Dante Gabriel Rossetti letter to Ellen Heaton, 1862 ca. January 13

Rossetti apologizes to Heaton for asking her to send her most recent payment to him by P.O. order rather than check at a time when she is unwell and tells her not to organize the order until she is better. Rossetti remarks that "everyone seems to have had these attacks lately" and that "we may see that they need care to be taken at once, as one has heard lately of so many bad cases beginning with colds of this kind." Rossetti says that he will send Heaton the St. George by the time Heaton specifies and explains that he has not made the "out-of-window bit" brighter, claiming it would create an imbalance of light in the work. Rossetti tells Heaton that Ruskin is visiting him on the day of writing the letter and he can "give no particulars as to [Ruskin's] apparent state when I last saw him, because to tell truth his account of himself was discouraging." Rossetti cannot take the photograph of the oil painting requested by Heaton as it "would be sure to prove a distressing failure." Rossetti recommends Edward Burne-Jones's work Cupid and Psyche Sharpening Arrows to Heaton, remarking that she "could not possibly make a more delightful acquisition." Rossetti ends by telling Heaton that Robert Browning had seen Heaton's St George and expressed a desire to tell Heaton herself what he thought of it.