GOD AND THE MAN - Additional Material

The following are taken from an illustrated edition of God and the Man, published by Chatto & Windus in 1900. The first edition in 1881 contained the dedication ‘To An Old Enemy’. Following the death of Rossetti, a second poem, this time naming ‘the old enemy’, was added to a new edition of the novel. An introductory note and the Preface to that 1882 edition are included below, as well as Fred. Barnard’s illustrations for the 1900 edition. The full text of the novel is available to download from the West Midlands Literary Heritage site.

Dedication.

I.

TO AN OLD ENEMY.

I would have snatch’d a bay leaf from thy brow,
     Wronging the chaplet on an honoured head;
In peace and tenderness I bring thee now
     A lily-flower instead.

Pure as thy purpose, blameless as thy song,
     Sweet as thy spirit, may this offering be:
Forget the bitter blame that did thee wrong,
     And take the gift from me!

                                                                 R. B.

October 1881.

 

II.

TO DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

Calmly, thy royal robe of Death around thee,
     Thou sleepest, and weeping Brethren round thee stand—
Gently they placed, ere yet God’s angel crown’d thee,
     My lily in thy hand!

I never knew thee living, O my brother!
     But on thy breast my lily of love now lies;
And by that token, we shall know each other,
     When God’s voice saith ‘Arise!’

                                                                        R. B.

August 1882.

 

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     This romance is the third work of prose fiction from the writer’s pen. In each of these works, a subject has been taken, which, though poetical in itself, involved a treatment transcending the exact limits of verse. ‘A Child of Nature,’ written in 1870, though not published till nine years after, was the first of the series; the ‘Shadow of the Sword’ was written and published in 1875; the present work, and the ‘Martyrdom of Madeline,’ were planned together and written in close sequence. Each of the last three works has a particular ‘idea’ or purpose, and descends to what some critics call the heresy of instruction. The ‘Shadow of the Sword’ is a poetical polemic against public War; ‘God and the Man’ is a study of the vanity and folly of individual Hate; the ‘Martyrdom of Madeline’ has for its theme the social conspiracy against Womankind.

                                                                                  R. B.

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PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.

I HAVE to thank both the press and the public for their generous reception of this romance, or (as it has been styled) tragedy in prose. Despite a title which alarmed the librarians, and a subject which some critics considered transcendental, it was received with the utmost kindness in almost every quarter. Certain sections of the religious world (by which I mean the world which calls itself ‘religious’) may possibly have found it uninteresting; for it neither supports nor attacks the Church of Rome, it has no bearing whatever on the English or any other Establishment, it has nothing to do with theological or ecclesiastical vested interests, and it has never been blest, or curst, by a Bishop. It is of little consequence, therefore, to the higher controversy—if that controversy can be called ‘higher’ which consists of constant wrangling over religious institutions, theories, forms, and fictions. The author holds that true Christianity is an inheritance belonging to all men alike, whatever may be the form of their creed; and that the patience of the world is wasted, and the millennium of love indefinitely delayed, by an eternal dispute over miserable forms.
     Since this work was first published, the ‘Old Enemy’ to whom it was dedicated has passed away. Although his name did not appear on the front of the book, as it would certainly have done had I possessed more moral courage, it is a melancholy pleasure to me to reflect that he understood the dedication and accepted it in the spirit in which it was offered. That I should ever have underrated his exquisite work, is simply a proof of the incompetency of all criticism, however honest, which is conceived adversely, hastily, and from an unsympathetic point of view; but that I should have ranked myself for the time being with the Philistines, and encouraged them to resist an ennobling and refining literary influence (of which they stood, and stand, so mournfully in need), must remain to me a matter of permanent regret.

                                                                                                      ROBERT BUCHANAN.

          LONDON: August 18, 1882.

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ILLUSTRATIONS.

‘I PLACED MYSELF BETWEEN THE BEAST AND THE FALLEN MAN’          .          .           .           Frontispiece.

‘ALL MEN, EACH ONE, BENEATH THE SUN’          .          .          .            .          .           .           to face p. 1

‘FACING THE FIRE SITS CHRISTIAN CHRISTIANSON OF THE FEN’           .          .           .                “      7

‘ “HELP !” SHRIEKED THE BOY’                             .          .          .          .          .           .                “    39

‘HE LIFTED HIS EYES’                                           .          .          .          .          .           .                “    63

‘ “YOU SHALL NOT GO,” CRIED THE GIRL’             .          .          .          .          .           .                “    95

‘HE SAT AND GAZED INTO HER EYES’                   .          .          .          .          .           .                “   136

‘THE COLD GREY LIGHT OF DAWN STREAMED DOWN’      .          .          .          .           .                “    176

‘ONCE ALONE THERE, SHE FELL UPON HER KNEES’           .          .          .          .           .                “    194

‘ “FINISH YOUR WORK,” HE CRIED’                      .          .          .          .          .           .                “     251

‘SNOW TO SNOW’                                              .          .          .          .          .           .                “     297

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