The Chronicles Of His Excellency: Almost-An-Eighth-Of-A-Memoir

Whenever it may be necessary to be thinking about the Life of Blake I hope you will let me know, as my brother is equally anxious with myself, and perhaps at the present moment better able, to be of any service in his power. Pray believe that I am not the less grateful to you, at least for the heartfelt warmth with which it is said. Later on it was called Albany Street.

Gilchrist had been in Chelsea, close to Carlyle's house. Gilchrist was now just about removing into the country, Shottermill near Haslemere. It appeared in some magazine, but I forget which. The date was some little while after my brother's death. Burne-Jones formed a correct opinion as to this letter from Titian, the handwriting of it must have differed entirely from that of another letter by the great painter which I saw in the Venetian Exhibition in London in In this last-named letter the writing is singularly precise and sharp, presenting no sort of resemblance to Rossetti's.

Dunn in the past tense, but not as implying that he is no longer alive. I believe him to be alive; but regret to say that, from the year or thereabouts, I have not seen and have seldom heard of him. I was delayed by the necessity I found of going to the Print-room [of the page: Facts, and descriptions of facts, are in my line; but to talk about a thing merely is what I could never well manage. The truth is that, as regards such a poem as My Spectre , I do not understand it a bit better than anybody else; only I know, better than some may know, that it has claims as poetry apart from the question of understanding it, and is therefore worth printing.

I have the articles somewhere, but have not succeeded in laying hands upon them, to be consulted for my present purpose. I think it manifest that the author of them must be my brother's art-assistant, Mr. The call number is written in pencil at the top of the page. International Standard Book Number: Library of Congress Number: Hall Caine has informed us: Theodore Watts, should write it, unless indeed it were undertaken by his brother William. Dante Rossetti died on 9 April ; and after the lapse of a few months I decided to put his Family-Letters into shape for early publication.

Watts acquiesced in the wish which I then entertained, and which I should still entertain, that he, rather than myself, should be the biographer, writing a Memoir to accompany the Letters. Doubtless he saw reason for not producing his Memoir so soon as I had been expecting it; therefore, after a rather long interval of years, I resolved in July that the Letters must now come out, and, as they could not be unlinked with a Memoir, that I myself would write it. The result is before the reader. If he would have preferred a Memoir from Mr.

Watts, I sympathize with him, but the option had ceased to be mine. There are several reasons why a brother neither is nor can be the best biographer. Feeling this, I had always intended page: Had the book been published towards , the Letters would have extended very little beyond those addressed to my Mother and to myself. There were then also a couple to my Father, and a very few to my Sister Christina. I am now enabled to add some to my Grandfather Gaetano Polidori, my Uncle Henry Francis Polydore, my Aunt Charlotte, Lydia Polidori, and my Wife Lucy Madox Rossetti; also some others to Christina which, as they contain expressions of approval with regard to her writings, she had herself with-held.

No letters to other members of the family appear to be in existence, though several must have been written.

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The technical arrangement of the printed correspondence can easily be understood. The letters are all thrown into a single sequence, according to the order of date: In every case where a letter seems to require any explanatory note or observation, I have supplied this in a few preliminary words. The dates, when not written by my brother himself, were in most cases jotted down at the time by the recipient: Addresses are also frequently inserted in like manner.

I have preserved and must ask the reader to pardon my mentioning so minute a point one instance of each form of subscribed name; and have also reproduced the name in other cases where it seems more apposite to do so. In contrary instances I omit both the name and the words of subscription which precede it. Some other Family-Letters exist, addressed to the same page: The letters, such as they are, shall be left to speak mainly for themselves. Their language is constantly unadorned, often colloquial; the tone of mind in them, concentrated; the feeling, while solid and sincere, uneffusive.

Their subject-matter is very generally personal to the writer, without discursiveness of outlook, or eloquent or picturesque description; yet the spirit is not egotistical or self-assertive. If I am wrong in these opinions, the reader will decide the point for himself. My brother was a rapid letter-writer, and on occasion a very prompt one, but not negligent or haphazard.

He always wrote to the point, without amplification, or any effort after the major or minor graces of diction or rhetoric. Multitudes of his letters must still presumably be extant in private hands: Some persons may approve, others will disapprove, of the publication of these Family-Letters. I print them because the doing so commends itself to my own mind.

At a very page: Recently I have had a painful reason for realizing to myself a very pleasurable fact—that of the high estimation in which my brother, himself no less than his work, is now publicly held, some thirteen years after he passed away. The death of my beloved sister Christina, on 29 December , called forth a flood of not undeserved but assuredly very fervent praise; and in the eulogies of her were intermixed many warm tributes to my brother—I might say, without a dissentient voice.

As regards my Memoir, I, having large knowledge and numerous materials, have not consulted a single person except Christina, who, during the earlier weeks of my undertaking, gave me orally the benefit of many reminiscences relating chiefly to years of childhood, and often kept me right upon details as to which I should have stumbled. On her bed of pain and rapidly approaching death she preserved a singularly clear recollection of olden facts, and was cheered in going over them with me. One word in conclusion. In case the present book should find favour with the public, I should be disposed to rummage page: This notation is located flush right, above the page numbers.

A similar notation appears at the top of each page of the table of contents. Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek His roadside dells of rest. This house is the last or most northerly house, but one, 1 on the right-hand or eastern side of the street, as you turn into it to the left, down Weymouth Street, out of Portland Place.

Charlotte Street, beyond No. From his father he received the name Gabriel; from his godfather the name Charles; and from poetical and literary associations the name Dante. His godfather was Mr. Charles Lyell, of Kinnordy, Kirriemuir, Forfarshire; a keen votary of Dante and Italian literature, a helpful friend to our father, and himself father of the celebrated geologist, Sir Charles Lyell. Some living members of the Lyell family continue to be well known to the present generation. Transcribed Footnote page 3: Gabriele Rossetti was born on 28 February , in the city of Vasto, named also by a corruption from Longobard nomenclature Vasto Ammone, in the Province of Abruzzo Citeriore, on the Adriatic coast of the then Kingdom of Naples.

Vasto is a very ancient place, a municipal town of the Romans, then designated Histonium. We are not bound—though some enthusiasts feel themselves permitted— to believe that it was founded by the Homeric hero Diomed: Nicola Rossetti was a Blacksmith, of very moderate means; 1 a man of somewhat severe and irascible nature, whose death ensued not long after the French-republican invasion of the Kingdom of Naples in The French put some affront upon him—I believe they gave him a smart beating for failing or neglecting to furnish required provisions; and, being unable to stomach this, or to resent it as he would have liked, his health declined, and soon he was no more.

His wife belonged to a local family of fair credit: Nicola and Maria Francesca Rossetti had a rather large family, four sons and three daughters, and three of the sons earned distinction. Born in , he died comparatively young in There was also Andrea, the eldest brother, who became a Canon of San Giuseppe in Vasto; and thirdly, Gabriele, whom I may be excused for regarding as a more important writer than even the polyglot Domenico. I might include, as showing that verse-writing ran in the family, the fourth son, Antonio, who exercised the humble calling of a wig-maker and barber: Gabriele Rossetti came into the world well endowed for the arts.

As it turned out, he took to poetry and other forms of literature; but he might equally have excelled in drawing or in vocal music. I have before me as I write three MSS. The drawings are illustrations to poems juvenile enough of his own composition, and are surprisingly precise and dainty in execution. One would have little hesitation in calling them copper-engravings; but they are, in fact, pen-designs done with sepia, which he himself extracted page: The local magnate was the Marchese del Vasto, of the great historic house of D'Avalos, into which the famous Vittoria Colonna married.

The attention of the Marchese was soon called to the uncommon promise of his growing-up vassal Gabriele Rossetti, and, after some well-conducted schooling in Vasto, the youth was sent in , under the patronage of this nobleman, to study in the University of Naples. His education here was cut short after a year and a month, and consequently had not a very wide range. In middle life he read Latin with ease, and retained some remnant of geometry and mathematics, but of Greek he had no knowledge.

In French he was well versed, speaking the language with great fluency and an amusing assumption of the tone of a Frenchman. English he acquired by practice in Malta and in this country, and could both read and talk it tolerably enough, though he never did so when he had the option of Italian. Rossetti was just twenty-three years of age when the Bourbon king, Ferdinand I.

Rossetti had long been a noted Improvisatore, as well as a poet in the accustomed way he continued to improvise to some extent for a while, even after coming to London , and this, with his other gifts, made him popular in Maltese society. After a while, however, he was harassed by the spies or other emissaries of the Bourbon Government, which embittered his position so much that he resolved to have done with Malta, and settle in England. Here he arrived in January or February , and fixed himself in London.

He soon made acquaintance with the Polidori family, and a mutual attachment united him in marriage with the second daughter, Frances Mary Lavinia, in April He subsisted by teaching Italian, and held perhaps the foremost place in that vocation. This professorship was not a sinecure; but the students were few, and became fewer from about onwards, when the German language began decidedly to supersede the Italian in public favour. My Transcribed Footnote page 9: Transcribed Footnote page 9: Gabriele Rossetti was man of energetic and lively temperament, of warm affections, sensitive to slight or rebuff, and well capable of repelling it, devoted to his family and home, full of good-nature and good-humour, a fervent patriot, honourable and aboveboard in all his dealings, and as pleasant and inspiriting company as one could wish to meet.

Though sensitive as above stated, he was not in the least quarrelsome, and never began a conflict about either literary or personal matters: For some years after settling in London he went a good deal into society, and was welcomed in several houses. This had diminished at the date of my earliest reminiscences, and soon it had wholly ceased.

Apart from domestic simplicity or sportiveness, his conversation was always high-minded, implying a solid standard of public and private virtue: He was an ardent lover of liberty, in thought and in the constitution of society. In religion he was mainly a free-thinker, strongly anti-papal and anti-sacerdotal, but not inclined, in a Protestant country, to abjure the faith of his fathers. He never attended any place of worship. Spite of his free-thinking, he had the deepest respect for the moral and spiritual aspects of the Christian religion, and in his later years might almost be termed an unsectarian and undogmatic Christian.

As a freethinker, he was naturally exempt from popular superstitions—did not believe in ghosts, second sight, etc. In this respect Dante Gabriel, as soon as his mind got a little formed, differed from his parents; being quite willing to entertain, in any given case, the question whether a ghost or demon had made his appearance or not, and having indeed a decided bias towards suspecting that he had. One point, however, of popular superstition, or I should rather say of superstitious habit, my father had not discarded.

A fancy existed in the Abruzzi I dare say it still exists that, if one steps over a child seated or lying on the ground, the child's growth would be arrested; and I have more than once seen my father divert his path to avoid stepping over any one of us. In politics he belonged more to the party of constitutional monarchy than to that of republicanism, but welcomed page: In estimating Rossetti's work as a national or patriotic poet, and his general attitude of mind in matters of politics, or of government in State and Church, we should remember the conditions already referred to under which his life had been passed.

He was born under the feudal and despotic system of the Neapolitan Bourbons; his youth witnessed the more open-minded but still despotic Napoleonic rule; the Bourbon restoration brought-on a constitution sworn to by the sovereign, who soon after perjured himself in suppressing it; lifelong exile ensured to Rossetti and other constitutionalists. Then he lived through many abortive insurrections against the temporal and ecclesiastical dominators of Italy; through the brilliant promise and the retrogression of Pope Pius IX.

He died five years before , which produced the alliance between France and Piedmont, the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy, and the commencement of the unification of Italy. When he died in the outlook seemed extremely dark; yet heart and hope did not abate in him. I do not say the like of three other unpublished volumes, which all seethe with love of country and hatred for tyrants. In person Gabriele Rossetti was rather below the middle height, and full in flesh till his health failed; with a fine brow, a marked prominent nose and large nostrils, dark-speaking eyes, pleasant mouth, engaging smile, and genuine laugh.

He indulged in gesticulation, not to any great extent, but of course more than an Englishman. His hands were rather small—not a little spoiled by a life-long habit of munching his nails. As to other personal habits, I may mention free snuff-taking without any smoking; and a hearty appetite while health lasted, with more of vegetable diet than Englishmen use. He had liked the English beer, but had to leave it off altogether in , to avoid recurrent attacks of gout.

In fact, he liked most things English—the national and individual liberty, the constitution, the people and their moral tone, though the British leaven of social Toryism was far from being to his taste. He certainly preferred the English nation, on the whole, to the French, and had a kind of prepossession against Frenchwomen, which he pushed to a humorous over-plus in speech—saying for instance that, if a Frenchwoman and himself were to be the sole tenants of an otherwise uninhabited island, the human race on that island would decidedly not be prolonged into a second generation.

Rossetti had produced a tolerable amount of verse in Italy, also the descriptive account which passes under the name of Cavalier Finati of the Naples Museum; but all his more solid and voluminous writing was done after he had settled in London. The principal works are as follows: A great deal of controversy was excited at the time by this work, and by others which succeeded it. An English translation was also published.

The two last-named books have the honour of being in the Pontifical Index Librorum Prohibitorum , edition , and perhaps others are there now. This book was printed and prepared for publication, but was withheld page: Type damage obscures page number. As regards my father's writings on Dante and other authors—the outcome of an immense amount of miscellaneous, often curious and abstruse, reading—I may be allowed to say that I regard his views and arguments as cogent, without being convincing.

They affect one more in beginning one of his books than in ending it. He certainly made some mistakes, and urged some details to a wiredrawn or futile extreme, and in especial he was not sufficiently master of the happy instinct when to leave off, so that his longest and most important book, the Mistero dell' Amor Platonico , becomes cumbrous with subsidiary matter.

In his poems also he was over-fond of amplifying and loading, being too unwilling to leave a composition as it stood; though he wrote with great mastery and ease, and a brilliant command of metre, rhythm, and melody. Many snatches of his verse are forcible and moving in a high degree, and rouse a contagious enthusiasm. He has left in MS. It is not long, nor yet very short, and is about the completest as well as the most authentic account that exists of his career. I should like to translate it some day, and publish it in England.

Carducci, after contrasting him with some of his contemporary writers, terms him— page: Type damage obscures page signature and final word of page, as well as page number. Not in Vasto alone, but in all Italy, Rossetti's reputation as a patriotic poet stood high—more perhaps among the men of action and the ardent youth than among the critical assessors of literary merit. A proposal was made to transfer his remains to a sepulchre in Italy, as an act of national recognition.

My mother having demurred, an inscription was set up to him in the Florentine cloister of Santa Croce, which counts as the Italian Walhalla or Westminster Abbey. In Vasto the centenary of his birth was celebrated in with much evidence of enthusiasm. The principal Piazza del Pesce, as first entitled and the Communal Theatre are named after him; and it has long been proposed—though perhaps rather half-heartedly—to erect his statue, and to purchase for the town the house in a part of which he was born—an ancient and somewhat stately-looking though plain edifice, battered by time and neglect.

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I am tempted to extract here a few of the many eulogiums pronounced upon Rossetti at the centenary—not unconscious, however, of the caution with which any utterances on such an occasion are to be received. From the speech of Professor Francesco di Rosso: From the speech of the sub-prefect Cavalier Domenico Fabretti: He was not only the sweet poet of the Arcadian stylus, was not only the studious and elegant verse-writer, was not only the fervent patriot, but was the seer of the Italian re-arising.

From a pamphlet by signor Adelfo Mayo, 1 addressed to the workmen of Vasto: William Bell Scott's Autobiographical Notes contain the following passage, relating to the close of or beginning of He had a black cap on his head furnished with a great peak or shade for the eyes, so that I saw his face only partially.

The old gentleman signed to a chair for Transcribed Footnote page The second portrait of my father, and a very good one it is, is traced by Mr. Scott's first visit to our house], and his grand climacteric was past, and as with most Italians a life of studies told upon him heavily, I could not but be struck with the noble energy of his face, and by the high culture his expression attested, while a sort of eager, almost passionate resolution seemed to glow in all he said and did.

To a youngster, such as I was then, he seemed much older than his years; and, while seated reading at a table with two candles behind him, and because his sight was failing with a wide shade over his eyes, he looked a very Rembrandt come to life. The light was reflected from a manuscript placed close to his face, and, in the shadow which covered them, made distinct all the fineness and vigour of his sharply moulded features.

It was half lost upon his somewhat shrunken figure wrapped in a student's dressing-gown, and shone fully upon the lean, bony, and delicate Transcribed Footnote page My father's address in such cases was clear and emphatic, and as if no dissent were expected to ensue; but it was not marked by anything hard or brusque.

Good-natured and indulgent though he in fact was, and animated with the most resolute desire to do his very best for the present and future of his children, our love nevertheless was chiefly concentrated upon our mother—and never did mother deserve it better. This preference may have been rather less marked in my elder sister Maria than with the rest of us.

Thus she was seventeen years younger than her husband. Of her parents I shall say something in my next Section. She was brought up with a view to her becoming a governess; and at the early age of sixteen she took charge of her first pupil, the adopted daughter of Mr. I have heard my mother say that in this house she used to see from time to time John Shelley, the brother of the poet.

He was a very handsome youth, aged then some thirteen or fourteen, and all mention of the name of that world-abandoned rebel, the versifying atheist, was strictly forbidden. Hence my mother passed into the families of Mr. Justice Bolland whom she highly respected , and of Sir Patrick Macgregor. One of her pupils, Miss Georgina Macgregor, became the second godmother of my sister, Christina Georgina.

Rossetti, who rapidly won the damsel's heart, and was promptly accepted. The marriage proved a truly happy one, spite of narrow circumstances, and the harrassing troubles of my father's long illnesses and decay. On his side there was deep unwavering affection, and the most absolute esteem and confidence; on hers, affection and confidence in no less measure, and a cordial admiration for his uncommon gifts and attainments. Rossetti was well bred and well educated, a constant reader, full of clear perception and sound sense on a variety of subjects, and perfectly qualified to hold her own in society; a combination of abnormal modesty of self-estimate free, however, from the silliness or insincerity of self-disparagement , and of retirement and repose of character, and of devotion to home duties, kept her back.

For conscientiousness, veracity, the keeping confidences inviolate, the utter absence of censoriousness or tittle-tattle, she was an absolute model: Day and night she attended to the household—doing needlework, teaching her girls, keeping things in order, etc.

In all the central years of her life there was only one servant in the house. She was deeply but unpretentiously religious, a member of the Church of England, very constant in church-attendance. This only made a difference of habitude, not of essentials. She took a reasonable interest in matters of politics, her sympathies being on the Liberal side. She wrote correctly in prose, and some few times even in verse; but page: My mother once said—it may have been towards or I have had my wish [and this she might well say in reference to her elder son and her younger daughter, not to bring the remaining two into question]; and I now wish that there were a little less intellect in the family, so as to allow for a little more common sense.

Frances Rossetti was of an ordinary female middle height, or a trifle less than that, 1 with a full-sized head, fresh complexion, features more than commonly regular, shapely Transcribed Footnote page After the definite failure of my father's health, or from about until his death in , the chief support of the family devolved upon my mother—the eldest child, Maria, being in only seventeen years of age.

My mother made great and most laudable efforts—going out to teach French and Italian both of which she knew and spoke perfectly well and other things, and afterwards holding precarious day-schools—at No. The schools produced no income of any account; and my mother's small expectations from the property left by her maternal grandfather , and then her small capital, had to be trenched upon. After her return however from Frome, in , it no longer became necessary for her to exert herself; she continued living with me and my two sisters, and in removed with Christina to another house, 30 Torrington Square.

In her later years her hearing was imperfect, though by no means gone, and her general strength abated considerably. Her mind remained always clear, but necessarily less strong with the inroads of age. She died, rather of gradual decline than of anything else, on 8 April , the very day which completed four years after the death of Dante Gabriel. Had she lived a few more days, she would have been eighty-six years of age. She rests by her husband's side in Highgate Cemetery. Transcribed Footnote page My maternal great-grandfathers were both born an immense time ago; Agostino Ansaldo Polidori in , and William Pierce in Even my maternal page: The name Polidori is of course Greek, not Italian; but of any Greek ancestry which there may possibly have been I know nothing.

The Polidori family, so far as I ever heard of it, was Tuscan, the profession of medicine being customary from father to son; authorship was also frequent in the race, at any rate in the later generations. Agostino Ansaldo, author of two poems, Tobias and Osteology the latter has been privately printed , was a Doctor settled at Bientina near Pisa: There was also a brother of Agostino, named Francesco. He produced a poem entitled Losario privately printed , more or less in the vein of Ariosto.

Gaetano was intended for the law, which he studied in the University of Pisa. In , however, he deserted the law, and, on the recommendation of the Abate Fassini, became secretary to the famous tragedian Conte Alfieri, with whom he stayed at Brisach, Colmar, and Paris. Polidori was in Paris at the taking of the Bastille in July ; and a little anecdote which he relates of that day may deserve reproduction here: Polidori as he intimates had no taste for political convulsions, and little for politics of any sort.

He asked for and readily obtained three letters of introduction from Alfieri and the Countess of Albany. These were addressed to Mrs. The last remained up to his death on intimate terms with Polidori, and left him a mourning ring, which I now possess. In Alfieri, then in France, wished to get Polidori back as his secretary; but the latter declined with thanks, preferring conservative England very much to revolutionary France.

He taught Italian for a great number of years, retiring in , after having made a fair moderate competence. He then lived for a while wholly in Buckinghamshire—Holmer Green, near Little Missenden, in a house which he had purchased years before for personal and family convenience—but in he returned to London, Park Village East, Regent's Park. There he died of apoplexy in December , aged eighty-nine. My anecdote about the wig-maker and the sword is taken from a little narrative which Polidori wrote, as an appendix to one of his privately printed books; for he kept a printing-press in Park Village East, and there he produced, with some aid from practical hands, several volumes of his own works, and a few others.

Dante Rossetti's boyish poem Sir Hugh the Heron , and Christina's Verses , were among these—printed respectively in and It is a matter of notoriety, however, that after a while Alfieri entirely altered his view of French affairs, and became a Gallophobist of prime virulence. Polidori was a man of good stature and very vigorous build; his health was strong, and his faculties not seriously impaired by age. He liked almost any occupation—writing, reading, cabinet-work he produced many pretty boxes, tables, etc.

Gaetano Polidori had all the habits and likings of a literary man, and was more decidedly bookish than my father. He wrote a large number of things in prose and verse, both published, privately printed, and unprinted. Unprinted is a Life of Boccaccio , written in English, which my grandfather knew and spoke well. I possess; likewise an Italian Life of General de' Paoli , up to his return to Corsica during the French Revolution—a work which, considering Polidori's intimacy with his hero, might be of some worth.

The period of the third to last complete sentence on this page has been omitted. I know nothing of the Pierces beyond Richard Pierce, my great-great-grandfather, who was a schoolmaster in Burlington Gardens, London. He had a son, William, a writing-master, who maintained himself from the age of sixteen onwards, married twice, and had ten children.

Pierce had in fact a strong feeling against marriages with foreigners, as his favourite sister had made a marriage of this kind which proved very unhappy He died in , aged ninety-three, shortly before my birth; and after him I was named William. His ten children, other than Mrs. Polidori, shall not concern us here; except to say that one of his sons, Frederick, became a Brigadier-General, and was highly esteemed, I believe, in the Army of India. I will also observe in passing that, through the first wife of William Pierce, Jane Arrow, and a brother and sister of hers, page: My own knowledge of the Arrow family is of the scantiest; but I find it mentioned in Mrs.

Bray's Autobiography that James Arrow, the father of Jane, belonged to an old race, much damaged in the cause of Charles I. To return to Anna Maria Pierce, Mrs. Polidori, whom, as she lived on to May , I remember perfectly well. Before my recollection begins she had already become an invalid, owing to an internal complaint, and she never left her bedroom, and not often her bed. Her youngest daughter, Eliza Harriet, was her constant and devoted attendant, sacrificing for this purpose all the pleasures and interests of youth. Polidori was a fine old lady, with very correct features, and an air which, in spite of her age and infirmity, was page: The Polidoris had a family of four daughters and four sons —one of the latter dying in infancy.

In my notes to my brother's letters sufficient details will be given about three of these—Charlotte Lydia, Philip Robert, and Henry Francis the latter modified his surname into Polydore. There remain the eldest daughter, Maria Margaret, and the youngest whom I have just now mentioned , Eliza Harriet. Only one other Polidori has to be accounted for in my narrative—Dr. John William Polidori, who lives faintly in some memories as the travelling physician of the famous Lord Byron.

He was born in London on 7 September , educated at some Catholic schools and at the Benedictine Ampleforth College near York, and took his degree as M. He was only twenty when, on the recommendation of Sir Henry page: John Polidori published two volumes of verse: It may at once be admitted that his poetry was not good.

Two prose tales are much better— Ernestus Berchtold , and The Vampyre , both published in The Vampyre has continually been misascribed to Byron, page: I have no finished all that I need to say about the relatives of Dante Rossetti on the mother's side. The only relative on our father's side whom we have personally known—with some others I have corresponded—was Teodorico or properly Teodoro Pietrocola, who adopted the compound surname of Pietrocola-Rossetti.

He was a Vastese, and studied medicine to some extent. In , being then about twenty-four years of age, he came to London, hoping to find an opening of some kind; but found nothing except semi-starvation, which he bore with a cheerful constancy touching to witness. Cole, an amiable, accomplished, and admirable woman , and, with her co-operation, devoted himself to preaching evangelical Christianity, somewhat of the Vaudois type, in Florence and elsewhere.

He died very suddenly in , just as he was giving out a hymn or text to his small congregation. He published a few things—among others, a biography of my father, a translation of Alice in Wonderland , and one of Christina Rossetti's poem, Goblin-Market. A man of more native unselfish kindliness, of stricter morals, or of nicer concientiousness, never breathed. Since writing the above, I have observed in the book of Mr. If this statement is literally accurate, it would appear that the latest development of Mr.

Ruskin's religious opinions was mainly influenced by Miss Alexander, who was not a little influenced by Pietrocola-Rossetti: I have often reflected how utterly different this cousin of mine was from the ordinary English notion of a Southern Italian. My father also was very different from that notion; my grandfather, a Central Italian, quite the reverse of it. Peace be with the honoured and honourable memory of all three. The Rossetti family in Vasto became extinct while I was composing this Memoir: The reader may have observed, in the course of my family narrative, several instances of longevity in the races of Arrow, Pierce, and Polidori.

I have under my eye a list page: My mother, marrying on 10 April , had four children— there were never any more—in four successive years: The famous Surgeon and Physician, Dr. Locock—afterwards Sir William Locock, the Queen's accoucheur— ushered, I believe, all of us into the world; for our father—though a man of thrift, and in personal expenses heedfully sparing—grudged no cost needed for the well-being of his household.

I can remember a little about it, but not much. Towards the family had outgrown it, and removed to No. This house is now the office of a Registrar of births, deaths, and marriages; and, singularly page: As a rower and a scholar of the sport, this book was almost insulting in its tone and pretentiously glazed over its material. I did not finish this book. I knew the outcome of the Harvard's season already not so good by their standards and it was annoying being reminded every 25 pages that the illustrious Ivies offer no athletic scholarships.

You're left knowing nothing about what Harry Parker truly does as a coach and can learn more from other books The Amateurs. And I took issue with that. I know several people that have rowed at such institutions and know full well that generous financial aid is offered to desired recruits and the admissions pull from these programs ensures that that recruit gets in.

College recruiting can vicious for ALL sports. Also neglected was the mention of how many foreign athletes now row at Harvard, not many Americans are doing the heavy lifting on that team these days. A better subject would have been the '77 crew aka the Rude and Smooth. Misguided narrative and overwhelming smugness don't make it a fun book to read. However, there is a bevy of information about the origin of rowing and the culture at Harvard that is interesting.

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Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web. AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally. Amazon Inspire Digital Educational Resources. In the memoir, Shorn: Toys to Men , author Dennis Milam Bensie chronicles his journey from damaged boy, self-medicating by cutting the hair of shoplifted Barbie dolls, to confused young man, paying hundreds of gay street hustlers to shave their heads. Bensie demonstrates how hair can be currency—a moral gauge for good and bad, male and female, lawful and unlawful.

The world of theater is his backdrop, a sanctuary where he gradually spins fantasy into reality. After getting his start in community theater, Bensie moves up to professional houses throughout the United States, turning his private sexual conflict over haircutting into a successful career as a skilled theatrical wig designer. Humorous and honest, this book is a uniquely tangled love story, a triumphant quest for love, forgiveness and self-acceptance.

I opened up to my closest, trusted friends. I shared the unusual story of my spiral out of control. I was a haircutting addict. Jeff worked in media and knew a good story when he heard it.

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He was both amused and stunned by my tales. I had lived my whole life obsessed in one way or another about hair. He pointed out the irony of me being a talented wig person. He encouraged me to share my story with the world …. Seeing the book take shape on paper made me realize I had a very unusual book … a story I had never heard. Dennis Milam Bensie grew up in Robinson, Illinois where his interest in the arts began in high school participating in various community theatre productions. Dennis also teaches master classes in wigmaking and wig maintenance around the country. He has been on staff at Intiman Theatre in Seattle since and is proud to have been involved with such productions as Angels in America , Nickel and Dimed and the world premiere of the Tony Award winning musical, Light in the Piazza.

Toys to Men is his first book. Dennis lives in Seattle with his partner and three dogs. Other ebook versions are sold on Smashwords and through most major retailers. Bookstores and libraries can order through info coffeetownpress. My cravings to cut hair keep getting stronger, much stronger than cutting yarn. As soon as I get my hands on a doll, I just have to cut its hair. My thoughts go so fast when there is hair to cut, I cannot keep up. Next thing I know I have done it.

I am not sure if Stefeny is a good thing or if she makes me want to cut more. I went back to The Index.

Shorn: Toys to Men, A Memoir by Dennis Milam Bensie

I lurked around all of the toy aisles and finally got up the courage to walk down the Barbie aisle again. The store was particularly quiet that day, so I felt a bit more at ease as I glared at the shelves of Barbies and Barbie accessories. I stood there amazed and depressed.

I wish I could hide in the dressing room until the store closes at night. I would come out after everyone has left and play with all of the dolls. I would love to cut and style their hair. Stefeny could be beautiful over and over.