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A girl stood there, dressed as a Watteau shepherdess. She seemed absolutely dazed and frightened, a pretty and pathetic little figure in her great golden wig. "Go back," Field yelled. "You'll have that blazing scenery on top of you. Why don't you go back to the stage door?" The actress turned at last and shook her head. Tears were rolling down her face. "I can't," she said. "The fire is too great.
Judge of my surprise, and I must confess, dismay, when I saw the two little Doney children, in Watteau costumes, looking just like bits of porcelain painting, coming down the center towards me, one bearing a large birthday cake and the other a bouquet of flowers. The beautiful little creatures dropped on their knees at my feet and presented their offerings.
The riddle is solved by Mauclaìr: These flights into the azure, these evocations of a country west of the sun and east of the moon, these graceful creatures of Watteau, the rich brocade of Chopin's harmonies, the exquisite pictures of Keats, the youthful joy in far-away countries of Stevenson, all, all are so many stigmata of their terrible affliction.
"I have already asked you not to purse up your mouth so, Mademoiselle Reine; it gives you a Watteau air radically bourgeois." "What sort of air does it give me?" she asked, anxiously. "A Watteau, Regence, Pompadour air. You have a large mouth, and we will leave it natural, if you please." "I have a large mouth!" exclaimed Reine, blushing with anger; "how polite you are!"
In their work we see a world where the saddening influences of profound thought and its expression are far away. No deeper notes are allowed to mar the gaiety of this holiday world. Watteau created a dream country of his own, in which a tired humanity has delighted ever since, in which all serious thoughts are far away and the mind takes refreshment in the contemplation of delightful things.
And how he had called in at Jobson's, and seen a Boucher sold, which he had just missed buying of Talleyrand and Sons in Pall Mall. He had an admiration for Boucher, Watteau, and all that school.
He refurnished a certain number of rooms at Castle Luton, and made a special marvel of his own room, which was hung thick with Boucher, Greuze, and Watteau engravings, littered with miniatures and trinkets, and encumbered here and there with portfolios of drawings which he was not anxious to unlock in his mother's presence.
And as the contents of the will were now generally known, every one agreed that the woman was a fool to give up wealth for a dull existence in the woods. "All the same it's very sweet," sighed Mrs. Belgrove, having made as much mischief as she possibly could. "I should like it myself if I could only dress as a Watteau shepherdess, you know, and carry a lamb with a blue ribbon round its dear neck."
"A Watteau plait down the back isn't it a Watteau plait? and little ruffles down the front, and pale pink bows. It is quite like some of Miss Octavia Bassett's dresses, only not so over-trimmed." "I do not think Octavia's dresses would seem over-trimmed if she wore them in London or Paris," said Lucia bravely.
The four little allegorical pieces in the National Gallery, The Four Ages of Man, are more lively if less romantic, being composed more for the characters illustrating the subject than for poetical setting. JEAN BAPTISE JOSEPH PATER was actually a pupil of Watteau. He was ten years his junior, but was equally unhappy on account of his health, and died at forty.
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