Bullen, J. B.

White, Rosalind

English

Royal Holloway - Pure

COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD: THE SÉANCE DIARY OF W.M. ROSSETTIJ.B. Bullen and Rosalind WhiteCommunication with the dead is not characteristically associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. However, lodged in the Rare Books Collection of the Uni-versity of British Columbia is a remarkable diary kept by William MichaelRossetti. It consists of a small series of 27 hand-written folios entitled simply“Memoranda by himself.” This diary is a meticulous record of twenty spirit-ualist séances that took place between 1865 and 1868, séances that attracteda number of Pre-Raphaelite artists, their friends, and family members. By 1865 spiritualism was practised widely throughout Britain. Thoughsummoning the dead was by no means a recent preoccupation, it appeared inits modern form in America in the late 1840s, was brought simultaneously toEngland and the Continent in the early 1850s, and was widely disseminatedby the 1860s. It was a highly controversial practice and drew in many famousnames, for and against. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an early convert,Charles Dickens a vigorous opponent, but its adherents ranged from QueenVictoria at one end of the social spectrum to Mary Marshall – poor, vulgar,but hugely eminent as the “washerwoman medium”– at the other. Séances,both public and private, took place throughout the country. Some werespectacular displays of showmanship involving large audiences; some wereintimate, devout gatherings, while others took the form of after-dinner enter-tainment. The social, anthropological, and religious status of spiritualism hasbeen much debated, but one important factor drove people to the darkenedroom of the medium: the desire to contact a dead loved-one. It was thismotive that lay behind the séances in William Michael Rossetti’s diary, sincemany of them were driven by Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s desire to reach out to the dead Elizabeth Siddal. Though William was of course present at all theséances, not all were attended by his brother, and the “spirit” of Elizabeth Sid- The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, ns 29 (Fall 2020)6     Pre-Raphaelite Studiesdal appeared at only seven. But it is clear, from internal evidence, that DanteRossetti had been communicating with his dead wife before the first recordedséance on 11 November 1865. In fact, he had been attending séances manyyears before this, but his predilection for the occult was intensified by thedeath of Siddal in 1862.Though he seemed to possess no orthodox Christian beliefs, Dante Ros-setti’s fascination with the life of the spirit goes back to his early experienceswith the poetry of Dante Alighieri in the scholarly work of his father Gabriele.Gabriele came to Britain from Italy as a political exile in 1824 and set himselfup as a Dante scholar and teacher of Italian. Though his work was contro-versial he obtained a chair in Italian at King’s College, London writing anumber of interpretative works including La Beatrice di Dante (1842) whichserved to introduce his son to a life-long preoccupation with Beatrice and theVita Nuova. In the course of his work on palingenesis for this book, GabrieleRossetti frequently invoked the authority of the Swedish mystic EmmanuelSwedenborg, who claimed personal experience of the afterlife. In his con-siderable writings Swedenborg described that world as a heightened versionof life on earth. Dante Rossetti’s understanding of the occult was extendedthrough his admiration for the work of Edgar Allen Poe. As a young man inthe 1840s he illustrated several of Poe’s works which dealt specifically withthe death of a female lover and the relay between heaven and earth. The firstfruit of this was the poem “The Blessed Damozel” which, he told Hall Caine,was a direct response to Poe’s “The Raven” (Caine 284, 234).In the early 1850s it was probably through his friendship with Williamand Mary Howitt, and their daughter Anna Mary that Rossetti came to learnabout spiritualism. The unorthodox mode of the Howitts must have beencongenial to him. They were prolific writers who lived by journalism, pub-lishing essays on history, translations, travel literature, and nature writing.Their politics were radical, and they frequently wrote broadsides in favour ofminority causes. Rossetti had known Anna Mary since they were fellowstudents at Sass’s Academy in 1846. Each member of the family had acuriosity about unorthodox beliefs and one by one they were converted tospiritualism. In the early 1850s Mary watched with interest the rising tide of spirit-ualist enthusiasm in Britain. She wrote of it to her husband who had gonetemporarily to Australia. Unbeknownst to her, however, he was already ex-perimenting with séances in the bush. Ultimately it was their daughter AnnaMary who became the most committed to the spiritualist cause. In 1856 shehad some kind of psychic breakdown, and, on travelling to France to recover,wrote long and impassioned letters to Rossetti about her experiences. One ofthose extant letters is now in the special collections at the University ofBullen and White     7British Columbia. It is a curious mixture of conventional prose and inspired,decorative “spirit writing.” In December of 1856 Rossetti visited the High-gate home of the Howitts and was amazed by what he found there. He wasdisturbed by the strange state of Anna Mary’s mind and surprised to learn thatElizabeth Barrett Browning had thrown herself wholeheartedly into thespiritualist cause.Not many months later, in 1858, Rossetti himself began to take part in hisfirst séances. His friend Thomas Woolner was dismayed. He wrote to severalcorrespondents saying that Rossetti had “gone into spiritual rapping and sayshe can call up ghosts (Woolner 93). But with the death of Elizabeth Siddal in1862 Rossetti’s interest took on a new seriousness. Almost immediately, hesaw her nightly at the foot of his bed, and promptly set out in an attempt tocontact her in the spirit world. In October 1862 he moved into 62 CheyneWalk, and began séances accompanied by his new friend James McNeillWhistler. Many years later Whistler spoke of the “strange things that hap-pened when he went to séances at Rossetti’s” (Pennell 1:115), and LukeIonides, a close friend of Whistler, remembered that they “often had table-turning at Jimmy’s.” He recalled an incident when “when Rossetti joined us,”and how he “broke up the seance after a time by saying, ‘You’d better stopthat, otherwise you will go mad’” (Ionides 12). In spite of his own appre-hensions, Rossetti was, according to Helen Rossetti Angeli, “anxious to getsome message” from Lizzie so much so (206) that his assistant Henry TreffreyDunn said that he “went to all the private séances to which he happened to beinvited” (Dunn 65).During this period both Rossetti and Whistler created pictures with anoccult significance. Rossetti’s drawing How They Met Themselves was adoppelganger image of a young couple meeting their ghostly double in adense wood. It was completed in its first version during his honeymoon in1860 and reworked as a coloured version in 1864. Writing of what Rossetticalled his “bogie picture,” his brother William said: “To meet one’s wraith isominous of death, and to figure Lizzie as meeting her wraith might well havestruck her bridegroom as uncanny in a high degree. In less than two years theweird was woefully fulfilled” (W.M. Rossetti, Family Letters 1: 207). Thenin 1863, both Whistler and Rossetti embarked on paintings with links tospiritualist experience: Whistler’s Symphony in White No. 2: The Little WhiteGirl has a contemporary setting and Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix a medieval one.Like How they met Themselves, Whistler’s painting is also a doppelgangerwork. In it, the model Jo Hiffernan and her mirror image look down towardsa lacquered Japanese box which Whistler employed in séances. Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix was begun at about the same time. Its originaltitle was Beatrice in a Death Trance, a Dantean image which linked the death8     Pre-Raphaelite Studiesof Beatrice Pontinari beside the Arno with Siddal’s beside the Thames. Thepainting was based on a long-abandoned and unfinished portrait of Siddal andreturns to the moment of palingenesis that so interested Rossetti in the 1840s.In its unfinished state it came to the notice of the prominent spiritualistsWilliam and Georgina Cowper-Temple who offered to buy it. WilliamCowper-Temple was President of the Board of Trade, and he and Georginapresided over séances in their family home Broadlands with the most famousmediums of the day. In September 1865 they began to take an interest inRossetti’s work. They frequently visited his studio where he was working onBeata Beatrix, the very same studio in which he was trying, through séances,to conjure up the spirit of Siddal.By the time William Rossetti began his séance diary in 1865 he was,according to William Bell Scott, already a firm believer in spiritualist com-munications. He had read Swedenborg “with delight and wonder” back in1857 (W.M. Rossetti, Selected Letters 91; letter to Scott, 5 December 1857),and had been convinced by the authenticity of his brother’s recent successfulcontacts with Elizabeth Siddal. Though there were more séances in Pre-Raphaelite circles than those noted by William, within the twenty he recordedthere was a total of thirty-nine independent participants. The séances tookplace in ten separate locations with six in Dante Rossetti’s studio in CheyneWalk. The timing of the séances was very irregular. They began in November1865 with seven in that year. There were nine in the following year, 1866,plus one that took place in Naples. There were none in 1867, then finally threetook place in 1868. William offers no explanation for this pattern nor for whyhe decided to keep a diary.The success of the séances varied considerably. The most productive werethose under the auspices of professional mediums. The least successful werethose involving no obvious medium or where skeptics were present. The mostdramatic were those in which the “spirit” of Siddall was invoked. The spirits of dead artists feature prominently. In the very first one, thehistory painter John Cross, who had died in 1861, announced correctly thatthey had a common friend in Thomas Woolner. The glass painter FrankOliphant appeared in two séances and accurately told his old friend Bell Scottthat he had met him in Newcastle and that he had died in the Alban Hillsoutside Rome. Thomas Seddon, who died in 1856 and was friendly with FordMaddox Brown and Holman Hunt, was asked whether he would give thegroup a drawing. He said that his drawing power had deserted him after death,and he could not comply. This disturbed Dante Rossetti, who asked if he toowould lose his skill as a draughtsman after death. The spirit reassured him thathe would not.The richest and most dynamic of the séances took place under theBullen and White     9mediumship of two professionals, Mary Marshall and Elizabeth Guppy. Oneof the first of these took place on 25 November 1865 at the home of MaryMarshall. William Rossetti was accompanied by William Bell Scott. The twomen, who were certain that the Marshalls had no knowledge of them, dis-cussed the idea of trying to make contact with two dead friends – SpencerBoyd and Thomas Sibson. The information that emerged from this séance was striking. The spirit of Spencer Boyd (Alice Boyd’s brother) was sum-moned. He stated, correctly, that he had died in Scott’s home and that he hadheard of, but never met, William Rossetti. Then a spirit communicated withWilliam. A New Zealand chief by the name of “Hemi” claimed that threeyears previously he had seen William in Newcastle when he had been on aBritish tour exhibiting Maori dances. William confirmed this was indeed thecase, and external evidence supports the fact that William and a New Zealandtroupe of Maoris were both in Newcastle on the date of the performances.At the same time as these séances were taking place, Mary Marshall wasacting as a medium for the famous naturalist, explorer, and biologist AlfredRussell Wallace who became a life-long champion of spiritualism. In 1866 thebaton passed to Elizabeth Guppy (née Nicol), who went on to convert manywell-known individuals to the spiritualist cause. Elizabeth Guppy and herhusband Samuel were known to the Rossetti’s friend Henry Vertue Tebbs;Tebbs organized a séance in his home and invited the Rossetti brothers. Thisturned out to be one of the most rumbustious events in the diary. Eau-de-cologne and water showered out of nowhere, books were thrown from thebookcases, and flowers, roses, ferns, and jonquils (all requested by the mem-bers of the group) arrived on participants’ laps. Dante Rossetti invited JaneMorris to two of these séances where she saw unexpected lights and colddraughts of air passed over her hands. The most moving and dramatic séances were those that featured the spiritof Elizabeth Siddal. In the second séance recorded by William, his brotherspoke to her with clear reference to the past. “You used to give me clear &significant answers,” he said, “but of late the reverse: can you tell me why?”She had no answer. In a later séance she confessed that she knew WilliamBell Scott and thought that William Rossetti had been a very affectionatebrother to Dante Gabriel; later at the home of Thomas Keightley, historian,mythographer, and folklorist, she told the participants that she knew WilliamMorris, and correctly informed them of his London address. One of the mostmysterious séances occurred on 25 February 1866. Fanny Cornforth andWilliam Michael Rossetti sat at a table in Dante Rossetti’s studio with DanteRossetti working to one side on a watercolour of Hamlet and Ophelia. Thespirit of Siddall appeared almost immediately. Dante Gabriel moved to thetable taking the place of William. He tested the spirit by asking unspoken10     Pre-Raphaelite Studies“mental” questions in the form of initial letters. Most were incorrect but hethen asked if it had been she who had been making raps in the bedroom of thehouse. She confessed that it was indeed her. William then posed a series ofquestions about a painting The Beloved, which his brother had recently sentto the Liverpool banker George Rae. The questions about Rae’s appearanceand that of his wife were answered accurately (though they had both visitedCheyne Walk to see the work in progress) and the spirit was questioned aboutaspects of Rae’s house. On being asked how many pictures by Rossetti werenow in Rae’s possession the spirit returned the correct answer, eleven, andthen Siddal’s spirit told William about the reception of The Beloved inBirkenhead. She correctly said that five people were present when it arrived,and was able to identify most of them except Frederick Leyland, who camewith the painter John Miller. The most intensive cross-questioning of the spirit of Siddal took place inthe very last séance William recorded (fig. 1). In this, the spirit was askedabout the Rossettis’ father Gabriel in the afterlife, about the nature of Christ,and about the nature of the manifestations that they had recently witnessedfrom Elizabeth Guppy. The most touching exchange came between Williamand Dante Gabriel and Siddal’s spirit. This opened with communicationbetween Siddal and William. “Did you know Gabriel? Yes – Me? Yes –F[anny]? Yes – [Treffry] Dunn? No.” “This,” William comments, “is correct,except that she did not know F[anny] personally.” Dante Gabriel then took hisplace. Gabriel: “Are you my wife? Yes – Are you now happy? Yes – Happierthan on earth? Yes – If I were now to join you, should I be happy? Yes –Should I see you at once? No – Quite soon? – No.” Finally, when asked byWilliam, “who is the medium at this table – is it Fanny?” The spirit returnedthe answer “yes,” and the diary concludes: “F[anny] after this answerwithdrew her hands for a while from the table & the manifest[atio]ns came toa stand-still.” Thus, thanks to William Michael Rossetti’s careful records,these twenty séances allow us a glimpse into an unusual and intimate aspectof Pre-Raphaelite life in the 1860s.The hitherto unpublished text of the “Séance Diary of William MichaelRossetti,” from the Rare Books Collection of the University of BritishColumbia, will be published next year (2021) E\ 3HWHU /DQJ as The Pre-Raphaelites in theSpirit World, edited with an introduction, commentary, and explanatory notesby J.B. Bullen and Rosalind White, with assistance from Lenore A. Beaky. The edition will include an appendix containing a substantial letter from AnnaMary Howitt to Dante Gabriel Rossetti.Bullen and White     11Works CitedAngeli, Helen. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Friends and Enemies. London, HamishHamilton, 1949.Caine, Thomas Henry Hall. Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. London: Eliot Stock,1882.Dunn, Henry Treffrey. Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his Circle. London:Elkin Mathews, 1904.Howitt, Anna Mary. Letter to Dante Rossetti, London. Angeli-Dennis Collection, Box 3,File 5. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections,Vancouver, B.C.Ionides, Luke. Memories. Ludlow: Dog Rose: 1996.Pennell, Joseph. The life of James McNeill Whistler. London: Heineman, 1908. 2 vols.Rossetti, William Michael. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family Letters. London: Ellis andElvey,1895. 2 vols.----. [Diary of Séances], 1865-1868. Angeli-Dennis Collection, Box 17, File 3. Universityof British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver, B.C.----. Selected Letters of William Michael Rossetti. Ed. Roger W. Peattie. University Park,PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1990.Woolner, Thomas. An Annotated Edition of Selected Letters of Thomas Woolner, Pre-Raphaelite Poet and Sculptor. Ed. J.F. Cox. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State UP, 1973.4     Pre-Raphaelite StudiesFig. 1. William Michael Rossetti. [Diary of Séances], 1865-1868. Angeli-Dennis Collection,Box 17, File 3, folio 50. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books andSpecial Collections, Vancouver, B.C.12     Pre-Raphaelite StudiesFig. 1. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Found, c.1854, unfinished, oil on canvas, 92 x 81 cm;Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington,Delaware.

Communication with the Dead: The Séance Diary of W.M. Rossetti

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Communication with the Dead: The Séance Diary of W.M. Rossetti

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