Bodichon, an Englishwoman married to a French physician, who is equally well known by her maiden name, Barbara Leigh-Smith, a landscape painter of remarkable force, and one of the most delightful and remarkable Englishwomen I have ever been privileged to know.

When I knew her in America, she had taken an interest in my painting, which she regarded as promising a successful career, and when I came to England, I renewed the acquaintance.

As the spring came on, she offered me for a few weeks her house at Robertsbridge, a charming cottage in the midst of woodland, and with her consent I asked Rossetti to share it with me.
Rossetti was then in the beginning of the morbid attacks which some time later destroyed his health completely.

He was sleepless, excitable, and possessed by the monomania of persecution.

His family had tried to induce him to go away for a change, but the morbid condition made him unwilling to do so, and he never left his house until late in the evening, under the prepossession of being watched by enemies.