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.