Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/48

CHAPTER IV.

 

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, & Co.—Edward Burne Jones—"St. George and the Dragon"—"Parable of the Vineyard"—Ernest Gambart—The Llandaff triptych—"Girlhood of Mary Virgin"—Rossetti's bed and bed-room—The "Germ"—"Poems"—James Collinson—Walter Howell Deverell.

 

Rossetti was now, at this period, in the prime and fullness of his mental powers. He was in that happy state when all that he painted was eagerly sought after. The abundance of his work in the years previous to my meeting him shewed ample proof, both in pen and pencil, that those years had been busy ones. And although as yet his poems were only known to a few of his friends, he had written enough to justify him in publishing a volume which, but for a strange romance in his life, would have appeared long ere it did,⁵⁵

It was now that the association⁵⁶ started by William Morris, having its home in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, and for its object, it is said, the education of the upper classes in the knowledge and right discernment of the really beautiful in Art, began to bring forth fruit. Its work-contributing members were Morris, Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones,⁵⁷ and one or two others, with Morris as manager and controller. For this