happy years of his youth had been spent. When sitters came to Clive -
as at first they did in some numbers, many of his early friends being anxious to
do him a service - the old gentleman was extraordinarily cheered and comforted.
We could see by his face that affairs were going on well at the studio. He
showed us the rooms which Rosey and the boy were to occupy. He prattled to our
children and their mother, who was never tired of hearing him, about his
grandson. He filled up the future nursery with a hundred little knicknacks of
his own contriving, and with wonderful cheap bargains which he bought in his
walks about Tottenham Court Road. He pasted a most elaborate book of prints and
sketches for Boy. It was astonishing what notice Boy already took of pictures.
He would have all the genius of his father. Would he had had a better
grandfather than the foolish old man, who had ruined all belonging to him!
    However much they like each other, men in the London world see their friends
but seldom. The place is so vast that even next door is distant; the calls of
business, society, pleasure, so multifarious that mere friendship can get or
give but an occasional shake of the hand in the hurried moments of passage. Men
must live their lives, and are perforce selfish, but not unfriendly. At a great
need you know where to look for your friend, and he that he is secure of you. So
I went very little to Howland Street, where Clive now lived; very seldom to Lamb
Court, where my dear old friend Warrington still sate in his old chambers,
though our meetings were none the less cordial when they occurred, and our trust
in one another always the same. Some folks say the world is heartless; he who
says so either prates commonplaces (the most likely and charitable suggestion)
or is heartless himself, or is most singular and unfortunate in having made no
friends. Many such a reasonable mortal cannot have - our nature, I think, not
sufficing for that sort of polygamy. How many persons would you have to deplore
your death? or whose death would you wish to deplore? Could our hearts let in
such a harem of dear friendships, the mere changes and recurrences of grief and
mourning would be intolerable, and tax our lives beyond their value. In a word,
we carry our own burden in the world; push and struggle along on our own
affairs; are pinched by our own shoes - though Heaven forbid we should not stop
and forget ourselves sometimes, when a friend cries out in