My friends naturally became the visitors of my family. Certain of

the late Mrs. Clifford's friends were also ours. Our circle was

sufficiently large for those who already knew how to distinguish

between the safe pleasures of a small set, and the horse-play and

heartless enjoyments of fashionable jams. Were we permitted in this

world to live only for ourselves, we should have been perfectly

gratified had this been even less. We should have been very well

content to have gone on from day to day without ever beholding the

shadow of a stranger upon our threshold.

This was not permitted, however. We had a round of congratulatory

visits. Among those who came, the first were the old, long-tried

friends to whom I owed so much--the Edgertons. No family could

have been more truly amiable than this; and William Edgerton was the

most amiable of the family. I have already said enough to persuade

the reader that he was a very worthy man. He was more. He was

a principled one. Not very highly endowed, perhaps, he was yet an

intelligent gentleman. None could be more modest in expression--none

less obtrusive in deportment--none more generous in service. The

defects in his character were organic--not moral. He had no vices--no

vulgarities. But his temperament was an inactive one. He was apt to

be sluggish, and when excited was nervous. He was not irritable,

but easily discomposed. His tastes were active at the expense of

his genius. With ability, he was yet unperforming. His standards

were morbidly fastidious. Fearing to fall below them, he desisted

until the moment of action was passed for ever; and the feeling of

his own weakness, in this respect, made him often sad, but to do

him justice, never querulous.

With a person so constituted, the delicate tastes and sensibilities

are like to be indulged in a very high degree. William Edgerton

loved music and all the quiet arts. Painting was his particular

delight. He himself sketched with great spirit. He had the happy

eye for the tout ensemble in a fine landscape. He knew exactly

how much to take in and what to leave out, in the delineation of a

lovely scene. This is a happy talent for discrimination which the

ordinary artist does not possess. It is the capacity which, in

the case of orators and poets, informs them of the precise moment

when they should stop. It is the happiest sort of judgment, since,

though the artist may be neither very excellent in drawing, nor

very felicitous in color, it enables him always to bestow a certain

propriety on his picture which compensates, to a certain degree,

for inferiority in other respects. To know how to grasp objects

with spirit, and bestow them with a due regard to mutual dependence,

is one of the most exquisite faculties of the landscape-painter.




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