With a very few little pen‑strokes he could give the most marvellously subtle likenesses of people he knew—beautiful or ordinary or plain or hideous; and the beauty of the beautiful people, just hinted in mere outline, was so keen and true and fascinating that this extraordinary power of expressing it amounted to real genius.
It is a difficult thing, even for a master, to fully render with an ordinary steel pen and a drop of common ink (and of a size no bigger than your little finger nail) the full face of a beautiful woman, let us say; or a child, in sadness or merriment or thoughtful contemplation; and make it as easily and unmistakably recognizable as a good photograph, but with all the subtle human charm and individuality of expression delicately emphasized in a way that no photograph has ever achieved yet.
And this he could always do in a minute from sheer memory and unconscious observation; and in another few minutes he would add on the body, in movement or repose, and of a resemblance so wonderful and a grace so enchanting, or a humor so happily, naïvely droll, that one forgot to criticise the technique, which was quite that of an amateur; indeed, with all the success he achieved as an artist, he remained an amateur all his life. Yet his greatest admirers were among the most consummate and finished artists of their day, both here and abroad.
It was with his art as with his singing: both were all wrong, yet both gave extraordinary pleasure; one almost feared that regular training would mar the gift of God, so much of the charm we all so keenly felt lay in the very imperfections themselves—just as one loved him personally as much for his faults as for his virtues.
"Il a les qualités de ses défauts, le beau Josselin," said M. Taine one day.
"Mon cher," said M. Renan, "ses défauts sont ses meilleures qualités."
So he spent a tranquil happy winter, and wrote of his happiness and his tranquillity to Lady Caroline and Daphne and Ida and me; and before he knew where he was, or we, the almond‑trees blossomed again, and then the lilacs and limes and horse‑chestnuts and syringas; and the fireflies flew in and out of his bedroom at night, and the many nightingales made such music in the Hof gardens that he could scarcely sleep for them; and other nightingales came to make music for him too—most memorable music! Stockhausen, Jenny Ney, Joachim, Madame Schumann; for the triennial Musik festival was held in Düsseldorf that year (a month later than usual); and musical festivals are things they manage uncommonly well in Germany. Barty, unseen and unheard, as becomes a chorus‑singer, sang in the choruses of Gluck's Iphigenia, and heard and saw everything for nothing.
But, before this, Captain Reece came back to Riffrath, and, according to appointment, Admiral Royce and Lady Jane, and Julia, lovelier than ever; and all the sweetness she was so full of rose in her heart and gathered in her eyes as they once more looked on Barty Josselin.
He steeled and stiffened himself like a man who knew that the divine Julias of this world were for his betters—not for him! Nevertheless, as he went to bed, and thought of the melting gaze that had met his, he was deeply stirred; and actually, though the north was in him, he forgot, for the first time in all that twelvemonth, for the first time since that terrible night in Malines, to say his prayers to Martia—and next morning he found a letter by his bedside in pencil‑written blaze of his own handwriting: