Plate LV
"THE VILLA D'ESTE"
Facsimile of an Original Design for "Pictures from Italy" by
SAMUEL PALMER
Lent by Mr. A. H. Palmer.
Second Proof.
"(1.) Opposite are a few touches on the slender cypress—two very thin lines of light on the stem. Specks of light on the foliage.
"(2.) There is a thick black line on the block, thus ) which I have here crossed with specks of white; although it is in the body of the tree, it kills the fine work on the Villa.
"(3.) The thickness of outline on the light side of this vase unfinishes the foreground. I have altered it.
"(4.) The thick outline on this leaf unfinishes everything about it."
Thus we discover how fastidious to a degree was the artist in his desire that every subtle touch of his poetic pencil should be reproduced—a result which, as he quickly perceived, it was impossible to achieve.
Samuel Palmer took a still keener delight in Literature than he did in Art. An insatiable but punctilious reader, the novels of Dickens and Scott were among the very few works of fiction which he read aloud to members of his own household. Mr. A. H. Palmer informs me that he has known his father to be so engrossed by reading aloud one of Dickens's finer and more exciting passages, that the announcement and entry of a visitor served to stop the reading only for a few moments; the crisis past, he laid down the book and apologised. Literature, indeed, constituted the chief pleasure of his simple life—a life that, at one period at least, would have been almost insupportable without the consolation afforded by books. Early in May, 1881, he became, alas! too ill to work, and on the twenty-fourth of that month he passed peacefully away, leaving behind him a reputation which is blameless.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Palmer was elected a Member of this Society in 1854.
[44] "Etching and Etchers," 3rd edition, 1880.