Canoeing on the Ternin.--Visit of relatives.--Tour in Switzerland.-- Experiments in etching.--The "Saturday Review."--Journeys to London.--Plan of "Etching and Etchers."--New friends in London. --Etchings exhibited at the Royal Academy.--Serious illness in London.--George Eliot.--Professor Seeley.
NOT to waste his time in the work of removal and fitting up, Mr. Hamerton remained behind at Sens, to finish the copying of a window by Jean Cousin in the cathedral and some other drawings, begun to illustrate an article on this artist. We had all gone forward to Pré-Charmoy, and when he arrived there, everything being already in order, he continued his work without interruption. He was delighted with the unpretentious little house, and with its views from every window; with the silent, shady, wild garden, and its group of tall poplars by the clear, cool, winding river which divided it from the pastures on the other side, and he often repeated to us with a smile, "Pré-Charmoy charme moi." Although the house was small, there were a good many rooms in it, and the master had for himself alone a studio (an ordinary-sized room), a study, and a carpenter's shop--for he was fond of carpentry in his leisure hours, and far from unskilful. He liked to make experimental boats with his own hands, and moreover he found out that some kind of physical exercise was necessary to him as a relief from brain-work, for if the weather was bad and he took no exercise he began to feel liable to a sort of uncomfortable giddiness. I wished him to consult a doctor about it, but he believed that it would go away after a while, for it had come on quite lately while painting on an open scaffolding inside the cathedral at Sens, when he could see through the planks and all round far below him, and this had produced, at times, a kind of vertigo.
The pretty little boat bought at Asnières was all very well for the Arroux which flows by Autun, but for the narrow, shallow, winding Ternin and the Vesure, some other kind of craft had to be devised, and paper boats were built upon basket-work skeletons, and tried with more or less success. My eldest brother Charles, who had finished his classical studies and was now preparing to become an architect, used to come from Mâcon for the holidays, sometimes bringing a friend with him, and together with Gilbert they went exploring the "Unknown Rivers." They generally came home dripping wet, having abandoned their canoes in the entanglement of roots and weeds after a sudden upset, and having to go and fetch them back with a cart, unless the shipwreck was caused by an unsuspected branch under water, or by the swift rush of a current catching the frail concern and carrying it away altogether, whilst the venturesome navigator was gathering his wits on the pebbles of the river-bed.