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As for me, the antipathy I had to the man sobered and silenced me for the rest of the night; and finding that Dartmore and his friend were eager for an introduction to some female friends of Thornton's, whom he mentioned in terms of high praise, I tore myself from them, and made the best of my way home. Illi mors gravis incubat Qui notus nimis omnibus Ignotus moritus sibi. Seneca.
Growing tired, at last, of silent waiting, I bethought me of advertising. A carefully written "Personal," in which Ignotus informed Ignota of the necessity of his communicating with her, appeared simultaneously in the "Tribune," "Herald," "World," and "Times."
I pipe but as the linnets do, And sing because I must. But why does he publish? If he were strictly logical, surely he would do as the artist in Browning's Pictor Ignotus, who so shrank from having his pictures come into contact with fools, that he painted upon hidden, moldering walls, thus renouncing all possibility of fame.
This is Browning's interest in art, the interest in a living thing, the interest in a growing thing, the insatiable interest in how things are done. Every one who knows his admirable poems on painting "Fra Lippo Lippi" and "Andrea del Sarto" and "Pictor Ignotus" will remember how fully they deal with technicalities, how they are concerned with canvas, with oil, with a mess of colours.
Did you ever see a school-boy tumble on the ice without stooping immediately to re-buckle the strap of his skates? And would not Ignotus have painted a masterpiece if he could have found good brushes and a proper canvas? Life's shortcomings would be bitter indeed if we could not find excuses for them outside of ourselves.
What makes his Character the pleasanter is, that he is a professed Deluder of Women; and because the empty Coxcomb has no Regard to any thing that is of it self Sacred and Inviolable, I have heard an unmarried Lady of Fortune say, It is pity so fine a Gentleman as Vocifer is so great an Atheist. I hardly have observed any one fill his several Duties of Life better than Ignotus.
But the profound peace that lies in this view is as precious to those who have acquired it as is the hope of heaven to the believer. In honest doubt, too, lies a saving power as well as in faith; and your Horseherd is on the path of this salvation. With great respect, Yours very faithfully, Ignotus Agnosticus.
Die, indeed! when one recalls the ideal characters he has invested with reality; how he has described love and joy, pain and sorrow, art and music; as poems like 'Childe Roland, 'Abt Vogler, 'Evelyn Hope, 'The Worst of It, 'Pictor Ignotus, 'The Lost Leader, 'Home Thoughts from Abroad, 'Old Pictures in Florence, 'Herve Riel, 'A Householder, 'Fears and Scruples, come tumbling into one's memory, one over another we are tempted to employ the language of hyperbole, and to answer the question 'Will Browning die? by exclaiming, 'Yes; when Niagara stops. In him indeed we can
There was much more, intimate enough to inspire me with a keen interest in the writer, yet not sufficiently so to make my perusal a painful indiscretion. I yielded to the impulse of the moment, took out my pencil, and wrote a dozen lines on one of the blank pages. They ran something in this wise: "IGNOTUS IGNOTAE! You have bestowed without intending it, and I have taken without your knowledge.
For they are the first, that find their own griefs, though they be the last, that find their own faults. Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their health, either of body or mind. Illi mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi.
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