Added to this, his painting proceeded slowly. "Inspiration," wait for it as he would, seemed unwilling to descend upon him. Then there were so many days lost: sometimes the weather was foggy, and that prevented him; sometimes it was fine, and tempted him to exercise; sometimes he had visits to pay; sometimes men "looked in" upon him at his rooms. One way or another, the week slipped from him without leaving behind it any record of labour.
Besides—and this perhaps was one great cause of his idleness, giving strength to the other influences—he grew less satisfied with his picture the nearer it approached its termination. Cecil was a man whose designs were always finer than his productions, his sketches gave a promise which his execution never realized. In this little trait we may see the whole man. It might serve as a description of his character. With a certain freshness, delicacy, and even grandeur in his conceptions, he wanted strength, energy, and mastery, to endow them with vitality. Who can wonder that he raved about "genius," and scorned the "mechanical labour" of mere technical execution?
When he contemplated his productions, he grew impatient at their inadequacy to represent his conceptions, and he threw the blame on everything but on his own indolence and caprice. That broad line which separates intention from execution—which makes the thought a thing—which distinguishes the artist from other men, by creating in art what other men only create in visions—that broad line Cecil wilfully overlooked. He saw that he had failed, and did not choose to see wherein lay his failure. He despised the "drudgery" which was indispensable to success. Disgusted with his failure, he lost all courage, and scarcely ever handled a pencil.
"When will your picture be finished, Mr. Chamberlayne?" asked Mrs. Merryweather, one morning at breakfast.
"Indeed, I cannot say," he replied; "works of that magnitude require long consideration. I could have produced it long ago, had I been disposed; but I'm in no hurry."
"Do you know Mr. Bostock's paintings?"
Cecil replied that he did not.
"Oh, he's a beautiful painter, that he is! Does peaches and mackerel so that you wouldn't know them from real. His pictures give one an appetite—that they do. I remember once—it was very curious—Mrs. Henley, a relation of mine who lives at Southampton—her husband was in the customs—good situation, as I have heard—and a strange creature he was, with the queerest nose you ever saw, and eyes just like a lobster's, one was always alarmed lest they should tumble into his waistcoat pocket! Well, he married my relation, Mrs. Henley, one of the best creatures! She often comes up to town, and I should so like you to be acquainted with her, you'll be quite pleased with her! So, as I was saying, she came up to town once, to manage a little business, and enjoy herself at the same time. Well, one day she called upon us. Merryweather—my poor Merryweather was then alive: who wouldn't have thought him good for another thirty years at least! He proposed to take us both to the Exhibition; so we went. It was a very hot day, I remember; intensely hot. Poor Merryweather was in a bath all the time. And as he stood in the octagon room, his hat in his hand, wiping the perspiration from his face—which was a sight of itself to see!—complaining of heat, I suddenly spied one of Mr. Bostock's pretty pictures—oh, it was a love! you can't fancy what a bunch of grapes straddled across a few peaches surrounded with egg plums! 'Lor,' says poor Merryweather, 'do look at that; isn't it refreshing.' And we all declared it was; and so it was."
Cecil, as usual, made a precipitate retreat at the conclusion of this biographical anecdote, and Blanche soon followed him.
"By George!" he said, puffing a huge column of smoke from his mouth, "that woman is insupportable. I really must quit this hole; at least if that toad squats in it."