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Your brother's, the Count de Chalusse." Now M. Wilkie's visit, manner, assurance, wheedling, and contradictions were all explained. That maternal confidence which is so strong in the hearts of mothers vanished from Madame d'Argeles's for ever. The depths of selfishness and cunning she discerned in Wilkie's mind appalled her.
First, he knows the best places for a meeting; then he lends the combatants weapons when they have none; he procures a physician; and he is on excellent terms with the journalists, who publish reports of these encounters." The viscount had never had a very exalted opinion of Wilkie's intelligence, but now he was amazed to see how greatly he had overestimated it.
It would have been easier to draw water from a solid rock than to, extract a sympathetic tear from Wilkie's eyes. He was only alive to the practical side of this narrative, and what impressed him most was the impudent assurance of Madame d'Argeles's business associates. "Not a bad idea; not bad at all," he exclaimed.
He could concoct some story for Wilkie's benefit, and that would be the end of it. But on the other hand, there was the prospect of netting at least five hundred thousand francs a fortune a competency, and the idea was too tempting to be relinquished.
In every case I had the great advantage of being thus accompanied by gentlemen who were friendly and familiar with the poor we visited. This was a great facility to me. Wilkie's Court is a little cul de sac, with about half-a-dozen wretched cottages in it, fronted by a dead wall. The inhabitants of the place are all Irish.
Epic poems, which any skilful and dispassionate critic would at a glance have perceived to be almost entirely modern, and which, if they had been published as modern, would have instantly found their proper place in company with Blackmore's Alfred and Wilkie's Epigoniad, were pronounced to be fifteen hundred years old, and were gravely classed with the Iliad.
In the morning I had been reading Glover's "Leonidas," Wilkie's "Epigoniad," Lamartine's "Pilgrimage," Barlow's "Columbiad," Tuckermann's "Sicily," and Griswold's "Curiosities"; I am willing to confess, therefore, that I now felt a little stupid. I made effort to arouse myself by aid of frequent Lafitte, and, all failing, I betook myself to a stray newspaper in despair.
Reflecting on the manner in which M. Wilkie and the Viscount de Coralth had behaved during the evening, a singular suspicion assailed him. While M. Wilkie gradually lost his wits, M. de Coralth had become remarkably cold and reserved. He had seemed to oppose all M. Wilkie's propositions; but he had agreed to them at last, so that his objections had produced much the same effect as a stimulant.
Haydon now began the picture of the 'Death of Siccius Dentatus' that his patron had suggested, but he found the difficulties so overwhelming that, by Wilkie's advice, he decided to go down to Plymouth for a few months, and practise portrait-painting.
'In moments of depression, wrote Haydon, many years later, 'I often wished I had followed Wilkie's advice, but then I should never have acquired that grand and isolated reputation, solitary and unsupported, which, while it encumbers the individual, inspires him with vigour proportioned to the load.
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