human
After all, said he,
gpt
I am glad I am a painter; and I hope I may live to be a great one.
human
No doubt, if you live, you will be a great one, cried Lionel, with cordial sincerity.
gpt
And if I, who can only just paint well enough to please myself, find that it gives a new charm to Nature--
human
Cut sentiment, quoth Vance,
gpt
What, continued Lionel, unchilled by the admonitory interruption,
human
Forever! no! Colours perish, canvas rots. What remains to us of Zeuxis? Still it is prettily said on behalf of the poetic side of the profession; there is a prosaic one;--we'll blink it. Yes; I am glad to be a painter. But you must not catch the fever of my calling. Your poor mother would never forgive me if she thought I had made you a dauber by my example.
gpt
No. I shall not be a painter! But what can I be? How shall I ever build on the earth one of the castles I have built in the air? Fame looks so far,--Fortune so impossible. But one thing I am bent upon (speaking with knit brow and clenched teeth),
human
I will gain an independence somehow, and support my mother.
gpt
Your mother is supported: she has the pension--
human
Of a captain's widow; and (he added with a flushed cheek)
gpt
No shame in that! Peers let houses; and on the Continent, princes let not only first floors, but fifth and sixth floors, to say nothing of attics and cellars. In beginning the world, friend Lionel, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin. Even kings don't wear the dalmaticum except at a coronation. Independence you desire; good. But are you dependent now? Your mother has given you an excellent education, and you have already put it to profit. My dear boy, added Vance, with unusual warmth,
human
I honour you; at your age, on leaving school, to have shut yourself up, translated Greek and Latin per sheet for a bookseller, at less than a valet's wages, and all for the purpose of buying comforts for your mother; and having a few pounds in your own pockets, to rove your little holiday with me and pay your share of the costs! Ah, there are energy and spirit and life in all that, Lionel, which will found upon rock some castle as fine as any you have built in air. Your hand, my boy.
gpt
I don't deserve your praise, Vance, and I fear the pride you tell me to put under lock and key has the larger share of the merit you ascribe to better motives. Independent? No! I have never been so.
human
Well, you depend on a parent: who, at seventeen does not?
gpt
I did not mean my mother; of course, I could not be too proud to take benefits from her. But the truth is simply this--, my father had a relation, not very near, indeed,--a cousin, at about as distant a remove, I fancy, as a cousin well can be. To this gentleman my mother wrote when my poor father died; and he was generous, for it is he who paid for my schooling. I did not know this till very lately. I had a vague impression, indeed, that I had a powerful and wealthy kinsman who took an interest in me, but whom I had never seen.
human
Never seen?
gpt
No. And here comes the sting. On leaving school last Christmas, my mother, for the first time, told me the extent of my obligations to this benefactor, and informed me that he wished to know my own choice as to a profession,--that if I preferred Church or Bar, he would maintain me at college.
human
Body o' me! where's the sting in that? Help yourself to toddy, my boy, and take more genial views of life.
gpt
You have not heard me out. I then asked to see my benefactor's letters; and my mother, unconscious of the pain she was about to inflict, showed me not only the last one, but all she had received from him. Oh, Vance, they were terrible, those letters! The first began by a dry acquiescence in the claims of kindred, a curt proposal to pay my schooling; but not one word of kindness, and a stern proviso that the writer was never to see nor hear from me. He wanted no gratitude; he disbelieved in all professions of it. His favours would cease if I molested him. 'Molested' was the word; it was bread thrown to a dog.
human
Tut! Only a rich man's eccentricity. A bachelor, I presume?
gpt
My mother says he has been married, and is a widower.
human
Any children?
gpt
My mother says none living; but I know little or nothing about his family.
human
Plain as a pikestaff. Your relation is one of those men who, having no children, suspect and dread the attention of an heir presumptive; and what has made this sting, as you call it, keener to you is--pardon me--is in some silly words of your mother, who, in showing you the letters, has hinted to you that that heir you might be, if you were sufficiently pliant and subservient. Am I not right?
gpt
So, so; no great harm as yet. Enough of the first letter. What was the last?
human
Still more offensive. He, this kinsman, this patron, desired my mother to spare him those references to her son's ability and promise, which, though natural to herself, had slight interest to him,--him, the condescending benefactor! As to his opinion, what could I care for the opinion of one I had never seen? All that could sensibly affect my--oh, but I cannot go on with those cutting phrases, which imply but this, 'All I can care for is the money of a man who insults me while he gives it.'
gpt
Without being a wizard, I should say your relative was rather a disagreeable person,--not what is called urbane and amiable,--in fact, a brute.
human
You will not blame me, then, when I tell you that I resolved not to accept the offer to maintain me at college, with which the letter closed. Luckily Dr. Wallis (the head master of my school), who had always been very kind to me, had just undertaken to supervise a popular translation of the classics. He recommended me, at my request, to the publisher engaged in the undertaking, as not incapable of translating some of the less difficult Latin authors,--subject to his corrections. When I had finished the first instalment of the work thus intrusted to me, my mother grew alarmed for my health, and insisted on my taking some recreation. You were about to set out on a pedestrian tour. I had, as you say, some pounds in my pocket; and thus I have passed with you the merriest days of my life.
gpt
What said your civil cousin when your refusal to go to college was conveyed to him?
human
He did not answer my mother's communication to that effect till just before I left home, and then,--no, it was not his last letter from which I repeated that withering extract,--no, the last was more galling still, for in it he said that if, in spite of the ability and promise that had been so vaunted, the dulness of a college and the labour of learned professions were so distasteful to me, he had no desire to dictate to my choice, but that as he did not wish one who was, however remotely, of his blood, and bore the name of Haughton, to turn shoeblack or pickpocket--Vance--Vance!
gpt
Lock up your pride--the sackcloth frets you--and go on; and that therefore he--
human
Would buy me a commission in the army, or get me an appointment in India.
gpt
Which did you take?
human
Which! so offered,--which?--of course neither! But distrusting the tone of my mother's reply, I sat down, the evening before I left home, and wrote myself to this cruel man. I did not show any letter to my mother,--did not tell her of it. I wrote shortly,--that if he would not accept my gratitude, I would not accept his benefits; that shoeblack I might be,--pickpocket, no! that he need not fear I should disgrace his blood or my name; and that I would not rest till, sooner or later, I had paid him back all that I had cost him, and felt relieved from the burdens of an obligation which--which--
gpt
Comfort, then said the Artist, almost solemnly, as here, from the inner depths of his character, the true genius of the man came forth and spoke,--