"You will excuse me," he says, "talking of myself when I tell you that amongst the resolutions for the New Year was one only to talk of matters about which there was a reasonable probability that I knew something. Now human beings are a mystery to me, and taking them all round I think we may consider them a failure. If I do not understand anything that belongs to myself, how can I understand what belongeth to another? This, my dear W., with your clear intellect, you will see is sound.
"I often think of the scenes and faces and jokes of banking days, and have amongst them many pleasant reminiscences. Perhaps we shall all meet again in that land which lies round the corner!"
[Here follows a grotesque sketch of a man on a winter's day, with an umbrella, hurrying off to the "Nag and Nosebag.">[
At the beginning of 1875, in the intervals of book illustration, Caldecott was busy "working on a cartoon of storks." This was a design for a picture in oils, painted in March and afterwards bought by Mr. F. Pennington, late M. P. for Stockport.
Sunrise.
On the 7th of January he enters in his diary, "Painted some storks on the wing for a panel for a wardrobe." The rendering of dawn on the upmost clouds, the storks rising from the dark earth to greet the sun, can hardly be indicated without colour, but the design is given accurately. It was a poetic fancy which he had had in his mind for some time; one of many half developed designs which, if his health had permitted, the world might have seen more of.