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THE REREDOS WITH THE BURNE-JONES PANELS, AT CHRIST CHURCH, 
 
 WOBURN SQUARE, 
 
 IN MEMORY OF CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. 
 
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETT1. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/appreciationoflaOOwestrich 
 
an appreciation;- &V- 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Right Rev. B. F. WESTCOTT, D.D., D.C.L., 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 PREBENDARY GLENDINNING NASH, M.A., 
 
 PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, 
 AND INCUMBENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, WOBURN SQUARE. 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. J 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, S.C. 
 
 BRIGHTON : 129, North Street. 
 
 New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 
 
 1899. 
 
1899 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Chrtstina Georgina Rossetti, who attended 
 Christ Church, Woburn Square, for nearly twenty- 
 years, and took a personal interest in its varied 
 work, was born in 1830 in the parish of Holy 
 Trinity, Marylebone. She was the daughter of 
 Gabriele Rossetti, the Italian patriot and poet, 
 and Frances Mary Lavinia, whose father, Gaetano 
 Polidori, translated into Italian Paradise Lost and 
 other poems by Milton. 
 
 The other members of the family were Maria 
 Francesca, Dante Gabriel, and William Michael. 
 Maria Francesca, who was distinguished for her 
 saintly life, wrote a prose work on Dante, and 
 died in 1876. Dante Gabriel, the illustrious painter 
 and poet, died in 1882. William Michael, eminent 
 in literature, alone survives. 
 
 Christina Rossetti's mother, whom she describes 
 in one of her dedications as her beloved example 
 
 58X3 
 
O PREFACE. 
 
 and friend, died in 1886 at the age of 85. Her 
 aunts, Charlotte and Harriett Polidori, who lived 
 with her, died, respectively, at the ages of 87 and 
 83 in 1890 and 1893. The latter, who served as 
 a nurse in the Crimean campaign, received from 
 the Sultan in recognition of her work a magni- 
 ficent gold pendant set with a star and, crescent of 
 diamonds, which she presented to Christ Church, 
 Woburn Square, for one of its adornments. 
 
 Christina Rossetti was unable during the latter 
 part of her life to attend church, but she weekly 
 received the Holy Communion, and daily united in 
 a brief service of prayer and praise. On Dec. 29, 
 1 894, she peacefully fell asleep in her Lord, whom 
 she loved, revered, and served so faithfully. 
 
 She was pre-eminently distinguished for her 
 great humility, the sweetness of her disposition, 
 the saintliness of her life, her changeless devotion 
 to her friends, the transparency of her reverence 
 for holy things, and her ceaseless desire to set 
 forth the glory of God and to set forward the 
 salvation of all men. 
 
 The first of her literary works, consisting of 
 poems written between the ages of 11 and 16, were 
 printed in 1847 ; Goblin Market and other Poems 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 in 1862 1 The Princes Progress and other Poems 
 in 1866 ; Commonplace and other Stories in 1870 ; 
 Sing Song in 1872; Annus Domini in 1873; 
 Speaking Likenesses in 1874; Seek and Find in 
 1879; ThePageant and other Poems in 1881 ; Called 
 to be Saints in 1882 ; Letter and Spirit and Time 
 Flies in 1883; The Face of the Deep in 1892; a 
 volume of re-printed Sacred Poems named Verses 
 in 1893 ; and (posthumously) a volume named New 
 Poems in 1 896. 
 
 In a recent review of her poems it is said <: She 
 was the finished artist, and her poems, marked by 
 richness of style and splendour of imagery, stimu- 
 late and delight the reader. In the sphere of the 
 religious emotions, few poets have given the world 
 thoughts so full of beauty and pathos, with such 
 grace and delicacy." 
 
 Her friend, the late Sir Edward Burne- Jones, 
 by request, designed and in part painted her 
 Memorial in Christ Church, Woburn Square, con- . 
 sisting of a series of paintings of our Lord and the 
 four Evangelists, which, with the very beautiful 
 Gothic-Perpendicular reredos in which they are 
 placed, were paid for by public subscription. 
 
 The paintings conspicuously display Sir Edward's 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 characteristic genius in originality of treatment, 
 dignity of pose, richness of colour, and exceptional 
 beauty of devotional expression. 
 
 The Memorial was dedicated on All Saints' Day, 
 1898, by the Lord Bishop of Durham, in the 
 presence of a crowded, representative, and sym- 
 pathetic congregation. By general desire his Lord- 
 ship has consented to publish in the following 
 pages the eloquent appreciation which he delivered 
 on the occasion. 
 
 A slab of marble from one of the ancient 
 quarries which have recently been discovered in 
 Cefalonia, has been fixed in the pavement beneath 
 the reredos, with the following imperishable in- 
 scription in lead : — 
 
 THE ABOVE PAINTINGS, 
 
 DESIGNED BY SIR E. BURNE- JONES, BART., 
 
 ARE DEDICATED TO THE GLORY OF GOD 
 
 AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF 
 
 CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI, 
 
 WHO WORSHIPPED IN THIS CHURCH, 
 
 AND FELL ASLEEP IN JESUS, 
 
 DECEMBER 29TH, 1 894. 
 
 " Give me the lowest place.' 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 Another slab of similar marble, to be fixed in 
 the pavement of the chancel to the memory of 
 Christina Rossetti's mother and aunts, will bear 
 the following inscription : — 
 
 IN LOVING MEMORY OF THREE SISTERS 
 WHO WORSHIPPED IN THIS CHURCH. 
 
 FRANCES MARY LAVINIA, 
 
 WIDOW OF GABRIELE ROSSETTI AND MOTHER OF DANTE GABRIEL, 
 
 MARIA FRANCESCA, AND CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI, 
 
 DIED APRIL 8TH, 1 886, AGED 85 J 
 
 CHARLOTTE LYDIA POLIDORI, 
 
 DIED JANUARY 8TH, 1890, AGED 87 J 
 AND 
 
 ELIZA HARRIETT POLIDORI, 
 
 DIED JUNE 4TH, 1 893, AGED 83. 
 
 " Lovely and pleasant in their lives. 
 
 A3 
 
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 There is a saying attributed to our Lord at 
 a very early date which appears to me to express 
 a divine truth : " He that wonders shall reign V 
 The saying corresponds with Plato's judgment, 
 that "there is no other beginning of philosophy 
 than wonder, and," as he goes on to say, "he 
 seems to have been a good genealogist who said 
 that Iris " — the messenger of the gods — u was 
 the offspring of Thaumas," the embodiment of 
 wonder 2 . 
 
 Wonder, the direct consciousness of the immea- 
 surable depths of nature and of life with the power 
 of disclosing them to others, is the characteristic 
 endowment of the true poet. He sees the infinite 
 and the eternal in common things, and leads his 
 fellow-men to look upon them. 
 
 This being so, it must appear strange that in 
 classical times few women, to whom the devotion 
 
 1 "Gospel according to the Hebrews," quoted by Clem. Alex., 
 Strom, ii. 9, 45. 
 8 Theaet. p. 155 D. 
 
12 AN APPRECIATION OF THE LATE 
 
 of wonder is natural, were known as poets, though 
 doubtless many did silently the poet's work. One 
 or two gained a name in Greece, one at least in 
 Rome, and to the scanty relics of their works we 
 must add two or three great songs of thanksgiving 
 in the Bible. 
 
 It is still more surprising that in the creative 
 period of English poetry, no woman takes her 
 place beside the great masters \ At last, in our 
 own century, not a few women have delivered 
 their message as poets, and it has found a wide 
 welcome. 
 
 The explanation of the fact is probably to be 
 found partly in social change, and still more in 
 the larger conception of the Christian faith, which 
 has at length enabled us to see that every variety 
 of gift is required for the interpretation of human 
 experience and hope, so that if women are silent 
 the absence of their voice makes itself felt as 
 never before ; and therefore they have answered at 
 last to the claim which has been made upon them. 
 For women are different from men, different for 
 our more complete enrichment, 
 
 " Like perfect music [set] to noble words." 
 
 On the one side, if we may paraphrase Tennyson's 
 line, is strength of intellect, on the other side depth 
 
 1 Mr. Gosse has called attention to this fact in the Century, 
 1893, p. azx. 
 
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI. 13 
 
 of feeling, an intuition of the whole, an intensity 
 of personal devotion. 
 
 The poet, I have said, saw the eternal and the 
 infinite. But more than this : the pure in heart 
 have the promise of seeing God. This purity is 
 a woman's characteristic endowment. For women 
 who are true to their nature the work of insight 
 is completed by the power of faith. They are 
 able, however startling the paradox, to bring the 
 eternal before us naturally under human conditions. 
 And as the spectacle of nature and of life grows 
 more perplexing through the ever-increasing multi- 
 plicity of details, we stand in greater need of poets 
 who see to the heart of things and regard their 
 "mighty sum" in its unity: who watch for the 
 sign of a fellowship of life between the seen and 
 the unseen : who rise through reverent wonder to 
 a sovereignty over the conflicting forces which 
 distract and distress us. 
 
 The first recorded promise of the Lord points to 
 " the heaven opened and the angels of God ascend- 
 ing and descending on the Son of Man 1 ;" and an 
 inspired writer on the verge of the apostolic age, 
 tells of the promise fulfilled when he reminds 
 believers that they " are come to innumerable hosts 
 of angels in festal assembly . . . and to the spirits 
 of just men made perfect 2 ." For the true poet, 
 pure in heart, this vision is realized. He is in 
 
 1 St. John, i. 51. 3 Hebr. xii. 2a ff. 
 
14 AN APPRECIATION OF THE LATE 
 
 fact a seer and not a maker : not one who creates, 
 but one who beholds that which is, and declares 
 what he has seen to souls struggling towards the 
 light. For such poets' service we offer thanks to 
 God to-day with full hearts, and pray that the 
 remembrance of it may be carefully guarded for 
 the strengthening of those who shall come after us. 
 
 For in Miss Rossetti we recognize the completest 
 consecration of woman's gifts of poetry to the 
 highest uses. The poet, I have said — the pure in 
 heart — beholds the Truth ; and sings, not with 
 elaborated music but, to use Goethe's image, "as 
 the bird sings." This is, perhaps, the first charac- 
 teristic which strikes us in Miss Rossetti's work. 
 It is, like Wordsworth's early poems, absolutely 
 simple and spontaneous. There is no straining 
 after effect. There -are no signs of deliberate com- 
 position. Each poem, so to speak, as Mozart said 
 of his symphonies, is "seen all at once." The 
 melody is the natural expression of the thought. 
 Thus the contrast between "Amor mundi" and 
 " Uphill " " in rhythm and language and form, is 
 as complete as in subject, but the contrast is the 
 result of feeling and not of art. 
 
 At the same time Miss Rossetti saw all, saw the 
 whole, " the world as God made it," in spite of 
 the ravages wrought by man's self-will. There is, 
 she reminds us, a sense in which " in each degree 
 
 1 Poems, pp. 19a, 194. 
 
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 15 
 
 All things are fair 1 ." Looking to the Lord we can 
 say : " We see beyond all creatures Thee 2 ." Even 
 now we can understand how all living things are 
 touched by man's sorrow 3 ; and how the joyous 
 voice of human love can drive away the fear of 
 man from subject races 4 : 
 
 "So Margaret sang her sisters home 
 
 In their marriage mirth ; 
 Sang free birds out of the sky, 
 
 Beasts along the earth, 
 Sang up fishes of the deep — 
 
 All breathing things that move 
 Sang from far and sang from near 
 
 To her lovely love." 
 
 The common disappointments by which Nature 
 saddens us, offer when we pause to think lessons 
 of patience and forbearance and hope 5 . These are 
 "symbols." As we contemplate the spectacle of 
 life, we find unsuspected relations and correspon- 
 dences between its parts. We acknowledge dimly 
 that " all things are double one against another 6 ," 
 and the poet guides us to their meaning. The 
 Face of the Deep is from first to last an interpreta- 
 tion of the many voices of earth by one whose ears 
 
 were opened. 
 
 • 
 
 1 Verses, p. 131 : " Behold it was very good." Compare p. 198 : 
 " These all wait upon Thee." 
 
 2 Verses, p. 46: "Judge not according to the appearance." 
 Compare Verses, p. 61 : " Cursed is the ground for thy sake." 
 
 8 Poems, pp. 150 ff., " Eve." Compare Rom. viii. 22. 
 
 4 Poems, pp. 41 ff., " Maiden Song." 5 Poems, p. 246/' Symbols." 
 
 6 Ecclus. xlii. 24. Compare Letter and Spirit, p. 131. 
 
1 6 AN APPRECIATION OF THE LATE 
 
 But while Miss Rossetti looked through all 
 failures and distresses to the underlying unity of 
 being, she rated at the highest the value of the 
 individual soul. Each one belongs to the fulness 
 of Christ's humanity. All are " aspects which 
 reproduce One Countenance 1 " — 
 
 " Grain by grain His hand 
 Numbers the innumerable sand '." 
 
 Even in God's Acre — "garden of confident hope" — 
 
 "The Sun, which they see not, doth see 
 Each and all one by one 8 ." 
 
 So she faced with resolute and open-eyed faith, 
 sorrow and death. She does not turn away, like 
 the Greek artist, from that which mars the calm 
 beauty of life. She regards the phenomena of earth 
 in time and beyond time 4 . A heart broken by 
 man becomes an acceptable offering to God 6 . The 
 test of saintship is following Christ 6 . The sufferer 
 accepts affliction as the way to conformity with his 
 Lord, and takes His likeness for his own dower 7 . 
 In Him he overcomes the three enemies 8 . Even 
 in the extremest case Miss Rossetti has drawn a 
 " portrait " 9 in which we find the truth, that " self- 
 
 1 Verses, p. 164 : " The General Assembly and Church of the 
 Firstborn." 
 
 2 Verses, p. 26. Compare Verses, p. 29 : " The Good Shepherd." 
 8 Verses, p. 205, "God's Acre." * Verses, p. 122. 
 
 8 Poems, p. 123, "Twice." * Verses, p. 66, "Embertide." 
 
 7 Poems, p. 449, " Why ? " Compare Poems, p. 434, " Behold 
 the Man." 
 
 8 Poems, p. 232. * Poems, p. 58. 
 
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI. 17 
 
 sacrifice is not only the first of duties but the first 
 of joys." 
 
 This lesson of self-surrender to a perfect will 
 is the practical application of the present vision of 
 God to life. It enables us to watch in patience 1 
 when God " bids us love Him and love on 2 ." The 
 dimly intelligible glories of Paradise open before 
 us afar off 3 . The vision of death passes into the 
 vision of life 4 . 
 
 Meanwhile, as long as our time lasts, the suf- 
 ficient answer to every doubt and every misgiving 
 is the appeal to God's infinite wisdom and love : 
 
 " Who knows ? God knows : and what He knows 
 Is well and best 5 ." 
 
 " Lord, I had chosen another lot, 
 But then I had not chosen well ; 
 Thy choice and only Thine is good 6 ." 
 
 In every vicissitude believers without rivalry or 
 restlessness or impatience remain content — 
 
 " Content to know or not to know, 
 Each in his place 7 ." 
 
 Miss Rossetti rarely refers to social or national 
 problems ; but in two poems of supreme beauty she 
 lays open the master-thoughts in which we find 
 the ultimate solution of both. The contrasts of 
 
 1 Poems, p. 230, " Advent." a Poems, p. 229, " If only." 
 
 s Poems, p. 252, " Paradise." 4 Verses, p. 130. 
 
 5 Verses, p. 211 : " Take no thought for the morrow." 
 
 6 Verses, p. 178 : " What is that to thee ? follow thou Me." 
 
 7 Verses, p. 115 : "Do this, and he doeth it." 
 
l8 AN APPRECIATION OF THE LATE 
 
 splendour and wretchedness, of irresponsible power 
 and helpless resistance, are described with singular 
 richness of language and imagery in "A Royal 
 Princess V'jand in the crisis of the people's agony 
 the one remedy is shown when the Princess herself 
 resolves to face the furious multitude and offers all 
 she has and is for their relief: 
 
 " Once to speak before the world, rend bare my heart, and 
 show 
 The lesson I have learned, which is death, is life to know ; 
 I, if I perish, perish ; in the name of God I go." 
 
 And I know no poem more moving in tenderness 
 and pathos, more full of national sympathy and 
 patriotic warnings, than that in which under the 
 memorable title " To-day for me 2 " we are led to 
 reflect on the sufferings of France after the German 
 war and to take the lessons to ourselves. 
 
 1 c She sitteth still who used to dance, 
 She weepeth sore and more and more : — 
 Let us sit with thee weeping sore, 
 fair France. 
 
 A time there is for change and chance ; 
 Who next shall drink the trembling cup, 
 Wring out the dregs and suck them up 
 After France?" 
 
 Taught by such bitter experiences we have the 
 last secret of time and eternity : 
 
 " Love is the key of life and death s ; " 
 
 1 Poems, p. 168. 2 Poems, p. 217. 
 
 8 Verses, p. 98 : "A song for the least of all saints." 
 
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI. 19 
 
 and following the truth to its source we learn also 
 that the love of Christ is the spring of our love to 
 men 1 , till at last all experience enforces the one 
 voice in many forms : 
 
 " Turn all to love, poor soul ; 
 Be love thy watch and ward ; 
 Be love thy starting-point, thy goal 
 And thy reward 2 ." 
 
 We might perhaps well pause here, but there are 
 two groups of Miss Rossetti's poems which claim 
 a few words as illustrating the character and 
 development of her work, those which deal with 
 the relations of the living to the dead, and those 
 which record the communings of the believer with 
 his Lord. The former belong to the earlier, and 
 the latter characteristically to the later period of 
 her life. Both in different ways give reality to 
 the unseen, emphasizing at once our inability to 
 apprehend the conditions of the after-life, and 
 the assurance of a Divine fellowship which is 
 essentially eternal. 
 
 The scenes in which the living and the dead are 
 brought together are unique in their mysterious 
 solemnity. There is in those who have passed 
 away the consciousness of a deep separation from 
 their former state, an opening of the eyes to that 
 which was before hidden 3 , a sense of retribution ; 
 
 1 VerseSf p. 9. Compare p. 19 : " The ransomed of the Lord." 
 3 Verses, p. 175. Compare p. 95 : " All Saints." 
 8 Poems, p. 106 : " After Death." 
 
20 AN APPRECIATION OF THE LATE 
 
 and the living now turn away from the shadowy 
 presence of the dead, and now seek it with tender 
 affection. So the spirit who revisited the old home 
 
 says : 
 
 "I passed from the familiar room, 
 I who from love had passed away, 
 Like the remembrance of a guest 
 That tarrieth but a day 1 ." 
 
 The husband returning to his wife, in fulfilment 
 of his promise, bids her cease from disturbing 
 grief and vain questionings : 
 
 " What I do there I must not tell, 
 It is well with us — it is well. 
 Tender hand hath made our nest, 
 Our fear is ended, our hope is blended 
 With present pleasure, and we have rest 2 ." 
 
 The injured lover claims the false bride in the 
 moment of her triumph to share his desolation 3 . 
 ? The poor ghost," standing before her "only love," 
 hears her sentence : 
 
 "I loved you for life, but life has an end- 
 But death mara all, which we cannot mend V 
 
 But none the less from another rises the cry : 
 
 "You come to me in dreams, that I may live 
 My very life again, though cold in death V 
 
 1 Poems, p. 51 : "At Home." 
 
 * Poems, p. 69 : " The Ghost's Petition." 
 
 3 Poems, p. 134 : " The Hour and the Ghost." 
 
 * Poems, p. 5a : " The Poor Ghost." 
 6 Poems, p. 147 : " Echo." 
 
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI. 21 
 
 All here is dim, unsubstantial, mysterious, a grop- 
 ing in the dark, full alike of natural yearnings and 
 shrinkings and contradictions. In the communings 
 of the soul with Christ all is clear and sure. The 
 poet tells what she knows, with the fullest utter- 
 ances of faith and insight. When will and even 
 wish fails, simple resignation to Christ is enough l . 
 We naturally tremble at His open Presence, but 
 He has brought to us assurance 2 . He Himself 
 helps us to understand the workings of His love 3 . 
 He claims all and makes our offering acceptable 4 . 
 He is our strength while He requires our personal 
 efforts 5 . To-day we must see Him and serve Him 
 in our fellow-men 6 : His word to- us in our utter- 
 most misgivings stands firm. 
 
 " Judge not before that day : 
 Trust Me with all thy heart, even tho' I slay: 
 Trust Me in love, trust on, love on, and pray 7 ." 
 
 I have dwelt chiefly on the spiritual teaching of 
 Miss Rossetti's poems. On this she herself concen- 
 trated her powers more and more as the years went 
 forward. In this lies her characteristic distinction. 
 
 1 Poems, p. 224: "A bruised reed shall He not break." 
 Compare p. 450 : " Love is strong as death." 
 
 2 Verses, p. 22 : " Thou, God, seest me." 
 
 3 Verses, p. 23. * Verses, p. 24. 
 
 5 Verses, pp. 26, 27. 
 
 6 Verses, p. 33 : " Because He first loved us." 
 
 7 Verses, p. 68 : " He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness 
 and wrath of Almighty God." 
 
22 AN APPRECIATION OF THE LATE 
 
 She is pre-eminently the spiritual poet of our age. 
 She was indeed equally sensible of the manifold 
 attractions and of the transitoriness of earthly 
 beauty. But she saw something in it beyond 
 transitory attractions. She shaped instinctively 
 a philosophy of being. She discerned with ever- \ 
 increasing clearness that life is a preparation for 
 the open vision of God, and that in another sense 
 life is the vision of God, now through a mirror 
 in a riddle, but then face to face. She set herself 
 therefore to realize the reflection and to interpret 
 it. She felt that "in every creature is latent a 
 memorial of its Creator 1 ," and that "for every 
 aspect of creation »there must exist the correspond- 
 ing Divine archetype 2 ." To recognize these 
 memorials, these archetypes, is to find the eternal 
 truth of things. To bring the knowledge to others 
 was the service to which Miss Rossetti was called, 
 the service to which she sacrificed all, the ser- 
 vice for which we now render devout thanks- 
 givings 3 . 
 
 I do not underrate the cost of the choice. We 
 have lost, no doubt, some studies of deep passion, 
 hke " The Convent Threshold 4 ," not a few delight- 
 
 1 Letter and Spirit, p. 130. 
 
 a Letter and Spirit, p. 13. 
 
 8 Compare also what Miss R. says on the " rule of avoidance 
 rather than of self-conquest or even of self-restraint as a sound 
 and scriptural rule " {Letter and Spirit, pp. 102 ff.). 
 
 4 Poems, p. 186. 
 
CHRISTINA GEOEGINA ROSSETTI. 23 
 
 ful parables of life, like "The Prince's Progress 1 ," 
 countless delicate fancies and passages of weird 
 music, but the message which we have received 
 outweighs all. 
 
 The message is specially one for our own time. 
 The physical aspects of nature, the visible sequences 
 of life, become ever more and more engrossing, and 
 we are tempted to forget that they are but signs 
 of the eternal. The poet discloses their true sig- 
 nificance, and invests common things with an 
 atmosphere of marvel and reverence. Simple and 
 ordinary thoughts gain from the indescribable grace 
 of her treatment a fresh coherence and dignity. 
 The mystery of life proves to be an inspiration of 
 service, and touched by the greatness of our calling 
 we welcome our place as thankful workers in what 
 has been nobly called a " world of opportunity and 
 wonder V 
 
 So we are brought back to the splendid promise 
 from which we started, and, under a great teacher's 
 guidance, confess with deeper intelligence than 
 before that " he that wonders shall reign." Nay, 
 we go further and complete the saying : " He that 
 wonders shall reign, and he that reigns shall rest " ; 
 for when our eyes are opened to see that He in 
 Whom we ourselves live and move and have our 
 being is about us on every side, we shall gain 
 a peace which passes all understanding, and remain 
 
 1 Poems, p. si. a Dean Vaughan. 
 
24 CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 untroubled by the sorrows, the perplexities, the 
 defeats, of the passing days 1 . 
 
 This peace is, by God's grace, the gift of poets — 
 the pure in heart — to their fellow-men. 
 
 1 Compare Vases, p. 225. 
 
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