Romney

“ It must have been your coming, Sir Romney. We hoped to see you last night—"
There was a blithe richness of vitality, a sparkle that made him remember the wine at Longstruth's, the Chinese girls twanging the vina in the bamboo clumps by the river.... Wine and song at Longstruth's, and a score of other thoughts, light and indistinct as the trailing movements of a vagary—with this concrete enormity in the room.
Romney suddenly whipped in closer to reality. His mind had been trying to hold off the truth from itself. Moira Kelvin turned to her mirror. ”

“ Romney was at his very best in this delightful group. The faces of both boy and girl are painted with unusual care, the clear eyes of the manly lad seeming to look right into the spectator; while the downcast lids of the girl's face serve but to reveal through their clear semi-transparency the brown eyes which they hide. ”

“ Romney, I can scarce look you in the face for fear you’ll despise the fool that can govern herself no more than a child. I do improve—God knows I try hard enough—but still ’twill out when Greville or another vexes me, even though I know I pull down my shelter with my own hands. And for nothing that matters a brass farthing! ”

“ Her splendour was lifted now, her whole being crowned with the spirit that can only come to one whose quest has ended.... The Hunchback came toward them. The calm that Romney saw upon that face was marmoreal, the calm of one whose circle is almost finished. He led her to a chair which the yellow rug covered, and sat before her upon a cushion, his arm across her knees.
"You are young, but very old," he said. "You are a child, a girl, a woman all lavish in her love, but more than all a mother. This—this Romney—is like a son to us—and those brave young men—our sons. We are ancient, Moira. ”

“ And though I spilled the nectar ere 'twas quaffed,
And broke the bowl in wanton folly, yet
I would die of my thirst ere I would wet
My burning lips with any meaner draught.
So leave me, Romney. One who has seen a play
Enacted by a star cannot endure
To see it rendered by an amateur.
You know not what Love is--now go away! ”

“ George Romney, aged twenty-eight, mounts his nag at Kendal and rides forth, with fifty pounds in his saddle-bags, to seek fame and fortune as a painter in London. Nothing matters but his career. Doubtless he is sure—or as sure as an emotional, impressionable man, taking his colour from his surroundings, but conscious of great powers, can be—that when his pockets are full of guineas, he will send for Mary and the children ”

“ And eyes that, when they look on you, will lean Their whole weight half in indolence, and half In wishing you unmitigated good, Until you know not if to flinch from him Or thank him.—’Tis Lord Howe. ‘We’re all gone wrong,’ Said he, ‘and Romney, that dear friend of ours, Is no-wise right. There’s one true thing on earth; That’s love! ”

“ Certainly he looks an impressionable, sensitive, and easily moved man, with his large, somewhat mournful eyes and the high brow. Place beside Romney's portrait a photograph of Huxley, and you have two types, poles apart, remote as a Perugino from a Frans Hals.
A noble portrait is that of Warren Hastings at the India Office, everything subservient to the finely-cut head with its fringe of silvery hair, and the dark grey eyes looking shrewdly out at the world. ”

“ Dear Romney, and be married from my house?
It is not part of your philosophy
To keep your bird upon the blackthorn?'
⁠'Ay,'
He answered, 'but it is:—I take my wife
Directly from the people,—and she comes,
As Austria's daughter to imperial France,
Betwixt her eagles, blinking not her race,
From Margaret's Court at garret-height, to meet
And wed me at St. James's, nor put off
Her gown of serge for that. The things we do,
We do: we'll wear no mask, as if we blushed.'
'Dear Romney, you're the poet,' I replied,—
But felt my smile too mournful for my word,
And turned and went. ”

“ The modelling on the face is very dexterously painted, and the tender thoughtful expression of the dark eyes quite beautiful.
The hair is painted in very broad, powerful fashion, and the draperies over the bust indicated lightly and put on with a wonderful sliding movement which is notable. On the whole Romney seldom did a more pleasing piece of work than the portrait of this quiet and refined dainty girl. ”

“ Ay, hard to God, but not to Romney Leigh! For Romney has a pattern on his nail, (Whatever may be lacking on the Mount) And not being overnice to separate What’s element from what’s convention, hastes By line on line, to draw you out a world, Without your help indeed, unless you take His yoke upon you and will learn of him,— So much he has to teach! so good a world! The same, the whole creation’s groaning for! No rich nor poor, no gain nor loss nor stint, No potage in it able to exclude A brother’s birthright, and no right of birth, The potage,—both secured to every man ”

“ Romney was sensitive, eternally in love with the fleeting loveliness of women and children, the artist born in him again each time he saw a new face, but constantly diverted by his ambition, and by the bombastic sentimentalists moving in the Hayley mutual admiration circle at Eartham, where, for twenty years, he spent his summer vacation. ”

“ That comes in power. On which, we thunder down,
We prophets, poets,—Virtue’s in the word!
The maker burnt the darkness up with His,
To inaugurate the use of vocal life;
And, plant a poet’s word even, deep enough
In any man’s breast, looking presently
For offshoots, you have done more for the man,
Than if you dressed him in a broad-cloth coat
And warmed his Sunday potage at your fire.
Yet Romney leaves me . . .
⁠God! what face is that?
O Romney, O Marian! ”

“ A man like him is never overcome: No woman like me, counts him pitiable [394] While saints applaud him. He mistook the world: But I mistook my own heart,—and that slip Was fatal. Romney,—will you leave me here? So wrong, so proud, so weak, so unconsoled, So mere a woman!—and I love you so,— I love you, Romney.’ Could I see his face, I wept so? ”

“ For many hours they sat together on the mud-floor of the clay-walled and palm-thatched hut in Wampli. Rajananda lay covered in his yellow robe and listened, marking the symbols of God and the Holy Breath upon the dirt of the floor with a finger-nail like a twisted kernel of dried corn. Toward evening they broke their fast together, and Romney covered his face in his hands as he listened:
"My son, you are strong. Yesterday you wanted death, but knew too much to die in the midst of gray hate and red desire. All is well with you to-day. Your eyes hold the light that sees afar off. ”

“ The utter hopelessness of Nifton Bend's repetition of his words brought to Romney something like an expression of Fate itself. The Hunchback, in accepting China, had accepted the code of her servants. The condemned never resist death.
But Romney did not share the attitude.
"Listen," he added. "They will be watching. They will think you dying from the poison—if they really fixed this tea. They will leave you alone in your rooms—possibly for hours. I'll go out and get your young men together. Don't you see? I am one of them. You are the Cause while you live. ”

“ The face of the Hunchback was upturned to the bowed head of the woman. There was no sound, no movement. The leaves of an ancient mulberry tree lay tranced against the leaded window. The yellow rug was folded close. The lords of life and death were in that shadowed room.
An ironical smile came to Romney's lips as he turned the knob.... He was meeting the little world of men again. He must act. He must go on with his little part, after dwelling in the presence of those who were great enough to show the world their own immortal selves.... He must fight for his own life—what a travesty. ”

“ Pay the price Of lies, by being constrained to lie on still; ’Tis easy for thy sort: a million more Will scarcely damn thee deeper. ‘Doing which, You are very safe from Marian and myself: We’ll breathe as softly as the infant here, And stir no dangerous embers. Fail a point, And show our Romney wounded, ill-content, Tormented in his home, ... we open mouth, And such a noise will follow, the last trump’s Will scarcely seem more dreadful, even to you; You’ll have no pipers after: Romney will (I know him) push you forth as none of his, All other men declaring it well done ”

“ Death pays all debts.
No. 32 looks very spick and span in the bright sunshine, and as I gaze at it I perceive above the tall ground-floor windows two heads of cherubs in stone, just like Sir Joshua's Heads of Angels in the National Gallery. Is it intentional, I wonder? Did the architect of this new house wish subtly to suggest that he, like Lord Thurlow, belonged to the Sir Joshua faction?
Maybe. I don't know, but I shall never pass the house without thinking so. Poor Romney! He hated irony and wit—and irony in stone is more enduring than irony in words or paint. ”

“ The picture breathed a distinction, a dignity beyond the reach of Romney’s ordinary mood. It represented Sir Arthur’s great-grandmother, on his father’s side, a famous Irish beauty of the day.
“Wonder what they’ll give me for that,” he Said quietly, pointing to it. “My father always said it was the pick. You remember the story that she—my great-grandmother—once came across Lady Hamilton in Romney’s studio, and Emma Hamilton told Romney afterwards that at last he’d found a sitter handsomer than herself. It’s a winner. You inherit her eyes, Douglas, and her colour. What’s it worth?” ”

“ Perhaps I doubt more than you doubted then, If I, the poet’s veritable charge, Have borne upon my forehead. If I have, It might feel somewhat liker to a crown, The foolish green one even.—Ah, I think, And chiefly when the sun shines, that I’ve failed. But what then, Romney? Though we fail indeed, You ... I ... a score of such weak workers, ... He Fails never. If He cannot work by us, He will work over us. Does He want a man, Much less a woman, think you? Every time The star winks there, so many souls are born, Who all shall work too. ”

“ He now became the serious rival of Reynolds, who spoke of him in slighting manner as "the man in Cavendish Square," pretending, with studied insult, to have entirely forgotten his name.
All the world of fashion and wealth sat to the artist, and his list of portraits reads like a page from the fashionable gazette of the day, including as it does all the persons who were then well known in town and who constituted the cream of society.
The opportunity now arose for Romney to show how indifferent he was to the slights and contempt of his fellow-artists who ranged themselves around Sir Joshua. ”

“ I should not like to have to choose between the merry languishing Benedetta and the merry alert Miss Ramus, in her pink dress, with the flaming green gauze veil, and the gleams of gold in hair and gown.
Another beautiful girl, "Miss Vernon as Hebe," now in Warwick House, would have an honoured place in my roomful of fine Romney productions. Well may this charming goddess claim to restore beauty and youth to those who have lost them. Abundant brown hair crowns the pure, untroubled brow; she glides forward, bearing the wine cup, and looking upwards as she advances. ”

“ Governor Romney, I've got to let you in on this. Is Senator McCain a better leader in terms of the economy?
ROMNEY: No. He's a fine man and a man I respect, and I particularly respect his service in the military and his integrity and courage for our nation. I do believe that as people over the centuries have considered who ought to lead our country, they don't look to senators. They look to governors. And they look to governors because they have the experience of being executive leaders. ”

“ Romney might be worthless, after all, the grim march but a mad prank of Jackson's, as men said; but whether to lay down one's arms or to struggle till the end was reached, this was the question asked by those stern mountains. Nature stood ranged against him—he fought it step by step, and day by day. ”

“ Romney thought of the words of Dr. Ti Kung in the examination cell: "I will tell you in three days."
He laughed softly. "And what he will tell me in three days hangs imperatively upon this most perfect cabinet. Romney, here's a ripe chance to use your head. You are allowed one respectable touch. You may choose your poison—but just one."
He measured out a portion by no means of a size that a man is inclined to seize with his last dime, drank it with discretion and without water. Then he stared awhile at the stars and the shipping, took a long drink from the water-pitcher, and went to bed. ”

“ He was reputed wealthy, his name given as Romney, being popularly supposed to denote ancestral, if not actual, connection with the town and district of that name on the South Coast. A man of highly-cultured tastes and of rare and varied information, he led a very retired life, divided between his books, the cataloguing of a valuable collection of antique gems, and cycle-rides into the surrounding country--for he was an ardent cyclist. ”

“ His head came very close to Romney, but his eyes were mild and boyish.... "I liked you because you had an Occidental heart—a place for a woman. If my young men were here they would sit and talk with me about China. I love them. They are passionate countrymen—but I have finished with China. Only the woman is left in my heart. And you—you are a white man who can understand—"
"Yes, I can understand—" Romney whispered. "Where is Moira Kelvin?"
The Hunchback pointed forward toward the apartment where Romney had seen her in the yellow lamplight. ”