re it is," said Ethel pointing to the fireplace, where there lay
some torn fragments and ashes of paper. It was the same fireplace at
which Clive's sketches had been burned.

CHAPTER XXXIX. Amongst the Painters

When Clive Newcome comes to be old, no doubt he will remember his Roman
days as amongst the happiest which fate ever awarded him. The simplicity
of the student's life there, the greatness and friendly splendour of the
scenes surrounding him, the delightful nature of the occupation in which
he is engaged, the pleasant company of comrades, inspired by a like
pleasure over a similar calling, the labour, the meditation, the holiday
and the kindly feast afterwards, should make the Art-students the
happiest of youth, did they but know their good fortune. Their work is
for the most part delightfully easy. It does not exercise the brain too
much, but gently occupies it, and with a subject most agreeable to the
scholar. The mere poetic flame, or jet of invention, needs to be lighted
up but very seldom, namely, when the young painter is devising his
subject, or settling the composition thereof. The posing of figures
and drapery; the dexterous copying of the line; the artful processes
of cross-hatching, of stumping, of laying on lights, and what not; the
arrangement of colour, and the pleasing operations of glazing and the
like, are labours for the most part merely manual. These, with the
smoking of a proper number of pipes, carry the student through his day's
work. If you pass his door you will very probably hear him singing at
his easel. I should like to know what young lawyer, mathematician, or
divinity scholar can sing over his volumes, and at the same time advance
with his labour? In every city where Art is practised there are old
gentlemen who never touched a pencil in their lives, but find the
occupation and company of artists so agreeable that they are never out
of the studios; follow one generation of painters after another; sit
by with perfect contentment while Jack is drawing his pifferaro, or Tom
designing his cartoon, and years afterwards when Jack is established
in Newman Street, and Tom a Royal Academician, shall still be found in
their rooms, occupied now by fresh painters and pictures, telling the
youngsters, their successors, what glorious fellows Jack and Tom were.
A poet must retire to privy places and meditate his rhymes in secret; a
painter can practise his trade in the company of friends. You