Though time allowed of my deriving but little benefit from our invaluable intercourse, yet that little made a permanent impression on me, and left a precious memory to console me for the loss of his actual presence.
In the month of April 1841, Monsieur Ingres was succeeded by Monsieur Schnetz, a well-known painter, whose success and popularity were mostly earned by his qualities of feeling and expression. He was a kind and amiable man, full of mother-wit, very cheerful and cordial with the students. In spite of a pair of bushy black eyebrows, which lost themselves in a thick head of hair and almost concealed his forehead, Monsieur Schnetz's expression was gentle and good-humoured, and he was the essence of a thoroughly "good fellow."
My second and third years at the Academy were spent under his rule. He was very fond of Rome, and circumstances helped him to indulge his preference, for he was Director of the Academy of France three times, and left none but kindly memories behind him.
By rights my residence in Rome should have ended with the year 1841, but I could not make up my mind to depart, and obtained the Director's permission to prolong my stay. I remained at the Academy five months beyond the regulation period, and did not leave it until forced to move by the fact that the state of my finances only barely permitted my getting on to Vienna, where the money for the first six months of the third year of my scholarship was to be remitted to me.
I will not attempt to describe my grief at quitting the Academy, at parting with my beloved fellow-students, and leaving Rome itself, where I felt my affections were so deeply rooted. My comrades accompanied me as far as Ponte Molle (Pons Milvius), and after the most cordial of farewells, I climbed into the post-cart which was to tear me (there is no other word) from my two happy years in that land of promise.
I should have been less down-hearted had I been going straight home to my beloved mother and brother, but I was faring alone into a country of strangers, of whose very language I was utterly ignorant; no wonder the outlook was cheerless and dark to me. As long as I could see it from the road, I kept my eyes on the dome of St. Peter's—the crown of Rome and of the universe—then the hills hid it utterly. I fell into deepest musing, and wept like any child.
LETTERS
I
Monsieur Lefuel, Artist, Poste Restante,
Nice-maritime.
Rome, 21st June, Monday.
Dear Good Friend,—As it is much more natural and proper for a child to hasten to answer his father, than a father his child, I will begin by apologising for not having sooner acknowledged your last letter dated from Mantua. But it has been in spite of myself, I do assure you. I have had a great deal of writing to do lately, and it is not finished even yet. It is really quite a business (and something else as well) to have to thank people in writing for an interest they merely express through a third person, and which you cannot acknowledge in the same coin. However, I ought to be thankful, and I must not turn up my nose at the idea of bestirring myself a little. Otherwise people might say, "Well, it's easy enough to rid him of that trouble." Eh, dear boy? So I confide this to nobody but yourself and trusted friends like you.