M. Pelletier had been promoted from Vendôme to Lons-le-Saunier, and after spending a month of the vacation at our house with his wife and three children, now invited his host and family to go back with him for the remainder of the holidays. However, the boys only went, for their father was incapacitated for railway travelling, and the little girl May could not be persuaded to leave her parents, even to go with her cousins and her Aunt Caroline, whom she so much loved.
The nervous state into which my husband had been thrown back had produced a morbid sensitiveness to noise and to the sight of movement which isolated him more and more, even from his nearest friends, and during these last vacations he had seldom been able to take déjeuner with us. In consequence he had a little hut erected near the river, au buisson Vincent, whither he retired almost daily, and to which I took or sent him his lunch; there he read, wrote, or sketched, surrounded only by silent and motionless objects. This morbid sensitiveness decreased with the light of day, and when the sun had set we generally joined him to admire the beauty of the after-glow fading slowly into twilight in the summer evenings. He always dined with us all, and after dinner he either listened to music, of which he was very fond, or even played a little himself on the violin, or walked out in company. We made quite a little procession on the road now,—six children romping about, my sister and her husband, my mother and my brother Charles, the master of the house and myself; and since it had transpired that my husband was not so well, some of his friends at Autun or in the neighborhood came as often as they could to make him feel less out of the world. He has said himself: "The intellectual life is sometimes a fearfully solitary one. Unless he lives in a great capital the man devoted to that life is more than other men liable to suffer from isolation, to feel utterly alone beneath the deafness of space and the silence of the stars. Give him one friend who can understand him, who will not leave him, who will always be accessible by day and night,—one friend, one kindly listener, just one,—and the whole universe is changed." In his case the friendly and intelligent intercourse kept up with his wife's relatives alleviated in a great measure the sense of isolation.
The life in the hut, together with the botanical studies and the formation of the herbarium, suggested the plan of the "Sylvan Year," and thereby lent additional interest to these pursuits, though at that time his main work was the prosecution of "The Intellectual Life," now that he had finished the correction of the handbook on etching. [Footnote: Contributed to the "Portfolio," and afterwards published separately.] This last work brought him many pleasant letters from brother artists, but I shall only quote what Mr. Samuel Palmer said about it, because it was his praise, and that of Mr. Seymour Haden, which gave the author the greatest satisfaction, coming from authorities on the subject.
"REDHILL. January, 1872.
"DEAR MR. HAMERTON,—Had I thanked you earlier for your 'handbook,' which came long ago, I could not have thanked you so much: for it is the test of good books, as of good pictures, that they improve with acquaintance. I had a little 'Milton' bound with brass corners, that I might carry it always in my waistcoat-pocket—after doing this for twenty years it was all the fresher for its portage. Your invention of the positive process is equally useful and elegant; useful because the reverse method lessens the pleasure of work, elegant because the materials are delicate and the process cleanly and expeditious."
In this letter Mr. Palmer expressed his desire to publish a translation of Virgil's "Eclogues" in verse, and asked for his correspondent's advice about it. Another source of satisfaction to Gilbert was the increasing success of his works in America. In January, 1872, he had a letter from Roberts Brothers, in which they said:—
"We have mailed you a copy of 'The Unknown River.' It has proved a success, and has been generally admired. It is a charming book, and we should like to bring out a popular edition. 'Thoughts about Art' is selling better than we expected—it has given a start to the 'Painter's Camp,' which we are now printing a second edition of.
"We think you are getting to be well known and appreciated in this country."
Enclosed in the letter was a remittance for £49 8_s_., which proves that an author has need of a good many successes to pay his way; still, these remittances from America made a difference in Mr. Hamerton's circumstances, and were exclusively devoted to the education of his boys. Though unambitious, he was not indifferent to the increase in his reputation, for he had written in "The Intellectual Life," "Fame is dearer to the human heart than wealth itself." He certainly cared infinitely and incomparably more for his reputation—such as he wished it to be, pure, dignified, and honored—than for wealth; his only desire about money, often expressed, was "not to have to think about it."