if thou shouldst persist and wrestle, even as he has done, ’midst gloom and despondency—­ay, and even contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last effort before thou departest, the little stout man whose face is very dark, and whose eye is vivacious; that man has attained excellence, destined some day to be acknowledged, though not till he is cold, and his mortal part returned to its kindred clay.  He has painted, not pictures of the world, but English pictures, such as Gainsborough himself might have done; beautiful rural pieces, with trees which might well tempt the wild birds to perch upon them, thou needest not run to Rome, brother, where lives the old Mariolater, after pictures of the world, whilst at home there are pictures of England; nor needest thou even go to London, the big city, in search of a master, for thou hast one at home in the old East Anglian town who can instruct thee whilst thou needest instruction:  better stay at home, brother, at least for a season, and toil and strive ’midst groanings and despondency till thou hast attained excellence even as he has done—­the little dark man with the brown coat and the top-boots, whose name will one day be considered the chief ornament of the old town, and whose works will at no distant period rank amongst the proudest pictures of England—­and England against the world!—­thy master, my brother, thy, at present, all too little considered master—­Crome.

CHAPTER XXII

Desire for novelty—­Lives of the lawless—­Countenances—­Old yeoman and dame—­We live near the sea—­Uncouth-looking volume—­The other condition—­Draoitheac—­A dilemma—­The Antinomian—­Lodowick Muggleton—­Almost blind—­Anders Vedel.

But to proceed with my own story:  I now ceased all at once to take much pleasure in the pursuits which formerly interested me, I yawned over Ab Gwilym, even as I now in my mind’s eye perceive the reader yawning over the present pages.  What was the cause of this?  Constitutional lassitude, or a desire for novelty?  Both it is probable had some influence in the matter, but I rather think that the latter feeling was predominant.  The parting words of my brother had sunk into my mind.  He had talked of travelling in strange regions and seeing strange and wonderful objects, and my imagination fell to work, and drew pictures of adventures wild and fantastic, and I thought what a fine thing it must be to travel, and I wished that my father would give me his blessing, and the same sum that he had given my brother, and bid me go forth into the world; always forgetting that I had neither talents nor energies at this period which would enable me to make any successful figure on its stage.

And then I again sought up the book which had so captivated me in my infancy, and I read it through; and I sought up others of a similar character, and in seeking for them I met books also of adventure, but by no means of a harmless description, lives of wicked and lawless men, Murray and Latroon—­books of singular power, but of coarse and prurient imagination—­books at one time highly in vogue; now deservedly forgotten, and most difficult to be found.