He talked with open heart and tongue,
Affectionate and true;
A pair of friends, though I was young
And Matthew seventy-two.--WORDSWORTH.
Meanwhile the young artist proceeded rapidly with his picture. Devoured
by his enthusiasm, and utterly engrossed by the sanguine anticipation
of a fame which appeared to him already won, he allowed himself no
momentary interval of relaxation; his food was eaten by starts, and
without stirring from his easel; his sleep was brief and broken by
feverish dreams; he no longer roved with Clarence, when the evening
threw her shade over his labours; all air and exercise he utterly
relinquished; shut up in his narrow chamber, he passed the hours in a
fervid and passionate self-commune, which, even in suspense from his
work, riveted his thoughts the closer to its object. All companionship,
all intrusion, he bore with irritability and impatience. Even Clarence
found himself excluded from the presence of his friend; even his nearest
relation, who doted on the very ground which he hallowed with his
footstep, was banished from the haunted sanctuary of the painter; from
the most placid of human beings, Warner seemed to have grown the most
morose.
Want of rest, abstinence from food, the impatience of the strained
spirit and jaded nerves, all contributed to waste the health while they
excited the genius of the artist. A crimson spot, never before seen
there, burned in the centre of his pale cheek; his eye glowed with a
brilliant but unnatural fire; his features grew sharp and attenuated;
his bones worked from his whitening and transparent skin; and the soul
and frame, turned from their proper and kindly union, seemed contesting,
with fierce struggles, which should obtain the mastery and the triumph.
But neither his new prospects nor the coldness of his friend diverted
the warm heart of Clarence from meditating how he could most effectually
serve the artist before he departed from the country, It was a peculiar
object of desire to Warner that the most celebrated painter of the day,
who was on terms of intimacy with Talbot, and who with the benevolence
of real superiority was known to take a keen interest in the success
of more youthful and inexperienced genius,--it was a peculiar object of
desire to Warner, that Sir Joshua Reynolds should see his picture before
it was completed; and Clarence, aware of this wish, easily obtained from
Talbot a promise that it should be effected. That was the least service
of his zeal touched by the earnestness of Linden’s friendship, anxious
to oblige in any way his preserver, and well pleased himself to be the
patron of merit, Talbot readily engaged to obtain for Warner whatever
the attention and favour of high rank or literary distinction could
bestow. “As for his picture,” said Talbot (when, the evening before
Clarence’s departure, the latter was renewing the subject), “I shall
myself become the purchaser, and at a price which will enable our friend
to afford leisure and study for the completion of his next attempt; but
even at the risk of offending your friendship, and disappointing your
expectations, I will frankly tell you that I think Warner overrates,
perhaps not his talents, but his powers; not his ability for doing
something great hereafter, but his capacity of doing it at present. In
the pride of his heart, he has shown me many of his designs, and I am
somewhat of a judge: they want experience, cultivation, taste, and,
above all, a deeper study of the Italian masters. They all have the
defects of a feverish colouring, an ambitious desire of effect, a
wavering and imperfect outline, an ostentatious and unnatural strength
of light and shadow; they show, it is true, a genius of no ordinary
stamp, but one ill regulated, inexperienced, and utterly left to its own
suggestions for a model. However, I am glad he wishes for the opinion
of one necessarily the best judge: let him bring the picture here by
Thursday; on that day my friend has promised to visit me; and now let us
talk of you and your departure.”
The intercourse of men of different ages is essentially unequal: it must
always partake more or less of advice on one side and deference on
the other; and although the easy and unpedantic turn of Talbot’s
conversation made his remarks rather entertaining than obviously
admonitory, yet they were necessarily tinged by his experience, and
regulated by his interest in the fortunes of his young friend.
“My dearest Clarence,” said he, affectionately, “we are about to bid
each other a long farewell. I will not damp your hopes and anticipations
by insisting on the little chance there is that you should ever see me
again. You are about to enter upon the great world, and have within
you the desire and power of success; let me flatter myself that you can
profit by my experience. Among the ‘Colloquia’ of Erasmus, there is a
very entertaining dialogue between Apicius and a man who, desirous of
giving a feast to a very large and miscellaneous party, comes to consult
the epicure what will be the best means to give satisfaction to all.
Now you shall be this Spudaeus (so I think he is called), and I will be
Apicius; for the world, after all, is nothing more than a great feast of
different strangers, with different tastes and of different ages, and
we must learn to adapt ourselves to their minds, and our temptations to
their passions, if we wish to fascinate or even to content them. Let me
then call your attention to the hints and maxims which I have in this
paper amused myself with drawing up for your instruction. Write to me
from time to time, and I will, in replying to your letters, give you
the best advice in my power. For the rest, my dear boy, I have only to
request that you will be frank, and I, in my turn, will promise that
when I cannot assist, I will never reprove. And now, Clarence, as the
hour is late and you leave us early tomorrow, I will no longer detain
you. God bless you and keep you. You are going to enjoy life,--I
to anticipate death; so that you can find in me little congenial to
yourself; but as the good Pope said to our Protestant countryman,
‘Whatever the difference between us, I know well that an old man’s
blessing is never without its value.’”
As Clarence clasped his benefactor’s hand, the tears gushed from his
eyes. Is there one being, stubborn as the rock to misfortune, whom
kindness does not affect? For my part, kindness seems to me to come with
a double grace and tenderness from the old; it seems in them the hoarded
and long purified benevolence of years; as if it had survived and
conquered the baseness and selfishness of the ordeal it had passed; as
if the winds, which had broken the form, had swept in vain across the
heart, and the frosts which had chilled the blood and whitened the thin
locks had possessed no power over the warm tide of the affections. It
is the triumph of nature over art; it is the voice of the angel which
is yet within us. Nor is this all: the tenderness of age is twice
blessed,--blessed in its trophies over the obduracy of encrusting and
withering years, blessed because it is tinged with the sanctity of the
grave; because it tells us that the heart will blossom even upon
the precincts of the tomb, and flatters us with the inviolacy and
immortality of love.