. For instance, 
 
 243 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 of the poems of Mr. Alfred Noyes he spoke with 
 genuine enthusiasm. He followed that writer's 
 poetic career with pleasure and the appreciation 
 of a critical poet for a fellow craftsman. He also 
 had a great appreciation for the poetry of Dora 
 Sigerson. Hence if he expressed to a visitor 
 the opinion that in contemporary verse there was 
 nothing new that was good and nothing good that 
 was new, I feel justified in making the inference 
 that Swinburne had been amusing himself by 
 pulling that visitor's leg. 
 
 It is pleasant to recall the fact that the tribute 
 which Mr. Noyes paid to the older poet on Swin- 
 burne's seventieth birthday was more fortunate 
 than many a well- woven wreath. The ode to 
 which I refer, and which immensely pleased 
 Swinburne, contains these memorable lines : 
 
 He needs no crown of ours, whose golden heart 
 Poured out its wealth so freely in pure praise 
 Of others : him the imperishable bays 
 Crown, and on Sunium's height he sits apart, 
 He hears immortal greetings this great morn ! 
 Fain would we bring, we also, all we may — 
 Some wayside flower of transitory bloom. 
 Frail tribute only born 
 To greet the gladness of this April day. 
 Then waste on Death's dark wind its faint perfume. 
 244 
 
THE TWO SWINBURNES 
 
 In acknowledging the ode Swinburne wrote the 
 following very charming letter : 
 
 The Pines, 
 
 March 29/7. 
 Dear Mr. Noyes, 
 
 Thank you very cordially for your fine verses, which 
 
 have given me sincere pleasure. 
 
 I wish I could hope that my appreciation of your praise 
 
 could give you half the pleasure that Hugo's too generous 
 
 appreciation of my tributes repeatedly gave me. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 A. C. Swinburne. 
 
 245 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 During my joyous married life, a dark shadow 
 would occasionally obtrude itselE on my sunlit 
 path, but not long enough to cause me to feel more 
 than a passing uneasiness. In the vague silhouette 
 was scarcely discernible the menacing figure of 
 Death, for as yet I knew nothing of the touch of 
 his icy fingers. But if the Bard were ailing, or 
 Walter himself out of sorts, a nameless " some- 
 thing " would creep into my heart. Then would 
 Walter very simply and beautifully try to make 
 me recognise in Death a kindly Harvester who 
 one day might enter our home and take either 
 himself or Swinburne to " that Kingdom beyond 
 Orion " as he termed the peaceful abode of dis- 
 carnate souls. He hated, however, to see the look 
 of distress on my face that such talks produced. 
 And when all cause for uneasiness had passed 
 
 246 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 away, he would always be the first to assure me 
 that "All's right with the world." His com- 
 passionate heart was troubled by the thought 
 inexpressibly painful to him, that if he were called 
 away before Swinburne, there would be another 
 besides myself — equally dear though in a different 
 way — left to face life without his protecting, 
 brotherly love. 
 
 Swinburne knew it too, and oh, how miserable 
 he would be if Walter were at all ill. At such 
 times, try as I might, I found it well-nigh 
 impossible to imagine his life without Walter. 
 
 As the welfare of Algernon was always Walter's 
 first consideration, he brooded deeply over this 
 possible contingency, and deemed it advisable, in 
 view of its arising, to make me acquainted with his 
 inmost thoughts and desires regarding the care of 
 his beloved friend. That Swinburne was spared 
 the pain of losing his " best friend " (as he termed 
 Walter in the dedication of " Tristram") is an 
 argument in favour of the existence of a Special 
 Providence, or of that Natum Benigna of whom 
 the author of " The Coming of Love " so 
 beautifully sang. 
 
 I have already shown the reader how youthful 
 
 247 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Swinburne essentially was, and how the abounding 
 energy of childhood seemed to radiate from him. 
 Truly he, had the effect of belonging to no age 
 in particular, although according to the calendar 
 his years numbered sixty. He was so young in 
 spirit, that meeting him so constantly, he seemed 
 in my eyes a veritable Peter Pan, a simile which 
 aptly pairs with Tennyson's description of him fis 
 " a reed through which all things blow into 
 music." 
 
 He fostered the illusion that he was a child in 
 more ways than one, and I unconsciously came to 
 regard him, chiefly because of his heedlessness and 
 utter carelessness of himself, as " the boy who 
 wouldn't grow up." 
 
 So good was his general health, thanks no doubt 
 to his regular habits, that he seemed immune from 
 all the ills that flesh is heir to. Whenever I 
 asked Walter after the health of the Bard, I was 
 so accustomed to hearing my enquiry met with the 
 cheery rejoinder, "Algernon is in great force," 
 that it came as a shock to me in November, 1903, 
 to learn that he was stricken by pneumonia. 
 During Swinburne's illness, I received daily 
 bulletins from Walter reporting the condition of 
 his friend. I remember vividly the anxiety I felt 
 on first seeing in the street the orange placard of 
 
 248 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 the Pall Mall Gazette announcing in big black 
 letters " Serious Illness of Mr. Swinburne." 
 
 I had never known him to be dangerously ill 
 
 before, and although his state until the crisis had 
 
 passed seriously alarmed the household at The 
 
 Pines, he himself, when out of danger, refused to 
 
 believe he had been as ill as he undoubtedly had 
 
 been. He made the worst possible patient in the 
 
 world, and hated the sight of the nurses to whose 
 
 care, much to his own annoyance, his life was 
 
 entrusted. He didn't see the necessity for nurses, 
 
 and resented their installation in no very polite 
 
 language. When I saw him after his recovery, 
 
 and, with the understanding of one who had lain 
 
 at death's door with pneumonia two years before, 
 
 congratulated him on what was considered his 
 
 narrow escape, he pooh-poohed aU mention of the 
 
 " disagreeable time," as he called it, through 
 
 which he had passed, and only chafed because he 
 
 felt temporarily weak. 
 
 His waywardness at this time made poor 
 Walter chronically anxious about him, and I would 
 hear a variety of reports, more or less amusing, of 
 the Bard's irresponsibility and imprudent indiffer- 
 ence to the rules laid down for a convalescent. A 
 fear of a relapse never entered his head, although, 
 needless to say, it was the dread of everybody else. 
 
 249 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 He recovered so marvellously that, so far as out- 
 ward appearances went, he was soon as well as 
 ever. But Walter feared the effects of an illness 
 that is apt to leave a trace behind it in some 
 form or another. In the case of Swinburne it 
 left, apparently without his knowing it, a chest- 
 weakness which rendered him slightly more 
 susceptible to cold. He never complained, but 
 Walter became very worried if he came home 
 at all wet from a shower. No excuses about not 
 needing to change or keeping luncheon waiting 
 were of the least use. Walter fidgeted until 
 he had put on dry things, and refused to look 
 happy until he saw the Bard appear, high and dry 
 and jubilant, to take his place at the table. 
 
 Being thus guarded from his own disdain of 
 danger from cold, Swinburne's life went tranquilly 
 on with never an ache or pain. But he was 
 vulnerable after all, and when in 1909 the first 
 chilliness of Spring brought with it a visitation of 
 influenza, he was one of its victims. 
 
 The last episode of his life was preceded by an 
 attack towards the end of March on Walter by the 
 same malady. My mother had succumbed to it 
 only three weeks before, and my alarm can be 
 better imagined than described. The doctor, 
 however, did not take a serious view of Walter's 
 
 250 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 condition, though he ordered him to go to bed at 
 once. Now, Walter, even more than Swinburne, 
 disliked staying in bed, however out of sorts he 
 felt, so he did not obey the doctor's order, but 
 tried to keep up the whole of the day, contending 
 that it depressed him horribly to stay in bed 
 when he wanted to be up. The next day his 
 temperature had risen, and willy-nilly he could not 
 get up. 
 
 Luckily I was in very good health, and was 
 appointed to be my husband's nurse. Walter's 
 chief concern now, in spite of feeling exceedingly 
 ill, was how to deal with Algernon — ^how to 
 account for his non-appearance at the mid-day 
 meal, and how to keep him out of his sick room. 
 The fear of his contracting the malady if he stayed 
 by his friend's bedside, and the danger of a fresh 
 attack of pneumonia, filled our minds with nervous 
 apprehension on the Bard's behalf. To alarm 
 Swinburne unnecessarily was a thing to guard 
 against, and Walter's non-appearance at luncheon 
 would be certain to give rise to comment. Duly 
 coached by Walter how to meet questions, I 
 was deputed to say that as he had a " slight 
 cold " he was taking his meals in his room for 
 that day. 
 
 The first thing that met Swinburne's eye when 
 
 251 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 he came to lunch was Walter's empty place 
 opposite him. After a minute or two he turned 
 to me with the question I could see before I heard 
 it, " Where's Walter? " I repeated what I had 
 been authorised to say, 
 
 " Oh! " exclaimed Algernon, looking surprised 
 and disappointed, but not otherwise perturbed, 
 " I'll go and see how he is after luncheon." 
 
 Before taking his usual siesta he presented 
 himself in Walter's bedroom. He expressed 
 his solicitude, and commiserated him upon being 
 forced to keep to his room. " But," added he, 
 quite cheerfully, and with never a trace of 
 any misgiving, " I can just as well read to you 
 here, so you'll see me at the usual time ready to 
 go on with our book." He looked towards us 
 with a happy smile on his face as he made this 
 announcement, and with the prospect of being 
 able to indulge in one of his few little pleasures 
 he went to his own bedroom. The book he 
 referred to was " Ivanhoe," and for weeks past, 
 with unfailing regularity, upon awakening re- 
 freshed from his afternoon sleep, he had gone into 
 Walter's study to read for an hour or so from the 
 pages of this beautiful romance. 
 
 Punctually at the appointed hour, a tap was 
 heard at the bedroom door, and there stood the 
 
 252 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 Bard patiently awaiting permission to enter. He 
 walked straight up to Walter's bedside and took a 
 seat beside him. He had " Ivanhoe " in his hand 
 all ready to begin. Before reading, he gave a 
 brief synopsis of the events occurring in the pre- 
 ceding chapter, and of those about to follow — a 
 usual custom with him when reading a book they 
 both knew well. Then, looking at me for an 
 instant, expecting me either to get up and 
 leave them alone, or sit where I was and listen, 
 he turned to the place where they had left off 
 the day before and asked, "Shall we begin?" 
 But Walter suggested that he might catch his cold 
 if he sat near him for even half-an-hour, and sug- 
 gested that they should postpone the reading till 
 to-morrow, when they would be able to continue 
 as usual. Swinburne looked woefully disappointed 
 at being thus banished, and turning his gaze in my 
 direction, he enquired, "And will Clara stay and 
 read it to you then?" Walter assured him I would 
 do nothing of the kind, and promised that only he 
 should continue the narrative, explaining that as 
 he was really not at all well, the doctor thought 
 it advisable that I should be at hand to wait on 
 him. 
 
 Swinburne appeared satisfied with this answer, 
 and expressed his sorrow at his friend's condition. 
 
 2&3 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 He seemed depressed, and just before leaving the 
 room he said to me with rather a pathetic ring in 
 his voice, and more than a suspicion of a sigh, 
 "Ah, you are the privileged one ! " But with the 
 anticipation of resuming " Ivanhoe " on the 
 morrow, he regained his equanimity. Later, 
 when he returned with the evening paper, in which 
 he had discovered some item of news that he felt 
 compelled to impart to us, he was as jolly as ever, 
 and was allowed to stay for a. little while and read 
 it out. I 
 
 The next day was cold and blustering, and 
 Walter could guess what the weather would be 
 like outside. He sent me to ascertain if Swinburne 
 had gone out, and if he was still indoors, I was told 
 to ask him not to go for his usual four-mile tramp 
 across the Common. But he had already started — 
 a little earlier than usual — a circumstance which I 
 explained as an attempt to obtain a remedy for a 
 surfeit of his own society. 
 
 All the time he was out, Walter was wondering 
 about him and fuming over his recklessness, for 
 of course we knew he had not put on an over- 
 coat despite the keenness of the air and the 
 lowering clouds. 
 
 As soon as we heard him mounting the stairs — it 
 was easy to hear him, for he had a habit of noisily 
 
 254 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 kicking each stair in his ascent — the " Colonel "* 
 went out to the landing to meet him and tell him 
 to make haste and change. 
 
 He appeared in the doorway, boisterously 
 happy, but very wet. He had enjoyed the 
 exercise because of the rain, not in spite of it, and 
 looked exhilarated and well. Walter remonstrated 
 with him for venturing out on such a day, telling 
 him that such weather was enough to chill anybody 
 to death. Of course the Bard could not agree 
 with him. He always contended rain never did 
 him any harm, and that he liked to feel it beating 
 against his face. 
 
 What a " Peter Pan " he looked as he stood 
 there laughing, and not in the least concerned 
 about himself! But he had caught cold, and 
 when in the late afternoon he paid us another 
 visit, "to see how Walter was getting on," he 
 looked weary and listless, in strange contrast to the 
 picture he had presented in the earlier part of the 
 day. He did not even suggest another chapter 
 or two of " Ivanhoe," which he had so earnestly 
 desired the afternoon before, and went downstairs 
 looking as unlike himself as possible. 
 
 On April 2nd, in order to prevent a repetition of 
 
 * My husband's secretary, Edmund Hake, called " Colonel " 
 as a joke. 
 
 255 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 his escapade of the day before, the weather still 
 continuing cold and damp, some little time before 
 the hour for him to start, Walter sent a very 
 peremptory message to him absolutely forbidding 
 him to go out. The next morning we were con- 
 siderably surprised to learn that he had not left 
 his room, and had requested the maid to bring 
 his breakfast up to him, as he intended to stay 
 where he was. She told us that he seemed quite 
 bright, and was laughing over the book he was 
 reading as he lay in bed. Such an unusual 
 proceeding naturally alarmed us, for Swinburne 
 despised the malade imaginaire. Walter looked 
 very worried, and I remember how amused he was 
 at my knowledge of the Bard's funny little ways 
 when I endeavoured to cheer him by suggesting 
 that perhaps he was only bored, and was staying 
 in bed because he (Walter) was doing likewise. 
 When the doctor arrived to pay his daily visit, 
 my husband asked him to "go in and have a look 
 at Swinburne." 
 
 The friends' bedrooms adjoined, and the doors 
 being left open it was quite easy to hear all that 
 the doctor said. Owing to Swinburne's deafness, 
 he had to speak with his voice considerably raised 
 in order that Algernon could catch his words. I 
 remember vividly hearing him ask in a loud and 
 
 256 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 cheery tone, "And how are you, sir? " I could 
 not catch the poor Bard's reply. I expect he was 
 none too pleased to receive a visit from one of the 
 faculty. Presently the voice of the doctor was again 
 heard telling A. C. S. how much more comfortable 
 he would be in his big study downstairs, where there 
 was a coal fire, than in his bedroom where there 
 was only a gas stove. We anxiously awaited the 
 doctor's verdict, and in a few minutes he appeared 
 announcing that Swinburne was very ill, and that 
 he feared complications as the illness developed. 
 
 Two trained nurses were quickly on the scene, 
 and Sir Thomas Barlow was telephoned for to 
 consult with Dr. White. But Sir Thomas 
 Barlow was away spending Easter on the 
 Continent, and Sir Douglas Powell was called in. 
 Both doctors took a grave view of the case, and 
 whbn I next saw Swinburne he was lying on the 
 little bed that had been hastily prepared for him 
 in his library. Even then he was occasionally 
 delirious, and our anxiety deepened. A nurse 
 was stationed on the landing outside his room with 
 the door open, for in his lucid moments it would 
 have irritated him to see a strange woman sitting 
 by his bedside, Walter prepared both nurses for 
 the possibility that their presence might excite 
 their distinguished patient to the utterance of 
 
 li 257 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 " Elizabethan language," and requested them not 
 to go near him except when absolutely necessary. 
 Upstairs in his roopa, although by now he was 
 gaining strength, Walter lay in bed strained and 
 nervous, wondering what the issue .would be. At 
 intervals I would go down to Swinburne to take 
 little messages to him from Walter. I found that 
 he absolutely refused to allow the nurse to 
 administer oxygen. Though he was sometimes 
 delirious, he was conscious enough to know that 
 a stranger was bending over him, and when she 
 attempted to place the tube near his mouth he 
 beat it away with his hands, crying out in an 
 enfeebled voice, " Take it away, take it away! " 
 
 But the nurse's science told her that oxygen was 
 necessary, and accordingly Walter's influence was 
 asked for and promptly used. Acting as Walter's 
 proxy, I went to Swinburne's bedside and told him 
 that Walter considered the oxygen to be akin to 
 a sea-breeze, and that it would do him all the good 
 in the world. He opened his eyes and gladly 
 allowed me to put the tube quite near his mouth 
 as he inhaled the vapour without another murmur. 
 
 It was painful sometimes to watch him hurl the 
 blankets oflP his chest and shoulders as he tossed 
 about in a state of high fever. No sooner had the 
 nurse or I replaced them than he would again try 
 
 258 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 to fling them off. Occasionally he would talk 
 wildly for a long while without stopping. I 
 remember the nurse asked me in what language 
 he was talking. I could catch a wbrd here and there 
 as he muttered long sentences with astonishing 
 rapidity, and an occasional phrase in his disjointed 
 monologue made me guess that he was speaking 
 or reciting in Greek. I told Walter about this : 
 he did not contradict me, pathetically sighing, 
 "Ah, poor boy, poor boy! " 
 
 I have no wish to start an occult legend, yet I feel 
 my account of Swinburne's death would be incom- 
 plete if I did not mention a curious sense of hearing 
 presaging chords of music which invaded me 
 whenever I entered his room and found him either 
 breathing heavily or moaning in broken accents in 
 uneasy sleep. All was so still and quiet in that 
 book-lined chamber, and save for his low murmurs, 
 not a sound, even from without, could be heard. 
 
 It did not matter now which of us held the 
 oxygen to his parched and feverish lips, for he 
 knew no one. 
 
 The doctor called again towards evening and 
 gave no ray of hope. He knew Swinburne must 
 die. Double pneumonia was fast gaining 
 mastery over him in rapid strides. Many letters 
 and telegrams of congratulation on his birthday 
 
 259 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 (April 5th) still lay unopened on his table, and 
 the lovely bunch of daffodils that a lady, a 
 stranger, had brought were still fresh and bloom- 
 ing. At any other time how both he and Walter 
 would have rhapsodised over these flowers that told 
 of the arrival of Spring. I know Shakespeare's 
 lovely lines from " The Winter's Tale " would 
 assuredly have been quoted. They were so 
 intensely admired by both, and not only at this 
 season, but often at other times would I hear of 
 the 
 
 Daffodils 
 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 
 The winds of March with beauty. 
 
 Soon after Dr. White had left the room, the 
 nurse turned to me and asked Swinburne's age. 
 I told her he had just passed his seventy-third 
 birthday. She made no comment, but ejaculated 
 with a gloomy significance of tone which I think 
 I shall never forget, "Ah, Ah! " It was this 
 tone, far, more than the doctor's foreboding 
 expression as he cast his eyes towards poor uncon- 
 scious Algernon, that impressed me with a feeling 
 of doom. 
 
 Late that same evening when I was sitting 
 beside Walter, I told him how unhappy I had 
 felt all day, and how the nurse's exclamation had 
 
 260 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 affected me. It was then about ten o'clock, and 
 we heard the night-nurse pass the door on her way 
 downstairs. 
 
 After thinking deeply for some time, as if he, 
 too, felt the end was approaching, Walter turned to 
 me and said, " Clara, help me on with my dressing- 
 gown. I'm going down to see Algernon." He was 
 very weak, and when I helped him into the coat 
 as he stood on the floor for the first time in ten 
 days he trembled. With my aid he got to the top 
 of the stairs, and holding on to the banisters 
 succeeded in descending the staircase. As I 
 watched his progress from the landing and saw 
 him enter Swinburne's room, I felt my heart 
 beating violently, and for a moment I seemed to 
 stop breathing. 
 
 He was not gone very long, and when he 
 returned to the bedroom it was some time before 
 he could speak. Then it was only to strain me 
 to him and murmur in a broken voice, " Oh, 
 Clara, Clara! " I knew just how he must be 
 feeling, and for some time neither of us spoke. I 
 sat holding his hand and pressing it gently. After 
 a few minutes he returned my pressure, looked 
 up bravely in my face, and with never a break in 
 his voice said, " Go and tell the night-nurse to 
 come here and speak to me." When she appeared 
 
 261 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 he told her in a quiet collected tone, " If you see 
 any change in the night, come and tell me." But 
 there was no occasion to arouse him, and it was 
 not till about ten o'clock the next morning (April 
 10) that Swinburne passed very quietly and peace- 
 fully away. He had been ill just a week. 
 
 What the death of Algernon meant to Walter 
 cannot be expressed in words, I don't think he 
 ever got over it. 
 
 But weak and shaken as he was, his faculties 
 had to be on the alert, and he at once braced 
 himself to the business ahead of him in connection 
 with Swinburne's funeral. There was much that 
 necessitated his immediate attention, and for the 
 time being he was obliged to devote himself to it. 
 
 In the afternoon of April 10 we received a visit 
 from his and Algernon's old friend, William M. 
 Rossetti, who came down to Putney accompanied 
 by his daughter Helen directly he received the 
 tragic news. 
 
 The sight of this dear and devoted comrade at 
 such a moment affected my poor Walter to tears, 
 and when I returned to the room after leaving 
 them for some time, I found William's arm 
 round his shoulders as he endeavoured to comfort 
 
 262 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 him. But what particularly arrested my eye at 
 that moment was the photograph that lay on the 
 bed ; it had not been there before, and they had 
 evidently been discussing it. It was one of D. G. 
 Rossetti's drawings, " The Question," which 
 represents a young man in the prime of life 
 gazing resolutely into the impenetrable face of 
 the Sphinx, who is represented as a creature half- 
 woman and half -beast, with outstretched wings on 
 the shoulders. A youth on the threshold of 
 manhood has fallen on his knees by the wayside, 
 bent on solving the great riddle, whilst an old man, 
 leaning on his staff, is advancing from the right 
 with feeble gait to ask of the Sphinx the great 
 question, " Whither? " 
 
 This incident made a deep impression on my 
 mind, for though I did not know what the con- 
 versation had been, it was clear it had to do with 
 thoughts suggested by the passing of Algernon. 
 
 How splendid and noble Swinburne looked as 
 he lay dead in that room where for more than 
 thirty years he had worked and thought. There 
 was the same calm and placid look of well-being 
 that had characterised him in life. I was so 
 struck by the likeness he bore to Tennyson, of 
 whom a beautiful photogravure portrait after the 
 painting by Millais was hanging in the next room, 
 
 263 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 that I called Dr. White in to look at it. Each 
 man possessed a magnificent domed forehead ; 
 Tennyson's head rose higher above the frontal 
 bones, but the breadth across the head which .was 
 so noticeable a feature in Swinburne when alive, 
 appeared less so in death and heightened the 
 resemblance. 
 
 When I took William Rossetti into the death- 
 chamber he was very deeply affected as he gazed 
 for the last time upon the features of his friend. 
 And he, who had known Swinburne for so many 
 years, agreed with me when I pointed out the 
 resemblance to Tennyson. 
 
 After William and his daughter had gone, I 
 ^vent alone into the familiar room, and gazed my 
 H11 into Swinburne's face, and thought and thought 
 for a long while. In the stillness, I felt a sense of 
 calm steal over me. Then, perhaps because I had 
 seen the book he had been reading before he wa? 
 brought downstairs (" Investigations of the 
 Chevalier Dupin") my thoughts drifted to Poe's 
 Raven, whose " Nevermore " was sounding in my 
 brain. And as I thought of the bereaved hero of 
 that poem and of the mystic bird perched eternally 
 above his door, I involuntarily looked at the 
 portrait of Mazzini, hanging above the bureau in 
 the chamber of death. That melancholy face of 
 
 234 
 
THE PASSING OF THE POET 
 
 fixed resolve seemed that of a Raven transformed 
 to a human being, and I almost imagined I heard 
 the " Nevermore." 
 
 And then I felt I wanted to see Swinburne's 
 eyes once again, even though it were in death. I 
 ventured to raise his eyelids very gently, and found 
 that they looked just as I had so often seen them, 
 infinitely kind. With the memory of all he 
 meant to me I left the room. 
 
 265 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 "lost to sight " 
 
 Telegrams and letters from all quarters arrived 
 by every post. Walter was far too ill to answer 
 them ; but to special friends of his and Swinburne's 
 he commissioned me to reply by telegram. I 
 remember an especially long one I sent to the 
 dead poet's friend, Lady Ritchie. 
 
 It was a very trying time, relieved by visits from 
 near and dear friends. Mr. and Mrs. Holman 
 Hunt arrived one day, and offered the rare balm 
 of understanding sympathy that goes direct to 
 the heart. Mr. Ernest Rhys, the Welsh poet, 
 and Mr. James Douglas, a frequent visitor and 
 special friend of both my husband and Swinburne, 
 came on alternate afternoons, and did Walter 
 much good. Dear Lady Archibald Campbell 
 assured us with characteristic optimism that " Our 
 dear Bard is just as happy as ever in yonder 
 
 286 
 
" LOST TO SIGHT " 
 
 Sphere." In beautiful and touching fashion, the 
 Ranee of Sarawak paid her last adieux to one 
 towards whom she felt a very tender regard. 
 Walter was not well enough to see her on the day 
 she called. She asked me, I well remember, in a 
 voice trembling with tears, to be allowed to go 
 into Swinburne's room and place quite near his 
 heart the posy of flowers she had brought. I felt 
 she would prefer to be alone in the death-chamber 
 and did not follow her. She stayed for a little 
 while to think her own sweet thoughts in solitude, 
 and when she reappeared she was deeply moved. 
 Afterwards, when we were in the drawing-room, 
 I heard again from her lips of the visits (often 
 alluded to by the Bard) which he had paid to her 
 son Bertram when he was Ul and found difficulty 
 in recovering his health after a severe illness. 
 These visits had been a pleasure to the poet as well 
 as to the invalid, whom dear Swinburne had much 
 cheered. The memory of the poet's kindness 
 towards her suffering boy had sown the seeds of 
 deep and lasting gratitude in the Ranee's tender 
 heart. By this time the library where Swinburne 
 lay resembled a fairy bower, so fuU was it of beauti- 
 ful flowers. Whilst scores of wreaths were ranged 
 round his bier, I placed on the coffin itself only a 
 tribute of laurel leaves " To Algernon with 
 
 267 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 Walter's love." When I told my husband what 
 I had done, he said tenderly, " That was right, 
 dear." 
 
 A sweet token that would, I know, have pleased 
 the poet more than any other, was the little bunch 
 of Spring flowers sent by a tiny admirer. Between 
 ruled lines, on a card on which was easily discern- 
 ible the pencil marks of the composer of the 
 sentence, and inked over by an obviously very 
 youthful hand, was this inscription : 
 
 " From Robin " 
 The little boy to whom Mr. Swinburne 
 used to wave his hand. 
 
 Lovely was the day that saw Swinburne's 
 mortal remains taken to their last resting-place. 
 Allowing that the sea would have been the ideal 
 cemetery for the man who sang its glories more 
 divinely than any other Englishman, no other place 
 on earth could have been found more appropriate 
 than the little Island he loved. As the writer of 
 an Isle of Wight guide-book remarks, the church- 
 yard at Bonchurch is so beautiful that, to quote 
 Shelley, it might make one " in love with death " 
 to think one would be buried in so sweet a place. 
 
 One incident .which occurred on the journey 
 across the Solent created an indelible impression 
 on those who witnessed it. 
 
 233 
 
*'LOST TO SIGHT" 
 
 We had reached the point where for a few 
 minutes the httle steamer was apparently out of 
 sight of land. The sea was quite calm, and as I 
 stood on the upper deck looking down at the 
 tarpaulin-covered coffin in the bows of the deck 
 below me, one great sunlit wave came sweeping 
 towards us as if to enfold that dark burden in 
 its embrace. Right over the bows and the coffin 
 the white glory of the foam swept as if to take 
 farewell of the sea's great lover in one last 
 caress. This incident will remind lovers of Shelley 
 of the legend of the sea-bird which hovered over 
 his pyre. 
 
 That Swinburne's funeral was not the unor- 
 thodox ceremony he had desired was plain enough 
 to all those who saw it. For myself, speaking as 
 an eye-witness, the simple Church of England 
 Service was very beautiful, and I do not believe 
 that Swinburne in his heart of hearts was so 
 violently agnostic and opposed to Christianity as 
 his hatred of the crimes of bigotry has led people to 
 think. His letters to his mother in the book by his 
 cousin, Mrs. Leith, " The Boyhood of Algernon 
 Charles Swinburne," show what sane and sweet 
 ideas regarding the after-life he entertained. To 
 her whom he loved so dearly he wrote in 1892 : — 
 " It is so beautiful and delightful to think of 'being 
 
 269 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 together when this life is over,' as you say, and 
 of seeing things no longer ' in a glass darkly,' and 
 all who have ever tried to do a little bit of >vhat 
 they thought right being brought together — if 
 what they thought right was not absolutely wicked 
 and shocking like the beliefs of persecutors, and 
 understanding and loving each other — that I some- 
 times feel as if it ought hardly to be talked about," 
 
 Undoubtedly Swinburne did not deny the 
 existence of a life beyond the grave. 
 
 Again I quote from Mrs. Leith's book in another 
 letter to his mother written in 1885 just after the 
 death of Victor Hugo : " When I think of his 
 (Hugo's) intense earnestness of faith in a future 
 life and a better world than this, and remember 
 how fervently Mazzini always urged upon all who 
 loved him the necessity of that belief and the 
 certainty of its actual truth, I feel very deeply that 
 they must have been right — or at least that they 
 should have been — however deep and difficult the 
 mystery which was so clear and transparent to 
 their inspired and exalted minds may seem to such 
 as mine." 
 
 I don't know what conclusions my husband and 
 Algernon had come to in different conversations 
 on the vexed subjects of immortality and funeral 
 rites ; but I understood that the poet expressed a 
 
 270 
 
" LOST TO SIGHT " 
 
 wish that orthodox ritual should be omitted at his 
 funeral. Unfortunately his .will conveyed no instruc- 
 tions respecting the disposal of his remains ; and 
 though Walter did all he could to have the funeral 
 conducted in harmony with the dead man's views, 
 he was far too unwell to exert the necessary 
 pressure or exercise the required ingenuity to have 
 things done in accordance with them. 
 
 To Sir John Swinburne (the poet's cousin) who 
 acompanied me down to Bonchurch, my husband 
 gave as lucid instructions as was possible in 
 telegrams regarding that part of the religious 
 service which was to be performed ; and the night 
 before the ceremony, the Rector of Bonchurch 
 had been advised that in deference to the poet's 
 wishes the Church of England Burial Service must 
 not be used. In the railway-carriage during the 
 journey to Ventnor, Sir John rehearsed his part to 
 me, to Swinburne's cousin. Lord Gwydyr, and to 
 the latter's son-in-law. Sir John Henniker Heaton, 
 until he quite tired us out. 
 
 We were all under the impression that every- 
 thing would go as arranged, and that the service 
 would be conducted with due regard for the wishes 
 of the illustrious dead. But, in the circumstances, 
 there was nothing to be done. The Rector of 
 Bonchurch met the coffin as it left the hearse and 
 
 271 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 immediately began reading the first lines of the 
 Burial Service as the mourners walked in procession 
 to the grave. There vpas no preliminary service 
 held in the Church, but apart from this concession 
 — possibly an important one — Swinburne's body 
 was consigned to the grave in accordance with the 
 rites of the Established Church of England. 
 
 As an old friend of the poet tersely remarked 
 after the obsequies were over, " You see, you 
 can't even get buried the way you want without 
 your relations interfering." 
 
 The Free-Thinkers' press was very acrimonious 
 after Swinburne's funeral. Pamphlets galore 
 arrived for Walter, but I took care that he saw 
 none of them. Also for me, for the writers imag- 
 ined I was the person responsible for the funeral 
 service, seeing I had represented my husband at 
 the graveside. I was invited to enter into 
 controversy with a variety of persons who deal in 
 Free Thought. If they had searched the globe, 
 they could not have fastened on anyone more 
 unfitted to take part in such a duel of words, and 
 the matter ended with my silence. When Walter 
 died in June, 1914, and they again attacked him — 
 or his memory — I appealed to my friend, Mr. 
 Edward Clodd, at whose charming house at 
 Aldeburgh I then stayed for a day or two, to put 
 
 272 
 
LOST TO SIGHT 
 
 >j 
 
 matters right. He replied to the offending 
 journal thus : 
 
 In a too cursory reading of the paragraphs by 
 " Mimnermus " in your July issue, his comment on the late 
 Theodore Watts-Dunton's assumed permission of the use 
 of the orthodox ritual at Swinburne's funeral escaped my 
 notice. 
 
 Will you permit me to say that the assumption is 
 wholly im warranted? Not long before his death Mr. 
 Watts-Dunton repeated to me his feeling of deep vexation, 
 not only as to the mockery of recital of the orthodox ritual, 
 but also as to the placing of a cross over the remains of a 
 friend who was anti-Christian to the end. For such actions 
 the relations of Algernon Swinburne, and they alone, are 
 responsible. 
 
 Edward Clodd. 
 
 After Swinburne had been taken to his last 
 resting-place, the house seemed strange. His room 
 looked a desert, and everything there, particu- 
 larly the pictures of ships, reminded one of those 
 little things that had gone to make up his life. 
 Especially was this the case with a charming little 
 .water-colour, by C. Jeff cock, of South wold Beach, 
 with " Boats in Brflliant Sunshine," which he had 
 acquired but a short time before his death and was 
 very fond of — and justly, for one could almost feel 
 the wind blowing from the sea through the sails 
 of the boats on shore. 
 
 B 273 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 It was less sad to look at the portraits of his 
 friends who had gone before him. There was Sir 
 Edward Burne-Jones — " Ned," as Swinburne 
 always called him — standing in an unstudied atti- 
 tude on some tall steps in his studio, palette and 
 brushes in hand, at work on one of his large 
 canvases. A splendid photo of William Morris 
 occupied a place " on the line " near the door. 
 Walter Savage Landor also was placed con- 
 veniently for the worshipping eye. And his 
 books, there they were, serried rows of them, just 
 as Swinburne's dying eyes last saw them. Walter 
 never went near the room for weeks . . . 
 
 Of all the many photographs of Swinburne, none 
 looked so much like the Algernon I knew as the 
 last one he had taken. It looked so like him that 
 when he died we had this almost life-size portrait 
 of him placed over the mantel-piece in our sitting- 
 room. We felt it brought him nearer to us as 
 we sat there. 
 
 Quite soon after his death Walter and I were 
 sitting together one evening after dinner when the 
 postman brought what I thought was a letter for 
 Walter. The contents moved him deeply, and I 
 noticed the tears gathering in his eyes. Turning 
 to me he said, " Read this, Clara ; it's the loveliest 
 
 274 
 
" LOST TO SIGHT " 
 
 thing I've ever read about dear Algernon." It 
 was a poem by Alfred Noyes. I tried to read 
 the lines to myself without a lump coming into 
 my throat, but I failed in the attempt, and in turn 
 my eyes, too, became so dim that I could hardly 
 read the words. This is how: the death of Swin- 
 burne affected one of our finest singers : 
 
 IN MEMORY OF SWINBURNE. 
 I. 
 
 April from shore to shore, from sea to sea, 
 April in heaven and on the springing spray 
 Buoyant with birds that sing to welcome May 
 
 And April in those eyes that mourn for thee; 
 
 " This is my singing month; my hawthorn tree 
 Burgeons once more," we seemed to hear thee say, 
 " This is my singing month ; my fingers stray 
 
 Over the lute. What shall the music be?" 
 
 And April answered with too great a song 
 For mortal lips to sing or hearts to hear. 
 
 Heard only of that high invisible throng 
 
 For whom thy song makes April all the year ! 
 
 " My singing month, what bringest thou?" Her breath 
 
 Swooned with all music, and she answered — " Death." 
 
 Some months later, when the Summer sun was 
 shining brightly, Walter and I looked over a 
 sparkling sea. The delight of reading out of dobrs 
 was healing and restful, and although Walter was 
 shattered in health, it was good to be alive and 
 
 276 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 happy together. One morning he produced a book 
 from his pocket, and laying it on my lap, he said, 
 "This is Algernon's ' Ivanhoe ' : do you go on 
 reading where he left ofP. We'll finish it as we sit 
 here looking at the waves." There was a bookmark 
 in Chapter XLI, so there was not much to read be- 
 fore the end. That lovely incident, the most thrill- 
 ing in the story, the rescue of the beautiful Rebecca 
 by Wilfred of Ivanhoe, is related in the final four 
 chapters. I read them to Walter in a way I knew 
 he would enjoy. But as I neared the end, his eyes 
 looked wistfully sad, for his thoughts had flown, 
 as had mine, to him who had preceded me in read- 
 ing aloud from the book. Little had Walter 
 anticipated when he told Algernon that I should 
 not take his place, that his promise would be 
 unfulfilled, and that even in this small matter of 
 finishing " Ivanhoe " I should be, as in Walter's 
 sick-room, "the privileged one." 
 
 As I closed the book, I pictured the quiet grave 
 near the sea at Bonchurch as I had seen it on the 
 day the dear Bard was laid to rest. Walter fell to 
 talking in a dreamy, ruminating way of Algernon. 
 " Dear boy, dear boy, what a splendid, lovable 
 fellow he was ! I miss him dreadfully." And he 
 added to himself sotto voce : " There's nobody 
 for me to talk poetry with now." It was impos- 
 
 276 
 
" LOST TO SIGHT " 
 
 sible for me or anybody to fill the blank in 
 Walter's life that the death of Algernon had made. 
 To take up the threads of life again after such a 
 tear in the web was not easy. He was even inclined 
 at this time to view life as a " Long Street of 
 Tombs," although he was naturally richly endowed 
 with gaiety. 
 
 I was desirous that he should regain health, and 
 gather as much strength as he could, and was 
 very properly opposed to the formation in him of 
 any sense of obligation to sit down and begin 
 writing Swinburne's " Life." The inconsiderate 
 people who expected him to devote his scanty 
 energy to biographical toil were not viewed by me 
 mth sympathy or even patience. Neither friends 
 nor the public were intimately concerned with his 
 personal welfare ; I was. I remember that one 
 day, when a visitor began descanting on the desira- 
 bility of my husband's writing Algernon's 
 "Life," I cut short his eloquence by declaring, 
 with frowns and scowls, that biography was mere 
 stodge and Baedekerism, and that nobody wanted 
 any more of it. Walter was highly amused by 
 " Serjeant Clara Buzfuz," as he playfully called 
 me on this occasion. I knew my little prejudiced 
 opinion was worth absolutely nothing but, never- 
 theless, Walter was comforted by it and that was 
 
 277 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 all I cared about. I got so used to snubbing 
 people who asked about the unwritten " Life " by 
 Watts-Dunton that Walter, with his tongue in 
 his cheek, would account for its absence by saying, 
 " Clara knows if she would but speak." So if 
 people wonder why Watts-Dunton wrote no "Life 
 of Swinburne " let them in a measure blame 
 me. Had I chosen I could at least have goaded 
 him to the production of the " Life " ; but my 
 understanding love for him told me that his 
 strength was not great enough to justify him in 
 undertaking so emotional and tiring a task. 
 
 That Walter did wish to write such a book, I 
 emphatically assert. He knew his subject from 
 A to Z, but he never got further than writing a 
 " Supplemental Note " to the eighteenth impres- 
 sion of the " Selections from Swinburne's Poems." 
 He did this after' the Christmas of 1913, and when 
 I read his MS. a stab pierced my heart on reading 
 the introductory lines and opening sentence of the 
 little article : 
 
 Time driveth onward fast. 
 
 And in a little while our lips are dumb. 
 
 Let me take warning by these noble words of Tennyson : 
 let me remember that I may never live to write my 
 reminiscences of Swinburne, much as I desire to do so. 
 
 278 
 
" LOST TO SIGHT " 
 
 That literature is the poorer for not possessing 
 a sympathetic and complete " Life of Swinburne " 
 by Watts-Dunton, is undeniable, but it is not 
 likely that Swinburne would have welcomed any 
 such work by anyone. It was George Meredith 
 who declared, " I will horribly haunt the man who 
 writes my biography." Swinburne never went as 
 far as that. On the other hand, he never men- 
 tioned whom he had selected to write his Life, as 
 did Dante Gabriel Rossetti. But if Swinburne 
 had been obliged to choose a biographer, he would 
 certainly have selected Walter, the friend whom 
 he pronounced " the first critic of our time — 
 perhaps the largest-minded and surest-sighted of 
 any age." 
 
 It is a pretty well known fact that Rossetti 
 wished Theodore Watts more than anyone else 
 to write his Life. Walter used often to say to me 
 when he fell to talking of this wondrous and very 
 dear friend, " Gabriel told me everything," and 
 I know dear Swinburne told him everything too. 
 We all know that Walter could not stand far 
 enough away from Rossetti to write his life, and 
 that W. M. Rossetti, after waiting for years for 
 Walter to produce it, assumed the role of 
 biographer himself. 
 
 Tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse, says the 
 
 279 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 proverb, but the immortal works of Rossetti and 
 Swinburne will always remain without needing 
 assistance from " Lives." 
 
 It is not for me even to whisper of the place 
 that Swinburne holds, and perhaps will ever hold, 
 as the greatest lyrical poet of his century. Gener- 
 ations yet unborn will marvel at the white magic 
 which his poetry exerts even upon comparatively 
 commonplace people. 
 
 George Meredith, in the letter he wrote to 
 Walter — the last he ever penned before he passed 
 away about a month after the death of Swinburne 
 — says : " Song was his natural voice. He was 
 the greatest of our lyrical poets — of the world's, I 
 could say, considering what a language he had lo 
 wield." 
 
 For me, it is with a satisfaction not to be 
 measured in words that I regard the privilege 
 vouchsafed me in being able to call that simple- 
 minded great English gentleman, Algernon 
 Charles Swinburne, my friend. 
 
 280 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A poet's grave 
 
 Brilliant sunshine and genial warmth had trans- 
 formed our British Autumn into a gorgeous St. 
 Luke's Summer. On the Sunday in October, 
 1920, when I revisited Bonchurch to look at 
 Swinburne's grave it was hard to believe that the 
 words " Chill October " had ever been used by a 
 famous painter to describe the tenth month. 
 Summer blooms were absent and birds were 
 silent ; but the churchyard still looked like a 
 beautiful garden. 
 
 The big crowd of people that filled it on the 
 day of the poet's funeral naturally precluded the 
 possibility of appreciating the beauties of the spot. 
 Even had the crowd been smaller, my mournful 
 feelings would have crushed any desire to take in 
 the little landscape, and I was practically seeing 
 it in its ensemble for the first time. As I 
 
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THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 approached the entrance gates, I could hear the 
 notes of the church organ, for the service was 
 going on. 
 
 Almost the first thing that attracts the visitor's 
 attention on entering the churchyard is the group 
 of graves in w^hich members of the Swinburne 
 family are buried. Enclosed behind an iron tail 
 are five of these sepulchres. The stone slab above 
 each is distinguished by a characteristic design, 
 something between a cross and an anchor, very 
 much in keeping with the ideas of a sailor, and 
 chosen, no doubt, by Admiral Swinburne on that 
 account. Of these five graves, those of Algernon 
 and Isabel are side by side, for the eldest and the 
 youngest of the Admiral's children were the last 
 to go. 
 
 Beyond this group is a second one in which 
 under the same kind of slabs, are the remains 
 of the poet's Mother and Father, Lady Jane 
 Swinburne, Admiral Swinburne, and his sister 
 Edith, who was the first of the family to die. 
 Personally — if I may obtrude my personal 
 opinion — I found the plain stone that covers 
 Swinburne's frail body satisfactory and suitable. 
 As I looked at the simple inscription of name 
 and date, I reflected that it was not the 
 great poet that lay there ; it was the son of a 
 
X 
 
 X 
 
 o 
 o 
 
A POET'S GRAVE 
 
 patrician house. It was good to think that he 
 who sang : 
 
 I will go back to the great sweet Mother, 
 
 Mother and lover of men, the sea. 
 I will go down to her, I and none other. 
 
 Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me, 
 
 slept within sound of the music of the sea he loved 
 so well and so glorified in his verse, but what 
 "Swinburne" stands for lives in the hearts and 
 minds of the countless thousands who love the 
 outpourings of his spirit. 
 
 While I was meditating in this way, the service 
 in the church ended. The little congregation 
 trooped out, and I found myself addressed by a 
 tall, handsome old man who identified me with the 
 lady whom he had seen at Algerndn's funeral. He 
 was accompanied by a much younger man, his son, 
 who informed me he also remembered me, having 
 seen me when he called on my husband at The 
 Pines. But what particularly interested me was 
 the fact that all his life the elder man, a Mr. Daniel 
 Day, had had dealings with the Swinburne family, 
 being a sort of bailiff or agent for them^ He was 
 also a builder, decorator, undertaker, and I don't 
 know what else. Moreover, he was one of the 
 churchwardens of the Parish Church. 
 
 283 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 The affectionate respect with which he spoke 
 of the poet's family, " all dead and gone now," 
 touched me deeply. When he mentioned the 
 name of Lady Jane he lowered his voice in rever- 
 ence. I had heard from Walter's lips of the 
 effect of her death on Algernon, and as this 
 survivor reminded me of the poet's grief when she 
 was buried, and we talked on, I could see how 
 disturbed he was at the idea of Swinburne being 
 thought an atheist. Mr. Day, I imagine, knew 
 little, if anything at all, of the writings of A. C. S. 
 This would perhaps account for his indignation 
 over the charge of atheism sometimes levelled 
 against the writer of the " Hymn to Man." He 
 had an answer to that grave charge. He assured 
 me that, after the conclusion of the burial service 
 of Charlotte, Algernon knelt at the graveside with 
 his sisters Alice and Isabel, and prayed. That 
 Swinburne knelt, I can easily believe. His innate 
 chivalry and his affection for his sisters would 
 ensure the kneeling. But what, I wonder, was 
 the nature of the prayer. " I know he was no 
 atheist," reiterated Mr. Day, and when he 
 tentatively touched on "things he wrote," I 
 thought it kind to say that I believed Swinburne's 
 agnosticism to be much like his anarchism and 
 republicanism — a mere literary pose. The situa- 
 
 284 
 
A POET'S GRAVE 
 
 tion intrigued me. Here I was standing by the 
 tomb of one of England's greatest poets, talking 
 to a man who had known the Bard from his youth 
 up, but who knew practically nothing of the life- 
 work of this world-renowned singer. 
 
 I was glad when he permitted himself to be 
 switched off the vexed subject of theology. " The 
 last time Mr. Swinburne came here," he continued 
 " he asked me to go over the old place with him, 
 and I remember when he got to the highest part 
 of the cliff, he stood right on the edge looking 
 out over the sea with his hat off and his hair 
 blowing in the wind. He said, ' This is the most 
 beautiful spot on God's earth.' Those were his 
 very words. Then he began talking to himself 
 and reciting a lot of poetry. He was quite a long 
 time spouting away up there." My informant 
 paused, then added with a smile, " If I'd have 
 taken up shorthand in my young days, I might 
 have had a poem all to myself! " Looking down 
 at the grave again he declared solemnly once more, 
 " No, he was no atheist." 
 
 Mr. Day accompanied me down the quiet little 
 village street. In an angle of the road he pointed 
 out the exact spot where, one morning, he, came 
 across the poet tenaciously sitting astride a literally 
 " prancing steed." The animal 3vas rearing on its 
 
 285 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 hind legs, and doing its best to throw his rider. Mr. 
 Day looked on in alarm, greatly fearing for the 
 safety of the rider whom he expected every minute 
 to see sprawling on the ground. 
 
 In spite of Swinburne's splendid horsemanship, 
 the inevitable occurred. One spirited plunge 
 forward and the valiant rider was unseated. Pobr 
 Swinburne was shot out of the saddle like a shuttle- 
 cock, and made to feel the uncomfortable contact 
 of mother earth. Fortunately he was unhurt, and 
 instantly picking himself up, was quickly at the 
 head of the now trembling horse. Giving the 
 animal one masterful look in the eyes, he vaulted 
 into the saddle, and with a cheery " Thank you, 
 Mr. Day, I'm all right, but I can't have him 
 showing off here in the street, and I've taught him 
 a lesson to-day, I fancy," he rode off again up the 
 hill with his now sobered steed well under control. 
 
 I had to cut the conversation short, for I was due 
 at East Dene, Swinburne's early home, which has 
 now become the seat of a religious sisterhood, the 
 Convent of the Sacred Heart. A strangely 
 anomalous circumstance, it seems to me, that the 
 home of Swinburne's boyhood should have become 
 a nunnery ! 
 
 386 
 
A POET'S GRAVE 
 
 Lunch was given me in the refectory which, in 
 Swinburne's time, was the Ubrary, by Mother 
 O'Brien, the head of the estabUshment. I found 
 her most amiable and anxious to show me all there 
 was to be seen. 
 
 I was taken over the house and grounds. What 
 most impressed itself on my memory was Swin- 
 burne's bedroom, a charming apartment looking 
 over the sloping lawn which stretches right down 
 to the sea. Standing at the window one is within 
 a stone's throw of his grave. 
 
 On my way back through the Landslip I returned 
 to the grave. The Church was empty now. Not 
 a soul to be seen anywhere. It was deathly still. 
 The cold grey slab, the brief inscription of the 
 name, brought to my mind a thousand memories 
 of the man I had known and reverenced. The 
 poet's own lines on the death of Barry Cornwall, 
 came back to me and it seemed to me that they 
 might well be inscribed over this Bonchurch grave : 
 
 For with us shall the music and perfume that die not 
 
 dwell. 
 Though the dead to our dead bid welcome and we 
 
 farewell. 
 
 Now have I fulfilled the promptings of my 
 heart, my fingers would fain " stray over the 
 
 387 
 
THE HOME LIFE OF SWINBURNE 
 
 lute " ; but, alas ! I am no " instrumentalist." In 
 writing these last lines my gaze involuntarily 
 travels to the open doorway where I seem to see 
 a familiar figure standing, and to hear, as of yore, 
 the gentle tones of a well-bred Eton schoolboy's 
 voice asking, " May I come in? " 
 
 288