Elizabeth Siddal - Two Letters to Rossetti 1855 and 1860

 

Elizabeth Siddal - Two  Letters to Rossetti 1855 and 1860

NICE  Christmas 1855  at the Hotel des Princes

 After spending time in Paris with Rossetti who had now returned to London, Elizabeth travelled  further south  to Nice  for her health accompanied by her companion, Mrs Kincaid . She returned to London early to mid 1856 . In this excerpt she comments on the bureaucracy of trying to receive mail. 

"On your leaving the boat, your passport is 
taken from you to the Police Station, and there 
taken charge of till you leave Nice. If a letter 
is sent to you containing money, the letter is 
detained at the Post Office, and another written to 
you by the postmaster ordering you to present 
yourself and passport for his inspection. You 
have then to go to the Police Station and beg the 
loan of your passport for half-an-hour, and are 
again looked upon as a felon of the first order 
before passport is returned to you. Looking very 
much like a transport, you make your way to the 
Post Office, and there present yourself before a 
grating, which makes the man behind it look like 
an overdone mutton-chop sticking to a gridiron. 
On asking for a letter containing money, Mutton- 
chop sees at once that you are a murderer, and 
makes up its mind not to let you off alive ; and, 
treating you as Cain and *Alice Gray in one, 
demands your passport. After glaring at this 
and your face (which has by this time become 
scarlet, and is taken at once as a token of guilt), 
a book is pushed through the bars of gridiron, and 
you are expected to sign your death-warrant by 
writing something which does not answer to the 
writing on the passport. Meanwhile Mutton- 
chop has been looking as much like doom as 
overdone mutton can look, and fizzing in French, 
not one word of which is understood by Alice 
Gray. But now comes the reward of merit. 
Mutton sees at once that no two people living 
and at large could write so badly as the writing 
on the passport and that in the book ; so takes me 
for Alice, but gives me the money, and wonders 
whether I shall be let off from hard labour the 
next time I am taken, on account of my thinness. 
When you enter Police Station to return the 
passport, you are glared at through wooden bars 
with marked surprise at not returning in company 
of two cocked-hats, and your fainting look is put 
down to your having been found out in something. 
They are forced, however, to content themselves 
by expecting to have a job in a day or so. This 
is really what one has to put up with, and it is 
not at all comic when one is ill. I will write 
again when boil is better, or tell you about 
lodgings if we are able to get any. 
 
There was an English dinner here on Christ- 
mas Day, ending with plum -pudding, which 
was really very good indeed, and an honour to 
the country. I dined up in my room, where I 
have dined for the last three weeks on account of 
bores. First class, one can get to the end of the world
but one can never be alone or left at rest". 

(*Alice Gray convicted criminal) 

 Letter to Gug-  September 1860 , Brighton, England

 A few months after their marriage, Elizabeth was staying in Brighton with her sister  as Rossetti was trying to sort out suitable accommodation. in London. They eventually ended up living in their old lodgings in Chatham Place. Gug was her nickname for Rossetti

MY DEAR GUG,

I am most sorry to have worried you about coming back when you have so many things to upset you. I shall therefore say no more about it.
I seem to have gained flesh within the last ten days, and seem also much better in some respects, although I am in constant pain and cannot sleep at nights for fear of another ill- ness like the last. But do not feel anxious about it as I would not fail to let you know in time, and perhaps after all I am better here with Lyddy than quite alone at Hampstead. I really do not know what to advise about the little house in the lane. If you were to take it, you might still retain your rooms at Chatham Place, which I think would be the best thing to do until better times. However I do not see how the 20 are to be paid just at this time, so I suppose that will settle the matter. I am glad you have written to Marshall, but fear there is no chance of his being in town at this time of the year.

I should like to have my water-colours sent down if possible, as I am quite
destitute of all means of keeping myself alive. I have kept myself alive

 hitherto by going out to sea in the smallest boat I can find. What do you say to my not being sick in the very roughest weather ? 

I should like to see your *picture when finished, but I suppose it will go away somewhere this week. Let me know its fate as soon as it is sealed, and pray do not worry yourself about it as there is no real cause for doing so.

I can do without money till next Thursday, after which time 3 a week 

would be quite enough for all our wants including rent of course.

Your affectionate

LIZZIE.

* This picture is generally considered to be Rossetti's wedding portrait of
Lizzie - Regina Cordium