Page:Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904).djvu/99

 and feet small; the hands very much those of the artist or author type, white, delicate, plump, and soft as a woman's. His gait was resolute and rapid, his general aspect compact and determined Some people regarded Rossetti as eminently handsome; few, I think, would have refused him the epithet of well-looking He wore moustaches from early youth, shaving his cheeks: from 1870, or thereabouts, he grew whiskers and beard, moderately full and auburn tinted, as well as moustaches. His voice was deep and harmonious; in the reading of poetry, remarkably rich, with rolling swell and musical cadence."—Ibid.

16. This painting does not represent the legendary and supernatural being named Lilith. It is an oil painting called Lady Lilith, to intimate that the work should be understood as depicting the allurements of physical beauty uncombined with moral beauty. Rossetti made of it some water-colour replicas and illustrated the picture by the following sonnet, which is now known as Body's Beauty:— Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
 * (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve)
 * That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,

And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
 * And, subtly of herself contemplative,
 * Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
 * Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent

And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
 * Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
 * Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent

And round his heart one strangling golden hair."

17. That Adam had a wife so named before the creation of Eve. According to Rabbinical mythology,