Another blow fell upon Turner this year. The Mr. Hammersley aforementioned visited him again in Queen Anne Street, and gives the following account:—
'Our proceedings resembled our proceedings on the former visit, distinguished from it, however, by the exceeding taciturnity, yet restlessness of my great companion, who walked about and occasionally clutched a letter which he held in his hand. I feared to break the dead silence, varied only by the slippered scrape of Turner's feet, as he paced from end to end of the dim and dusty apartment. At last he stood abruptly, and turning to me, said, "Mr. Hammersley, you must excuse me, I cannot stay another moment; the letter I hold in my hand has just been given to me, and it announces the death of my friend Callcott." He said no more; I saw his fine gray eyes fill as he vanished, and I left at once.'
The loss of friends set his mind dwelling upon the past, and it was no doubt in gratitude to all he owed to Ruysdael that he painted and exhibited this year the vivacious sea-piece now in the National Gallery, which he called 'Fishing-Boats Bringing a Disabled Ship into Port Ruysdael.' Needless to say, there is no such port anywhere. He also exhibited the beautiful Approach to Venice' in the possession of Sir Charles Tennant; and—the old man twice tried to cross the Alps on foot, referred to in the above letter, which is almost as wonderful as painting a picture. It would seem that he really succeeded in the enterprise if 'passed' means 'crossed,' as in the 'Grindelwald' Sketch-Book, against a drawing of mountains, is the following scrawl:—
'No matter what bef [? befell] Hannibel—W.B. and J.M.W.T. passed the Alps from [? near] Fombey [?] Sep. 3, 1844.'
[CHAPTER LI]
1845: AGED SEVENTY
PICTURES OF WHALERS, AND AN ENTRY ON THE LAST PAGE OF HIS LAST SKETCH-BOOK
Now, when he is nearing his decline, Turner is described as stooping very much, and looking down. Thinking of Turner 'looking down,' I recall the story that came to Sir Walter Armstrong from Mr. Stopford Brooke: how some one who knew Turner, at least by sight, was one day passing along the wharves beyond the Palace of Westminster, when he noticed the figure of a sturdy man in black squatting on his heels at the river's edge, and looking down intently into the water. Passing on, he thought for the moment no more about it. But on his return, half an hour later, the figure was still there, and still intent in the same way. That watcher was Turner, and the object of his interest was the pattern made by the ripples at the edge of the tide.