Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2090 page)

“As near as I can remember, we remained at Cromer about two months. He was indefatigable in his pursuits while there; but I have no recollection of his having sketched any figures. His attention appeared to be directed to the beach and cliffs, almost exclusively.”

The painter’s own studies and impressions in Norfolk, are glanced at in the following letters to his mother and brother:

“To MRS. COLLINS AND MR. F. COLLINS.

“Norwich, 1815.

“My dear Mother and Frank, — My reason for sending the last by mail was, that I began my letter too late for the post, and made a parcel of it, thinking it better to send it by that conveyance than keep it from you another day. * * * When you send the parcel, (I stand in great need of the shoes) I wish you to put as a base, two, or three, or four, (or more,) smooth, small panels. I wish to make some studies more finished than I choose to do on millboard. I do not wish them large. * * * I wish you would write often, telling me how you keep your health, — how you like the house, — whether you have found any defects, or ‘unpleasantries,’ in or out of it: how rich, or how poor, how the situation suits our profession, — and a thousand ‘hows,’ that would like me well at this distance from you. From the day you receive this, and as far back as you recollect, keep a diary of the weather to compare with one I intend to make.
We
have had much gloomy weather, and, except eating, drinking, and visiting, I have not done much. However, as I find much to admire, I shall exert myself to bring some of it home.

“With regard to the comfort and pleasantness of my situation in the family I am staying with, I cannot hope to give you an adequate idea of it on paper, — at least on so small a quantity as I find I have left. Suffice it to say, that Mr. Stark, his wife, and sons are so much to my liking, that I feel as if I had been connected with them by some closer tie than the one that at present exists. He is a fine, open-hearted, clear-headed, generous Scot; his wife, born in Norfolk, is in heart, a complete second to him. I cannot tell you how much, and how frequently, they talk of you both, and wish you here. Mrs. Stark has formed a decided friendship for my mother. I hope this is one reason for my fondness for the family; and about ‘his ain kinswoman,’ old Jamie Stark is continually ‘ speering.’ I have also seen the daughter, who appears to be made of the same material as the rest of the family.

“I have met at this house, and at others in this neighbourhood, some of the most acute and learned men, from whom I have learnt enough to convince me that intelligent men are of more service to each other in a provincial place than in London. The sharpness of the air, or some other quality of this place, certainly tends to give a smartness to the people, surpassing the inhabitants of any locality I ever was in before. This, however, induces more equality, or attempts at it, in the common people, than is strictly consonant with my feelings.

“I will, in conclusion, put it to both your honours, whether or not I deserve a long letter for all this information. I am quite comfortable: how long may I stay? — send for me, if you want me,

“Most affectionately yours,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

“To MRS. COLLINS.

“Cromer, September 18th, 1815.

“My dear Mother, — On this my birthday, I know not how I can be better employed than in writing to you. My reasons for not having done so before were, that I hoped to have had a letter from Mr. H — - , (which has not been the case) and, more particularly, because I had not made up my mind as to the time of quitting Norfolk. My plan, at present, is to leave this place for Norwich on Saturday next; to visit some places which I have not yet seen in that neighbourhood; and, in about a fortnight, to have the pleasure of presenting myself to you in London. I have made some sketches of sea-shore scenery, etc.; but, although I have opened the door of every cottage in the place, I have not yet seen an interior good enough for Mrs. Hand’s picture. But I hope, and indeed from the description received of it, feel no doubt that, at a place called Arminghall, I shall get the thing itself.

“Tell Frank, that, although I have no (what is termed) certainty of becoming rich, in the world, yet I never lose hope; and that it is my decided opinion, that if the Almighty was to give us every thing for which we should feel desirous, we should as often find it as necessary to pray to him to take away, as to grant new favours. Whatever happens, as nothing can possibly happen without His permission, must be, and is, good. The thousand cases I could bring forward in proof of this assertion, (I mean cases that I have met with since I saw you last) I shall reserve till our meeting in London. * * *

“Most truly, dear Mother,

“Your affectionate son,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

To the Exhibition of 1816, the painter contributed, besides two portraits, a picture, called “The Argument at the Spring,” and a sea-piece (afterwards engraved) entitled “Shrimp Boys — Cromer.” The first work was in his now popular and accustomed style, and represented a young girl standing in the water, and endeavouring to induce a little urchin, ready stripped for the bath, to approach her and submit himself to the process of ablution. The second displayed extraordinary truth to Nature and originality of arrangement, but could hardly be said, though a sea-side view, to be — intellectually — the commencement of the series of coast-scenes, which he was afterwards to produce. It was an evidence, rather, of the dawning of the capability for new efforts in the Art, than of the triumph of the capacity itself. How that capacity became suddenly awakened and called forth, it is now necessary to relate.

Although Mr. Collins’s pictures this year were sold — ”The Argument at the Spring,” being disposed of to Mr. Williams, and the scene at Cromer purchased by Sir Thomas Heathcote, (probably as the companion picture he desired; “Half-Holiday Muster,” having been ultimately bought by Lady Lucas) his pecuniary prospects, towards the autumn, became alarmingly altered for the worse. Liberal and discriminating as many of the patrons of Art were in those days, they were few in number. The nation had not yet rallied from the exhausting effects of long and expensive wars; and painting still struggled slowly onward, through the political obstacles and social confusions of the age. The remuneration obtained for works of Art, was often less than half that which is now realised by modern pictures, in these peaceful times of vast and general patronage. Although every succeeding year gained him increased popularity, and although artists and amateurs gave renewed praise and frequent encouragement to every fresh effort of his pencil, Mr. Collins remained, as regarded his pecuniary affairs, in anything but affluent, or even easy circumstances. Passages in his Journal for this year, will be found to indicate his own consciousness of the gradual disorder that was, at this period, fast approaching in his professional resources.

JOURNAL OF 1816.

“January 1st, 1816. — Went with Willis to the Elgin Marbles, observed the simple attitudes of some of the figures to be peculiarly adapted to a new style of portrait. Then to Westminster Abbey, where I heard the organ playing, etc., and saw the bad monuments of some modern sculptors. I must write notes in my book before the thing criticised, mentioning the name, etc.; for I have seen most of the objects in this place often enough, but having forgotten them, I lost my time looking at them again, and coming, most likely, to the same conclusion, again to be forgotten, unless I keep a book for the purpose of entering everything I think worthy of remark.

“* * * Some time since I praised, from charitable and opposition motives, a certain picture, certainly much more than it deserved. I was told the other day, by an inferior artist, that he could not much value the opinion of one who had so much deceived him.

“* * * Feeling the thing, and being able to express it, makes the difference between amateur and painter — some persons put their ideas better than others. Has a man who cannot put them so clearly as to be understood, the ideas at all? Can he distinctly see it — could he not describe it, if he did?

“* * * April 13th. — Chatted with a visitor till twelve, when I posted this dreary ledger, on a dreary, black-looking April day, with one sixpence in my pocket, seven hundred pounds in debt, shabby clothes, a fine house, a large stock of my own handyworks, a certainty (as much, at least, a certainty, as anything short of ‘a bird in the hand’ can be) of about a couple of hundreds, and a determination unshaken — and, please God, not to be shook by anything of becoming a great painter, than which, I know no greater name. Although I have not at this moment a single commission of any kind whatever, I have property considerably more than adequate to discharge the debt above-mentioned — I mean property that would, even in these worst of times, sell for such a sum. Therefore, should my present views prove abortive, I shall not lose my independence — which whilst I have, I want no more.

“ * * * July 5th — How comes it that after all my struggles, I am at this moment so poor in purse? Those of my friends able to push me, are not inclined; and those inclined, not able. Now, as it is impossible to rise in the world, without connection — connection I must have. Therefore, I will paint some high personage, for the next Exhibition. (Why not the Princess Charlotte?) For my own comfort, I must paint this, as well as everything else I touch, in a superior style. I have no reason to be dissatisfied with the public judgment on my works, although, from various causes, I am not rewarded agreeably to, or consistent with, their acknowledgment of my deserts. As I have great reason to believe that their approbation of any particular picture (although not the one that I consider the best, at the time) is the criterion, I shall certainly bow to it. In the particular instance of the Cromer scene, I feel now that their selection is marked by judgment: the faults, however, of the ‘Spring,’ I hope to be able to remedy in my future productions — for which purpose, I will note those objections which have been made by others, and follow them with a critique of my own. * * * “

Hopeful as the painter’s anticipations still continued, untiring as were his efforts to extricate himself from his gathering embarrassments, they did not bring with them the success and security that he desired. The autumn was approaching, his exertions were the main support of his family, he had attempted to render them more advantageous by removing to a convenient and well situated dwelling; and now, to his dismay, he found, as the season advanced, that his income grew more and more insufficient to supply even the daily demands — economical though they were — of his new scale of expenditure; and that, unless some sudden change took place in his fortunes, his affairs were threatened — after all his industry, and all his successes — by no less a visitation than absolute ruin.

A calamity so severe and disheartening as this would have overwhelmed a man of inferior mental powers, — it stimulated the subject of this biography, however, to fresh effort, to stronger determination, to more vigorous hope. Gradually and surely, year by year and thought by thought, his old boyish anxiety to draw the sea at Brighton, had been expanding within him into a higher and finer aim; and, as he now looked the hard necessities of his position in the face, as he remembered the approval bestowed on the Cromer sea-piece, and as he saw that he must grasp at wider popularity, or sink at once into penury and failure, his mind opened at once to a knowledge of its resources, and to a discovery of all that it had hitherto left unstudied and unachieved on the English coast. That which, under happier circumstances, might have been a gradual process, became, under the pressing influence of necessity, a sudden operation — a thorough conviction that inexhaustible Nature presented, in the scenery and population of the shores of England, a fund of untried and original material for the capacities of Art. Thus has it ever been with genius. Thus, as the child of chance and the creation of sudden accident, does that mysterious gift vindicate its unearthly origin. The inferior faculties and accomplishments of the mind are under human control, are linked visibly to the chariot of journeying Time; but, genius owns no mastery, bows to no application, lives for no season. In one unregarded moment it springs into being, on the mute, obedient soil of the human mind! To the veriest trifles, the merest chances, is the world indebted for the most eloquent appeals of mortal intellect that have been addressed to it. A boyish frolic, or a momentary want, a heartless insult, or a careless jest, is the Prometheus that steals from its native heaven this hidden fire, this creating spirit that kindles in the poet’s verses, and glows in the painter’s forms.

Whatever intellectual rank Mr. Collins’s sea-pieces may be considered to hold, as original and popular works of Art, it is not to be doubted that from them his highest celebrity as a painter first arose; and it is not less certain, that the immediate awakening of his mind to the conviction of the real extent of its capacities, and the discovery of the direction which those capacities for the future should take, was coeval with the sudden responsibilities forced upon him by his embarrassments at this period. Once conceived, his purpose was immediately settled. He determined to quit London and London friends; to proceed to Hastings; and there to make, on new principles, a series of studies on the coast, which should enable him to exhibit such thoroughly original works as would obtain for him an honourable celebrity, relieve his family and himself from the difficulties which oppressed them, and procure him the satisfaction of having restored the prosperity of his household, by the honest exertions of his own genius.