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Lacking confidence in his own ability, he had declined the honour and suggested that Benjamin Haydon should be approached. At the request of a deputation of his fellow citizens, which had waited upon him, he had undertaken to enter into negotiations with Haydon. He even undertook to come up to London at his own expense, that he might see his old master and complete the bargain.
The people rushed by in their thousands to visit Tom Thumb, but few stopped to inspect 'Aristides' or 'Nero. 'They push, they fight, they scream, they faint, writes Haydon, 'they see my bills, my boards, my caravans, and don't read them. Their eyes are open, but their sense is shut. It is an insanity, a rabies, a madness, a furor, a dream.
Chatterton makes us lenient to a life of fraud by the dogged and cynical uncomplainingness of the despair that drove him to cut it short; but Haydon continues his self-autopsy to the last moment, and in pulling the trigger seems to be only firing the train for an explosion that shall give him a week longer of posthumous notoriety.
Before I left London, however, it had been said that things and opinions had changed, and, in short, that Haydon had abjured all acquaintance with, and had even ignored, such a person as the author of the sonnet to him, and those "On the Elgin Marbles."
Angerstein's taste and spirit in buying it; yet if God cut not my life permanently short, I hope I shall leave one behind me that will do more honour to my country than this has done to Rome. At this time Haydon devoted a good deal of his leisure to reading classic authors, Homer, AEschylus, and Virgil, in order to tune his mind to high thoughts.
His thin black figure straightened itself gallantly, and he wore the look of a younger man. Later that evening, when the guests were gone, after a most cheerful and hospitable occasion, and the company tea things were all put away, Maria was sitting in the kitchen for a few minutes to rest, and Mr. Haydon had taken his own old chair near the stove, and sat there tapping his finger-ends together.
Directly after Haydon's death a public meeting of his friends and patrons was held, at which a considerable sum was subscribed for the benefit of his widow and daughter. Sir Robert Peel, besides sending immediate help, recommended the Queen to bestow a small pension on Mrs. Haydon.
He did not go beyond the doorsteps, for something seemed to draw him back, so he lifted the clinking latch and stepped bravely into the kitchen again, and stood there a moment in the bright light. Maria Haydon turned toward him as she stood at the cupboard with a little lamp in her hand. "Why Mr. Haydon! what's the matter?" She looked startled at first, but her face began to shine.
An' me tryin' to jam some sense into his head." Grinning, Linton sauntered away, vanishing within the blacksmith-shop. He had hardly disappeared when Haydon appeared from around a corner of the ranchhouse, at about the instant Harlan, sensing the departure of Linton, came to the door, frowning.
Haydon, Lena's aunt, had two daughters who were just beginning as young ladies, and she had a little boy who was not honest and who was very hard to manage. Mrs. Haydon was a short, stout, hard built, german woman. She always hit the ground very firmly and compactly as she walked. Mrs.
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