ROSSETTI AND MORRIS
SIR,—It is surely odd praise for a biography Rossetti that it leaves the reader with 'a new se of Morris's stature.' As well write a life of Shel to show how preferable was Keats! Profes Doughty and his associate Dr. Wahl may have c tributed to scholarship in showing the calculated r dating of the sonnets, changes in the colour of ladies' hair, etc., but the lack of sympathy approach is far more important. Professor Doug seldom loses an opportunity of sneering at his s jut : over the haggling with patrons, the ration cation of the disinterment, 'working the oracle' Bell Scott called it) with the critics. No won Morris gains in stature by comparison. And 'guilt.' His poems show remorse for (possil neglect of Lizzie Siddal and a great deal of N for time lost (possibly in loving Laney Morris). of a guilty conscience there is no sign. Neither poems, letters nor conversation did Rossetti sb any feeling that he was `wronging' William Ma His mind was far too subtle to be compassed any psychiatrical catch-phrase.
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Rossetti himself. said the last word on what should be the relations between a biographer and his subject—a guest and a host—when he wrote of Blake:
Anyone who can find here anything to love will be the poet-painter's welcome guests . . . [anyone] who can meet their host's eye with sympathy and recognition even when he offers them the new strange fruits grown for himself in far-off gardens where he has dwelt alone. . .
—Yours faithfully,
Wightwick Manor. Wolverhampton R. GLYNN (mortis
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