Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/56



hour or two of daylight yet remained, and so we sallied out into the garden to see Rossetti's pets, or his animals rather, as it would be wrong to describe them as pets. Experience of Rossetti, and close intercourse with him, led me to the conclusion that the Poet-painter had not any great love for animals, nor knew much about their habits. It was simply a passion he had for collecting, just as he had for books, pictures and china, which impelled him to convert his house into a sort of miniature South Kensington Museum and Zoo combined. His collection of queer, outlandish creatures was mostly kept in a series of wire-woven, outhouse compartments, located in one portion of the garden. In one of them I noticed a large packing-case covered over by a heavy slab of Sicilian marble. My curiosity led me to enquire of Rossetti what it contained, when he told me there was a racoon inside. On hearing that I had never seen such a creature, he asked me to help him remove the stone, and then, to my astonishment, he put his hand