When about three-and-twenty years of age I had the misfortune to lose
my father, an event which altered the whole course of my life, and
nearly unhinged my mind. My father was an artist of some repute, and as
I also loved the work, I had an ardent wish to follow in his footsteps.
At seventeen I left school, and immediately commenced my artistic
studies under my father. I also became a student at the ---- Art
School, at which, when I was about twenty years of age, I had the good
fortune to gain a travelling scholarship of £100 a year for two years.
The first summer I spent in the British Isles, eking out my scholarship
money with the help of a small allowance from my good parent.
The winter I spent in my father’s studio, and in the following spring
packed up my few belongings, and bidding my father farewell, travelled
to various parts of the continent, making my way gradually south
as the cold weather approached. Thus, roving about, I picked up a
fair knowledge of two or three languages, and when my time of travel
expired, found myself in Sicily, from whence, crossing over to Naples,
I spent my last few pounds in procuring a passage home on a P. & O.
steamer bound for dear old England.
On my arrival I lost no time in sending a telegram to my father,
advising him that he might expect me on the following day. I kept my
word, and arrived at the time I had mentioned, but, alas! I found my
dear old father on a sick-bed, and was only just in time to bid him a
long farewell, for he died two days after my return home.
The shock was so great to my nervous system that I too became ill, and
for a long time was in grave danger, hovering between life and death,
but, by careful nursing and skilful medical treatment, I eventually
pulled through. My nerves were greatly shaken at the awful home-coming
I had experienced, and the knowledge that I had not written to my
father for three weeks previous to coming to England, so that he might
know where to address me, preyed greatly upon my mind. I could not help
thinking that, had my father been able to communicate with me, I might
have returned sooner, and by so doing have possibly saved his life. I
felt somehow guilty of a kind of moral parricide, and blamed myself for
all that had happened.
It was more than I could bear to enter the studio; everything about the
place served to call up memories of the past; even the trees around the
old house seemed to whisper as I walked beneath them, “ingrate.”