For when that little song
Goes ringing in my head, I know that he,
My luckless lone forefather, dust so long,
Relives his life in me!
I sent them to ----'s Magazine, with the six French lines on at the
which they were founded at the top. ----'s _Magazine_ published only the
six French lines--the only lines in my handwriting that ever got into
print. And they date from the fifteenth century!
Thus was my little song lost to the world, and for a time to me. But
long, long afterwards, I found it again, where Mr. Longfellow once found
a song of _his_: "in the heart of a friend"--surely the sweetest bourne
that can ever be for any song!
Little did I foresee that a day was not far off when real blood
remembrance would carry me--but that is to come.
* * * * *
Poetry, friendship and love having failed, I sought for consolation in
art, and frequented the National Gallery, Marlborough House (where the
Vernon collection was), the British Museum, the Royal Academy, and other
exhibitions.
I prostrated myself before Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Veronese, Da
Vinci, Botticelli, Signorelli--the older the better; and tried my best
to honestly feel the greatness I knew and know to be there; but for
want of proper training I was unable to reach those heights, and, like
most outsiders, admired them for the wrong things, for the very beauties
they lack--such transcendent, ineffable beauties of feature, form, and
expression as an outsider always looks for in an old master, and often
persuades himself he finds there--and oftener still, _pretends_ he does!
I was far more sincerely moved (although I did not dare to say so) by
some works of our own time--for instance, by the "Vale of Rest," the
"Autumn Leaves," "The Huguenot" of young Mr.
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