CHAPTER XXII.
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.
