The Grange, / 49, North End Road, / West Kensington, W. / Wednesday. / (First sheet missing). / I said I wouldn't write a word to you in the day time - but / I can't stand all day long without sitting down at all - and / when I sit I may as well write - that is but commonsense surely - / Why did I begin such big pictures? There is Watts - a little / man, all his life, weak and ailing, and nothing short of an acre / of canvas can serve him, and there is Tadema - strong as a bull - / as a bull of Basham - whose voice is as the north wind in a / funnel - who is never ill, nor weak, nor knows what head ache / means, nor heart ache I should think, whose fist are as iron / hammers, whose legs are ironclads, and he likes a canvas best / that is about the size of this page of paper. / but I won't stand all day long, and when I rest I shall go / and talk to you but what shall I say - letters are almost as cir- / cumscribed as if I were dictating to Miss Anderson - after two / hours of business letters I give her a short holiday and dictate / a nonsense letter - and last evening it was to you. / and tomorrow Thursday is a year since I said goodbye - it won't / be as hard I think as that Thursday - it was just simple pure / misery to have to go and visit elsewhere - and I doubt id the / station at Warrington ever held a more despondent wretch than I / was. I shall go tomorrow to see Richmond's mosaics at S. Pauls - / how I hate S. Pauls - it chills my heart through and through - / I couldn't pray in it - I couldn't believe there was any One to / pray to - a god of cornices perhaps, but I wouldn't pray to him - / and that horrible dome - it doesn't need adorning anymore than / Euston Station - it should have furniture though - sofas, and a / refreshment bar - and for Psalms "How sumptuous and magnificent / are our works O God - si monumentum quadis Circumspice". No /2. / prayer - only speeches and resolutions and amendments and / divisions - did I tell you ever of that hateful evening when / I dined with Alfred baldwin at the House of Commons in the / late Summer - when you dined at the Savoy. We were sitting / smoking in the uncomfortable smoking room, and a bell rang - / as at Mass - and a voice cried "Vision". I stopped Kenrick / as he rushed by and said "I heard the word vision sounded - / is the San Graal going by, for my heart is set on seeing it?" / but he only laughed - so mundane is Kenrick. / But I needn't go ever again - need I? / Comes Luke this morning, looking ill and wretched - "I'm / going to bits" said he - and he looked it. What can I do for / him, more than I have done? it's a costly year and I am as / poor as I ought to be - but if you were strong how gay all / things would seem - and you say I "fuss". / After I went on that little commision to North audley / Street I turned towards Marble Arch to look about me, and as / a man passed me he whispered in my ear "God bless you" - so / I turned to look at him and saw a most respectable gentleman / of about forty years scurrying along - perhaps some impulse / was on him to be crazy as when when one was little, in church, I / was always wondering if suddenly I should scream out and hard / work it was not to scream. However his communication could / do no harm - it reminded me of a similar funny thing that befel / me about thirty years ago - in Southampton Row one morning - when a most decent looking elderly gentleman, with a / lawyer's bag in his hand as he passed me whistled shrilly in / my ear, and when I turned indignantly he was scuttling away on / his little dapper pins as hard as he could go, and mankind is / queer, doubtless, but I like the blessing best. / You see I am restless again - and you want me to rest / sometimes I dare say. This fussy friend of yours is going to / hold you to your promise in two things - when you come back - / if ever you come back , for I live from hand to mouth and dare / not look forward at all, and one is to go to a wise leech, / who shall examine you - and one is to be photographed in many / 3. / phases - from the North and the north West and so on - all / round the compass. But I am sorry I fuss - see how the word / rankles, as that saying rankled about my giving most to the / friend who gave me least - / and what if I do? quotha - marry may I not do what I like with / my own - oddsbodikins. / and has Hal written at last? let him somehow be taught a / little drawing in the Winter holidays - perspective for instance - / he should know it - the day may come when it will be the usefullest / of gifts for him - and he has inherited from you a distinct turn / for it, if Mr. potter, who is a very nice fellow, said that / if he could draw he could greatly help himself(and I do not / doubt it would greatly help him, only it is too late now), why should / not Hal have that arrow in his quiver he should know perspective / and some elements of architecture - chiefly of materials, and / the natures of wood and iron and stone and brick - and laws of / measurements and quantities - this he could do in the next three / or four vacations - and it would be a resource in the future - for futures are going to be dubious for all of us - whether a / great change will come or not, things are fast changing in / little - and it is wrong to let a faculty be quenched for want / of use - he would draw, and probably very well - and so would you - / but then I am here to draw for you, so it matters less. / If you and his father think that would be good - I would find / out all the needful facts for your use. / The doctor came just now - not the clever one but the / stupid one - only a trifling thing the matter, this he is good / enough for - but finding my heart not quite right he said "you / see the heart is most sensitive of all the organs - what it / wants is rest - more anxiety" - and after a pause "I should / rather say less anxiety - yes, less". / and he is like a country parson at Bewdley who in Georgia's / hearing said in his sermon (a bought one and never paid for - see county court action of this time) "Let all these things my / dear brethren tend to make you more careless" but he never / amended the phrase, and I dare say his parishioners followed / his counsel. / And he was the same parson, and no other who is in Mrs. Baldwin's / 4. / hearing read the following passage in his sermon to a congregation / of clod hoppers and ancient chuffies who had never walked a mile / in their lives beyond the village barrier. / "Such of you, my dear brethren, as I have been in China, will bear / me out in this". / And do you remember Chicken Campden - oh what a happy time / was that - why was it so happy - and wasn't I many years younger / than I am - I feel sure I was - will the like of it ever happen / again? perhaps, for that was the almost unpremeditated but when a / very special and singular hour of happiness comes into my mind / to think of, my thoughts go at once to that journey - and to a / walk in the streets on a Sunday evening, to an ancient house - / and to walk back - and then I know what life could be, if it / could be. lord, how I could have responded to happiness - and / how gay I could have been - if this, and if that. Well at least / I see and know where it would be found - and I have proved it / and am not deceived - so that is something, also it is much. / - / And now I am off to the Lyceum business and may be there / many hours - it doesn't matter - and so ends Wednesday. And / tomorrow it is likely enough there may be a word form you - I / almost hope not - w=hy? - oh I am ashamed to tell you it's because / I fear ill news - of more illness - of a dreadful sea journey - / of something unhappy and hard to bear - yes I write all the time / with a laden heart of anxiety - all that would go out of me / and be a thing of the past if once you could get strong and well, / but till that day happens, and I believe it will happen by and bye - / I confess that mine is a heavy laden heart. - never mind - if I / am fussy, I am not all bad for you - and you soon forgive - no / one ever in the world forgave so soon and so surely as you - until / seventy time seven.
The archive, which has remained with May Gaskell’s descendants, consists of more than 200 letters dating from 1892 up to the year of Burne-Jones’s death: three albums of intimate letters from the artist to Mrs Gaskell; two albums of illustrated letters to Mrs Gaskell and her daughter, Daphne; and other ephemera such as the artist’s brushes which he used when painting his famous portrait of Amy Gaskell. The letters are one of the most endearing records of all Burne-Jones’s friendships. They recount both his innermost thoughts and feelings and feature a cast of humorous characters, fictitious and real. They have been acquired for £200,000 with major support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF); the Art Fund; the Arts Council England/Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund; the Friends of the National Libraries; and numerous private donations. Two of the albums are on display in the Museum for its Great British Drawings exhibition where they can be seen until 31 August. They will now enter the Ashmolean’s permanent collection. Following conservation, they will be made available as an invaluable resource to students and scholars of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and they will be published online. The letters will add to the collection of drawings by Burne-Jones bequeathed to the Ashmolean in 1939 by Mrs Gaskell, forming one of the richest Pre-Raphaelite archives in the country. Many of the letters were published by Josceline Dimbleby, May Gaskell’s great-granddaughter, in her acclaimed book, A Profound Secret (2004), which recounts the author’s research into her family’s history. On the occasion of this major acquisition, Josceline Dimbleby will give a Saturday Talk on 8 August at the Ashmolean, in conversation with the curator of Great British Drawings, Colin Harrison. Josceline Dimbleby says: "My discovery of so many intimate and often witty letters from Burne-Jones to my great grandmother May Gaskell, forgotten for decades in an old chest of drawers, was one of the most exciting moments in my life, together with finding, wrapped in old paper and string at the back of one drawer, the paintbrushes he used for his famous portrait of my doomed great aunt Amy Gaskell, still with paint sticking to them. The letters revealed a passion that made it hard to think of this friendship as platonic and I spent a fascinating and happy three years piecing together and writing the story of what was A Profound Secret, feeling that I was getting to know my ancestors, and a very private side of Burne- Jones." Burne- Jones met May Gaskell in 1892, and she became the last in the succession of women with whom he enjoyed especially close, but platonic, friendships. She was the wife of a dull cavalry officer, and, in an unfulfilling marriage, she corresponded with Burne- Jones up to five times a day. The letters include a series of cartoon-like tales featuring characters such as the ‘fat lady’ and the artist himself, caught in mishap and misadventure. Beneath the surface lies the black humour endemic to Burne-Jones’s frequent moods of depression and insecurity. There is, for example, a superb sequence of caricatures of the artist suffering from flu. In the course of their friendship, Burne-Jones became dependent on May, confessing to her that she ‘reached the well of loneliness that is in me’. He also sent whimsical letters to the infant Daphne Gaskell (1887–1966). She was only six when she met Burne-Jones and he took an affectionate and fatherly interest in her, his own children having grown up. His letters to Daphne, written in phonetic spelling, include birds and animals familiar from his other letters to children, and several fantastic inventions such as the ‘Phlumbudge’ and ‘Flapdabble’. The archive also includes some letters to May’s elder daughter, Amy (1874–1910), whom Burne-Jones painted in 1893 in one of the greatest Pre-Raphaelite portraits (collection of Lord Lloyd-Webber). Colin Harrison, Senior Curator of European Art, Ashmolean Museum, says: "May Gaskell was Burne- Jones’s closest friend in his last years. He gave her a selection of his finest drawings, which she in turn gave to the Ashmolean in 1939. The opportunity to acquire the albums of intimate and humorous letters that he sent to May and to her daughter, Daphne, was unmissable; and we are most grateful for the support from the NHMF, the Art Fund, and other bodies, as well as numerous private donors. Their generosity has ensured that the letters have ended up in their rightful home, and that the Ashmolean now has one of the most representative, as well as distinguished, collections of Burne-Jones’s work in the world." Sir Peter Luff, Chair of NHMF, says: “Sir Edward Burne-Jones was the most prominent of the second generation Pre-Raphaelites and his work had an enormous influence. This exceptional collection of letters, which throws light on the last years of his life, was the most important part of his collection in private hands. I'm delighted that National Heritage Memorial Fund investment will mean they can be available for everyone to explore and enjoy.” Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Art Fund, says: "The Ashmolean owns one of the finest collections of works by Burne-Jones in the world, which will be greatly enriched by this important and delightful collection of letters."