The Late Mr. Stanfield - Page 2

even then.

No Artist can ever have stood by his art with a quieter dignity than
he always did. Nothing would have induced him to lay it at the feet
of any human creature. To fawn, or to toady, or to do undeserved
homage to any one, was an absolute impossibility with him. And yet
his character was so nicely balanced that he was the last man in the
world to be suspected of self-assertion, and his modesty was one of
his most special qualities.

He was a charitable, religious, gentle, truly good man. A genuine
man, incapable of pretence or of concealment. He had been a sailor
once; and all the best characteristics that are popularly attributed
to sailors, being his, and being in him refined by the influences of
his Art, formed a whole not likely to be often seen. There is no
smile that the writer can recall, like his; no manner so naturally
confiding and so cheerfully engaging. When the writer saw him for
the last time on earth, the smile and the manner shone out once
through the weakness, still: the bright unchanging Soul within the
altered face and form.

No man was ever held in higher respect by his friends, and yet his
intimate friends invariably addressed him and spoke of him by a pet
name. It may need, perhaps, the writer's memory and associations to
find in this a touching expression of his winning character, his
playful smile, and pleasant ways. "You know Mrs. Inchbald's story,
Nature and Art?" wrote Thomas Hood, once, in a letter: "What a fine
Edition of Nature and Art is Stanfield!"

Gone! And many and many a dear old day gone with him! But their
memories remain. And his memory will not soon fade out, for he has
set his mark upon the restless waters, and his fame will long be
sounded in the roar of the sea.