Chapter 3 - Page 2

good listener, a painter in whose hall hung
a big picture, painted in his student days, of Ulysses sailing
home from the Phaeacian court, an orange and a skin of wine at his
side, blue mountains towering behind; but who lived by drawing
domestic scenes and lovers' meetings for a weekly magazine that
had an immense circulation among the imperfectly educated. To
escape the boredom of work, which he never turned to but under
pressure of necessity, and usually late at night with the
publisher's messenger in the hall, he had half filled his studio
with mechanical toys of his own invention, and perpetually
increased their number. A model railway train at intervals puffed
its way along the walls, passing several railway stations and
signal boxes; and on the floor lay a camp with attacking and
defending soldiers and a fortification that blew up when the
attackers fired a pea through a certain window; while a large
model of a Thames barge hung from the ceiling. Opposite our house
lived an old artist who worked also for the illustrated papers for
a living, but painted landscapes for his pleasure, and of him I
remember nothing except that he had outlived ambition, was a good
listener, and that my father explained his gaunt appearance by his
descent from Pocahontas. If all these men were a little like
becalmed ships, there was certainly one man whose sails were full.
Three or four doors off, on our side of the road, lived a
decorative artist in all the naive confidence of popular ideals
and the public approval. He was our daily comedy. 'I myself and
Sir Frederick Leighton are the greatest decorative artists of the
age,' was among his sayings, & a great lych-gate, bought from some
country church-yard, reared its thatched roof, meant to shelter
bearers and coffin, above the entrance to his front garden, to
show that he at any rate knew nothing of discouragement. In this
fairly numerous company--there were others though no other face
rises before me--my father and York Powell found listeners for a
conversation that had no special loyalties, or antagonisms; while
I could only talk upon set topics, being in the heat of my youth,
and the topics that filled me with excitement were never spoken
of.