Chapter XXV: Letter XXIV

DANTE ROSSETTI TO MADOX BROWN, HAMPSTEAD.

Mr. Holman Hunt’s “day of departure” was for his journey to Egypt and Palestine.

I believe that Hannay’s proposed Magazine _The Pen_ did actually run through a few numbers, but Rossetti’s _Burden of Nineveh_ did not appear in it.

[Chatham Place, London.
3 January 1854.]

My dear Brown,

I am sorry my letter miscarried, as it prevented your coming
and meeting Hunt, whom I asked after writing to you. His day of
departure was then fixed for the next day, and now it is to be
to-morrow, but one does not know whether it will be so after all.
Till he is fairly off I will not fix an evening for coming to
Hampstead, as it might possibly interfere with some opportunity
of meeting _him_. My water-colour is still, to MacCrac, “vague
as the watery moon.” I have no news. Lizzy sits by me at work on
her design, which is now coming really admirable. She has also
finished the _Lady of Shalott_ sketch, and made quite another
thing of it. She has followed your suggestion about her portrait,
and done several things which improve it greatly. Hannay is going
to start a penny weekly mag., to be called _The Pen_, and wants
to have my poem about Nineveh for it. I suppose I shall give it
him. I some time back gave _Sister Helen_ to Mrs. Howitt for some
English edition of a German something or other, which will be
coming out now. No more news.

Good-bye.
Your D. G. R.