a correct estimation of our fellow-creatures? Well, I think that we may know men by their waistcoats, by their shirt-collars, by their whiskers, by their books, by their furniture, by their surroundings generally.
Now, Tom Lupthorpe, in connection with whom I am about to relate certain facts, had friends. For instance, Budder was one of them: Crickson was another: I was a third. No doubt, therefore, it was open to the critical observer by taking account of Budder, and Crickson, and myself, or somehow by adding us together, and dividing the total by three, to regard the result, or average, so obtained, as a fair valuation of Tom Lupthorpe. But I think that an estimate of equal correctness might have been reached by a less complicated method. I may be led to this opinion, perhaps, by an inclination to shrink from arithmetical effort, which, as it is purely natural and constitutional, and quite out of my control, I have no hesitation in avowing. By no process of calculation could I ever persuade a sum of addition, however simple bystanders may have chosen to call it, to yield a correct product, or one that did not singularly vary upon each occasion of my testing it. Consequently I should have preferred to derive my appreciation of my friend’s character from other sources. I should have put Budder on one side, and Crickson, and myself, and have set to work to study Tom Lupthorpe, quite as an isolated subject. I should have held a severe inquest upon his personal appearance, his manners, and dress. And certainly my friend betrayed himself abundantly in these matters. His was not an involved character; his idiosyncrasy presented few remarkable traits. A foundation of admirable amiability and geniality of disposition, and reared upon this a rather rickety mental edifice; extreme irresoluteness, much vacillation of purpose: a mind of a sort of putty material, which could be pinched, and pressed, and kneaded into almost any shape the operator might fancy. And this much was surely perceptible, even upon a cursory examination; for, indeed, in the most trivial affairs of life his want of decision was demonstrated; in the brushing of his hair, the cut of his beard, the fashion of his necktie. He never could resolve definitively as to the side of his head on which he would draw the conventional line of division of his hair. He never knew exactly whether he would wear his straggling straw-coloured moustache with the ends turned up defiantly, or down pensively; and, as often as not, in his indecision, had one up and one down, like a railway semaphore signalling the approach of a train; whether he would denude his chin with his razor, or clothe it with a beard, now to be worn long and streaming, now short, sharp, and pointed; now a thick, bushy, blunt spade form; now pared away to a mere comma or sedilla on his lower jaw, which receded of course; or where would physiognomy be in respect to men of feeble volitions? He had always found much difficulty in the proceeding known as making up his mind. Perhaps, altogether, this gave rather a pleasantly helpless and benignly imbecile expression to his face. He had made, of course, two or three false starts in life. The wonder was that he had ever “got off,” as the phrase is, at all. At the time I first knew him, he was an artist, occupying a second floor in a small street turning out of the upper end of Tottenham Court Road. I believe he had been originally destined for the church; had lurched towards the army, was found for a short time stranded on a high stool in a lawyer’s office, was next said to be reading hard for the bar, and then was suddenly discovered to be a painter, following no particular line of art, but in a sort of irregular service, struggling on a plan of his own, independently of any one else, and in defiance of all rules and precedents. Not from any over muscularity of his mind prescribing for him a particular career of informal action, but simply because in his irresoluteness he was turned and twisted by every gale that blew, carried away by any chance current that came near him. He had commenced with a success in portraiture, then had developed a passion for landscape, had burst out with a grand historical work, and then had suddenly subsided into genre, with a suspicion enduring the while that he might at any time revert to the former branches of his profession: like a squirrel leaping in a tree, his movements seemed to be entirely without method, and could not possibly be predicted. I am bound to say, however, that he had very considerable art-talent, and though his works were rather indications than developed proofs of this, they were, nevertheless, very charming, and might have been of much more commercial advantage to him than his want of judicious dealing with them would permit them to be.
“How are you, Lupthorpe?”
“Hard up. That is, I have been; as hard up this morning for five shillings, as I should think a fellow ever was. However, it’s all right now.”
“Where’s that pretty little sketch you made in Epping Forest?” I asked, as I looked round the studio. It had been a favourite drawing of mine, and it generally rested on the mantel-piece, and I always went straightway to contemplate it whenever I called on Lupthorpe. I may say here that his was not by any means a comfortable studio; it was, like its tenant, so wanting in decision of character. It looked as though at one time it had wanted to become a drawing-room, and then before it could bring that idea to maturity it had abandoned it in favour of being a bed-room, ultimately to revert again to its old studio destiny. Thus, a loo-table, with an ornamental cover, stood in one corner of the room; in another a washing-stand painted to resemble an upholsterer’s notion of bamboo, that is to say, a bright yellow colour, with here and there mysterious brown dabs and lines, and speckles. Of course, the washing-stand flatly contradicted the loo-table, and at direct issue with both of these were the easels, and the paint boxes, and the groups of boards and canvases leaning against the wall. The effect was embarrassing to the visitor, who was always torn with doubts as to how he ought to behave himself, and whether it could possibly be permissible to smoke.
“Where’s the Epping Forest sketch?”
“I’ve sold it. To Moss Bokes. For five shillings.”
