It is, however, an open secret that a vivid sketch of
Rossetti's personality has been given to the world in Mr.
Watts-Dunton's well-known romance _Aylwin_, where the artist D'Arcy
is drawn from Rossetti.'
Since the appearance of these words many people who take an
increasing interest in the most mysterious and romantic figure in the
artistic world of the mid-Victorian period, have urged the author to
tell them whether the portrait of Rossetti in _Aylwin_ is a true one,
or whether it is not idealized as certain cynical critics have
affirmed. Nothing but the dread of being charged with egotism has
prevented the author's stating publicly, and once for all, that the
portrait of Rossetti in _Aylwin_ showing him to be the creature of
varying moods, gay and even frolicsome at one moment, profoundly
meditative at the next, deeply dejected at the next, but always the
most winsome of men, is true to the life. It is more than hinted in
the story that _D'Arcy's_ melancholy was the result of the loss of
one he deeply loved. From such a loss it was that Rossetti's
melancholy moods resulted.
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