_That is all very well! You talk at your ease of solitude. Presently,
when I am gone, if some idea occurs to you, you will gently follow it
by the side of your dying embers, without feeling around you that
atmosphere of isolation, so vast, so empty, that in it inspiration
evaporates and disperses. And one may yet fear to be alone in the hours
of work; but there are moments of discouragement and weariness, when
one doubts oneself ones art even. That is the moment when it must be
happiness to find a faithful and loving heart, ever ready to sympathize
with one's depression, to which one may appeal without fearing to
disconcert a confidence and enthusiasm that are, in fact, unalterable.
And then the child. That sweet unconscious baby smile, is not that the
best moral rejuvenescence one can have? Ah! I have often thought over
that. For us artists, vain as all must be who live by success, by that
superficial esteem, capricious and fleeting, that we call the vogue; for
us, above all others, children are indispensable. They alone can console
us for growing old. All that we lose, the child gains. The success we
have missed, we think: "He will have it" and in proportion as our hair
grows thin, we have the joy of seeing it grow again, curly, golden, full
of life, on a little fair head at our side._