As his
gift expands so does that incurable restlessness one supposed but the
humour natural to a promising youth who had still everything to do.
And now the only realised enjoyment he has of all this might seem to
be the thought of the independence it has purchased him, so that he
can escape from one lodging-place to another, just as it may please
him. He has already deserted, somewhat incontinently, more than one
of those [19] fine houses, the liberal air of which he used so
greatly to affect, and which have so readily received him. Has he
failed truly to grasp the fact of his great success and the rewards
that lie before him? At all events, he seems, after all, not greatly
to value that dainty world he is now privileged to enter, and has
certainly but little relish for his own works--those works which I
for one so thirst to see.
March 1714.
We were all--Jean-Philippe, Michelle Watteau, and ourselves--half in
expectation of a visit from Antony; and to-day, quite suddenly, he is
with us. I was lingering after early Mass this morning in the church
of Saint Vaast. It is good for me to be there. Our people lie under
one of the great marble slabs before the jube, some of the memorial
brass balusters of which are engraved with their names and the dates
of their decease. The settle of carved oak which runs all round the
wide nave is my father's own work. The quiet spaciousness of the
place is itself like a meditation, an "act of recollection," and
clears away the confusions of the heart.
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