A slight incident--the dropping of a pin, or the turning of a straw--may
affect the whole current of a man's life. There may be a fixed fate:
but if so, it often seems to be brought about, or depend upon,
circumstances purely accidental. Had Henry Harding not gone home by
Holborn Bars; had he not got down at the corner of Little Queen Street;
had he not taken a fancy for shell-fish; had he not that day done a
hundred other things, all of which may have indirectly conducted to the
encounter described;--his after life might have been as different from
what is to be chronicled, as if it were that of some other man.
In a week from that time he might have been on his way to the West
Indies, or some part of the great American continent, perhaps never to
come back; whereas in a week from that time he was sitting in a studio,
with a palette on his left thumb, a brush in his right hand, and an
easel in front of him, while the classic blouse of brown holland and the
embroidered smoking-cap told that he had turned artist.
The change in his life's programme can be easily explained. The
gentleman he had rescued from the garrotters had become his patron; and,
listening to the counsels of the young Italian artist--for such was he--
he had himself taken to painting as a means of procuring his livelihood.
Nor was it such a despairing adventure. He had already displayed taste
in his school-drawings, and was, moreover, gifted with that aptitude for
the art that usually leads to success. Almost from the first day spent
in the studio he was enabled to produce sketches that could be sold; and
these were followed by those "furniture pictures" which have given not
only practice but material support to many a struggling artist
afterwards eminent in his profession, and who otherwise might never have
been heard of.
The young Italian painter--Luigi Torreani by name--was himself but a
beginner; but with that talent both of conception and execution, which
distinguishes the countrymen of Titian, he was rapidly rising in his
profession. He had got beyond the point of painting for mere bread, and
was receiving a price for his pictures that promised something more than
a subsistence.
It was upon the strength of his own success that he had given counsel to
his new acquaintance. He had done so, after ascertaining something of
the situation and prospects of the strong, gallant youth who had done
him such an essential service. Henry at the time had told him but
little of his antecedents. This was not needed to a mind generous as
that of Luigi Torreani, and a heart at the same time touched with a
sense of gratitude. On discovering the young Englishman's project of
self-banishment from his native land, he combated the idea with his
counsel, and proposed, in the event of his abandoning it, to instruct
him in his own art. In fine, his proposal was accepted, and Henry
Harding adopted the profession of painter.
From acquaintances thus strangely introduced to each other, the two
young men, not greatly differing in years, became fast friends, sharing
apartments, table, studio together, and for many months the friendly
association was continued. It was interrupted only by the advice of
Luigi, who, deeply interested in the success of his brother artist,
became desirous that the latter should spend some time in Rome, to
perfect himself in his art by contemplating those classic forms so
plentiful in the ancient metropolis of the world. For himself, the
young Italian needed no such suggestive models. A Roman by birth, he
had commenced his studies in their midst, and had ended by transferring
his practice to that metropolis where the painting of them was sure to
be best paid for. The education of his pupil, then, was to be the
reverse of his own. The young English gentleman accepted the advice,
less from any profound love of his art or ambition to excel in it, than
from a longing, such as most youths feel, to look upon Italy. Italy!
the classic land of our school-boy exercises! the land of bright skies
and soft summer scenes! the land of Tasso, of Ariosto, Byron, Boccaccio,
and the brigands! Who does not desire to behold such a country,
classically poetical in its past, romantically picturesque in its
present, and, it is hoped, to be free and prosperous in its future?
Henry Harding longed to look upon this land; and mingled with his
longings was a hope he might there find _Lethe_, or at least some solace
for his spirit, still suffering sorely from the cruel treatment he had
received--from a double disappointment to his affection and his love.
So long as he remained in England amid its _souvenirs_ and scenes, these
sad memories would ever remain fresh. Perhaps in a foreign land, with
strange objects under his eye, strange voices sounding in his ear, he
might be enabled to realise the truth of the oft-quoted adage, "Absence
conquers love."