The Merciless Lady

Marillier admired this picture, which he described as “a scene of three figures sitting on a turf-lined couch in a pavilion or arbour. In the centre is a man, cross-legged, his chin on his hand, gazing with rapt admiration at the blonde-haired damsel on his left who is singing to a lute. A vapid, reckless-looking maid she is, not to be compared to the dark beauty on his right, who with gloomy frown is trying to will back her lover. On the ground beside them her glass only stands untasted; she alone is sad. There is the little tragedy—barring one only the oldest I suppose in the world—set in a field of the brightest, sunniest green, all nature rejoicing round it. Much as I admire almost all Rossetti's water-colours, I know not one that clings in the mind like this, or that produces without effort, from a purely imaginary scene, so profound an impression of actuality” ( Marillier, DGR: An Illustrated Memorial, 138).