DOI chapter:
Chapter V: Our Friendship
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62482#0149
OUR FRIENDSHIP 61
any other could have exaggerated the interest and joy which
beauty in nature and in the great art of translating it worthily
has always given me. So our friendship was cemented and
made very real by the fact that our real point de reunion lay
outside and beyond any personal liking; there was a some-
thing we each cared for individually and enjoyed indepen-
dently of each other which made a common ground on which
we could meet and discuss our mutual interests.
So far as Watts’ outward life was concerned his days
passed absolutely monotonously. Before we came to live
at Melbury House, while staying in Rutland Gate, we met
him more than once taking his daily walk to Hyde Park
Corner in the sealskin coat of Rossetti’s studio memories.
Later he would sometimes walk to Hammersmith to the
studio of a sculptor friend, where he carried almost to com-
pletion the beautiful “ Daphne ” which was to be a com-
panion to the “ Clytie.” Something occurred during the
casting, and it was never fully worked out—a most grievous
pity. When he started the Equestrian Statue and the
Aurora—also never finished—which he carried on princi-
pally in the garden, he found he had had sufficient air and
exercise without taking a walk, and preferred the relaxation
of companionship and conversation. The most neighbourly
kind of intimacy soon established itself between us. A few
scraps of notes have turned up among his letters. One
asks if I had an amusing book to lend him—no matter how
stupid. He would gather all those I had lent him pre-
viously and send them in next day. In another he asks me
to lend him, or give him if I liked, half a tumbler of claret.
Again after a cold he wrote he was very seedy, but asked
me to come in if I had a quarter of an hour, to receive his
thanks for the champagne. His doctor desired him to give
me his compliments and to say it is the very thing he would
any other could have exaggerated the interest and joy which
beauty in nature and in the great art of translating it worthily
has always given me. So our friendship was cemented and
made very real by the fact that our real point de reunion lay
outside and beyond any personal liking; there was a some-
thing we each cared for individually and enjoyed indepen-
dently of each other which made a common ground on which
we could meet and discuss our mutual interests.
So far as Watts’ outward life was concerned his days
passed absolutely monotonously. Before we came to live
at Melbury House, while staying in Rutland Gate, we met
him more than once taking his daily walk to Hyde Park
Corner in the sealskin coat of Rossetti’s studio memories.
Later he would sometimes walk to Hammersmith to the
studio of a sculptor friend, where he carried almost to com-
pletion the beautiful “ Daphne ” which was to be a com-
panion to the “ Clytie.” Something occurred during the
casting, and it was never fully worked out—a most grievous
pity. When he started the Equestrian Statue and the
Aurora—also never finished—which he carried on princi-
pally in the garden, he found he had had sufficient air and
exercise without taking a walk, and preferred the relaxation
of companionship and conversation. The most neighbourly
kind of intimacy soon established itself between us. A few
scraps of notes have turned up among his letters. One
asks if I had an amusing book to lend him—no matter how
stupid. He would gather all those I had lent him pre-
viously and send them in next day. In another he asks me
to lend him, or give him if I liked, half a tumbler of claret.
Again after a cold he wrote he was very seedy, but asked
me to come in if I had a quarter of an hour, to receive his
thanks for the champagne. His doctor desired him to give
me his compliments and to say it is the very thing he would