Memoirs of the Life of William Collins Esq, Ra by Wilkie Collins - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) (eBook)

Wilkie Collins (Autor)

Wilkie Collins (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
314 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-1-78877-099-6 (ISBN)

Infos

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Textauszug

CHAPTER I. 1816-1820.

Sojourn at Hastings in the autumn of 1816 — Letters to Mrs. Collins, Mr. F. Collins, and Sir Thomas Heathcote — Domestic and professional life in London — Sir David Wilkie and Mr. F. Collins — Mr. Leslie, R.A. — Anecdotes of the painter’s dog “Prinny” — Pictures of 1817 — Mr. Gary’s criticism on the sea-piece called “Sunrise” — Effect of the new coast scenes on the public — Journey to Paris with the late Washington Allston, A.R.A., and Mr. Leslie, R.A. — Journal of 1817 — Recurrence of pecuniary difficulties second application to, and timely loan from, Sir Thomas Heathcote — Pictures of 1818 — Sea-piece purchased by the Prince Regent Sir George Beaumont Lord Liverpool — Increase of employment — Visit to the Duke of Newcastle’s country seat, Clumber Park — Visit to Sir George Beaumont, at the Cumberland Lakes — Anecdote of Southey Tour to Edinburgh with Sir Francis and Lady Chantrey — The late Mr. Marshall, of Leeds — Remarks — Sketches — Letter to Lady Beaumont — Notice of, and letters to and from Washington Allston, and S. T. Coleridge — Commission from Sir J. F. Leicester, bart. — Correspondence with that gentleman — Description of the picture painted for him — Pictures of 1819 — Extracts from Journal — Tour to Devonshire — Letters to Mrs. Collins — Elected Royal Academician in 1820.

HAD Hastings in 1816, been what Hastings is in 1848, the fashionable loiterers who now throng that once unassuming little “watering-place,” would have felt no small astonishment when they set their listless feet on the beach, yawned at the library window, or cantered drowsily along the sea-ward rides, in beholding, at all hours, from earliest morning to latest evening, and in all places, from the deck of the fishing boat, to the base of the cliff, the same solitary figure, laden, day after day, with the same sketching materials, and drawing object after object, through all difficulties and disappointments, with the same deep abstraction and the same unwearied industry. Such a sight would have moved their curiosity, perhaps excited their interest, could they have known the object with which those sketches were made, or have foreboded the pleasure and instruction which, in their after combination they were so shortly to convey.

But, in those days, the visitors to Hastings were comparatively few, and the streets of the little watering-place had not yet expanded into splendid terraces, or spacious drives. Saving in the presence of a few local idlers, my father remained undisturbed by spectators, and unapplauded by friends. Conscious of the responsibility that now weighed upon him, of the serious chances that awaited the result of his new studies, he practised the most rigid economy, and laboured with the most unfailing care. The character, dress, implements, and employments of the fisherman, every peculiarity in the expression of his weather-beaten countenance, in the “fit” of his huge leathern boots, in the “rig” of his stout boat, was as faithfully transcribed by the hand, as his manners, feelings and pleasures were watched by the mind of the observant painter. Nor were the features of the sea-landscape forgotten in their turn. They were studied under all their characteristics, — in the glow of the morning sunshine, and the gloom of the evening shower. The cliffs were copied in their distant grace, and in their foreground grandeur; the beach was portrayed now as it shone, dry and brilliant, in the midday sun; now as it glistened, watery and transparent, from the moisture of the retiring wave. The ocean was transcribed in its calm, as the clouds breathed their shadows over its cool surface, and caught in its momentary action, as it dashed upon the beach, or rocked the fishing-boat on its distant waters: and the sky, in the variableness of its moods, in its fleeting and magical arrangement of clouds, in its spacious form and fathomless atmosphere, more difficult of pictorial expression than all the rest, was yet, like the rest, studied and mirrored on the faithful paper which was soon to be the rich storehouse of the artist’s future wants. Studies such as these, interrupted only by the intervals of his scanty and simple meals and his needful rest in his humble lodging, he persevered in for six weeks, nursing his aspirations secretly in his own mind, and building his hopes where he found his pleasures, in the aspect of Nature and the capabilities of Art.

The subjoined are, unhappily, the only letters written by him during his sojourn at Hastings. His correspondence will, throughout his biography, be found to be in quantity the reverse of what it is in quality. Cheerful, graphic, and unconstrained as are most of his letters as compositions, they were all written with great labour and hesitation, from the nervous fastidiousness about the commonest words and expressions which invariably possessed him whenever he took up the pen, and which made epistolary employment so much a task and so little a pleasure to him, that he avoided it on all ordinary occasions with undisguised alacrity and delight.

 

“To MRS. COLLINS.

“Hastings, 1816.

“Dear Mother, — The inconvenience occasioned by my folly in not taking your advice with respect to the boxes, namely, to send them by a porter before seven, is not worth paper, any further than as it may serve as a lesson. However, I give myself credit for starting when I did; for, although I ran almost all the way, the coach was coming out of the inn-yard when I reached it. But the impossibility of remedying an evil is its best cure, and the fineness of the day, and the beauty of the road removed all unpleasant notions. A person who sat on the coach with me, and who I expected was no joker, after about an hour’s ride, turned out exactly the reverse, and more than this, an acquaintance — Mr. Collard, who has enabled me to look smart, by lending me a cravat, marked, too, with his initials, ‘W. C.’ I have a thousand other little things to say, but as I am under the necessity of writing by daylight, my mind is on the beach, and my only inducement to attempt this employment at such an hour is in the hope that you may receive my letter a day earlier than writing by candlelight would admit of.

“The packages came safe last night, and I am very comfortably situated in lodgings, (which are had with difficulty, poor, dear things) as under. — Frank’s handwriting is much improved, and negligently neat.

“Your affectionate son,

“WILLIAM COLLINS. “At Mrs. Nash’s, All Saints’-street, Hastings.”

The following letter to his brother, not only illustrates the painter’s constant anxiety for the welfare and pleasure of others, but exhibits some amusing and creditable details of his conscientious principles of economy under the straitened circumstances that now oppressed his household:

 

“To MR. F. COLLINS.

“Hastings, 1816.

“Dear Frank, — Your letter, with two halves of five-pound notes, came safely. My plan of coasting home I had entirely abandoned, before I received your opinion on that head. I now purpose quitting this place by the Wednesday’s coach, should nothing arise to prevent it. Now, as London is so dull, and if there should be every prospect of a fine day on Monday, (there is no Sunday coach,) you might come down and return with me, if mother thought proper.

You would then have one clear day to dip in the sea, and stock yourself with some entirely new ideas. The whole amount of the expense would be the coach, provided you put two biscuits in your pocket, which would answer as a lunch; and I would have dinner for you, which would not increase my expenditure above tenpence. You could sleep with me, but as my lodging is out on Wednesday, it would be encroaching on a new week to stay any longer than Wednesday morning. I shall be at the place where the coach stops for you, should you be able to come. Write me nothing about it unless you have other business, for a letter costs a dinner. * *

“Now, observe, I shall be most dreadfully hurt and mortified if, during your absence, mother does not get Mrs. Langdon to sleep in the house with her. You are to consider, yourself, whether, under all the circumstances, the journey is practicable. The expense will be about twenty-five shillings altogether. This we can save in five-and-twenty other ways; and if everything at home can be made comfortable to mother, I think it will be of service to your head. Will the journey be too much for you? — sixty miles down, and, to the best of my knowledge, the same up again.

“I came here to make sketches and not acquaintances. I have had no heavy time on my hands; a man should be able to bear his own company. * * I spend my time more satisfactorily than I usually do; live at a fisherman’s house; lodging, twenty-five shillings a week, (nothing to be had cheaper;) but as his wife cooks for me, and as I live upon fish and tea, (and live well, too, — sometimes to be sure with a chop,) I have something to spare for models, which I frequently make use of. * * *

“Don’t trouble yourself about the exact tint of the painting-room wall. I shall cover it with sketches.

“Your affectionate brother,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

At the beginning of October the painter returned to...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.7.2017
• Reihe/Serie: Delphi Parts Edition (Wilkie Collins)
• Reihe/Serie: Delphi Parts Edition (Wilkie Collins)
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Anthologien
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Armadale • Dickens • Hide • leaves • Moonstone • Name • Stories • Woman
• ISBN-10: 1-78877-099-4 / 1788770994
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78877-099-6 / 9781788770996