Thomas Romney

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He completely ignored it, would not suffer it to be mentioned in his presence, considered that it was not worthy of any recognition, and went on painting pictures of all the loveliest women of society, but declining to allow a single one of them to be shown in the exhibitions of the Academy.
This determination was partly dictated, no doubt, by modesty, as there is every evidence that Romney was a modest, retiring, shy man, and even at the very zenith of his fame was not found in the brilliant society in which the President delighted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Far off in London, there to work and hope.
With that they parted. She kept sight of Heaven,
But not of Romney.⁠He had good to do
To others: through the days and through the nights,
She sewed and sewed and sewed.⁠She drooped sometimes,
And wondered, while, along the tawny light,
She struck the new thread into her needle’s eye,
How people without mothers on the hills,
Could choose the town to live in!—then she drew
The stitch, and mused how Romney’s face would look,
And if ’twere likely he’d remember hers,
When they two had their meeting after death. ”

“ 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! ”

“ To take between his dainty, milk-fed lips, God love him! I should certainly be glad, Except, God help me, that I’m sorrowful, Because of Romney. Romney, Romney! Well, This grows absurd!—too like a tune that runs I’ the head, and forces all things in the world, Wind, rain, the creaking gnat or stuttering fly, To sing itself and vex you;—yet perhaps A paltry tune you never fairly liked, Some ‘I’d be a butterfly,’ or ‘C’est l’amour:’ We’re made so,—not such tyrants to ourselves, We are not slaves to nature. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Questions came often to the white man, but his awe of the old priest forbade. Rajananda talked when he was ready. As the day rose, Romney met the brazen curtain again.
The picture of yesterday's dawn recurred at intervals with unabating horror; and the steady consciousness that he was moving farther and farther from his own. Sanity was difficult in this suffering, but always as it reached a certain pressure of destructiveness, its voltage seemed queerly lowered, and he lost the sand and sky, and travelled through the deadly glitter that had neither surface nor line. ”

“ This "Lady Morshead," doing nothing, but looking charming; bright-eyed "Mrs. Raikes," playing on a spinet; the dark Cholmeley girls; bewitching Sarah with the ringlets; and the more dignified Catherine—they were painted on Romney's best days.
A few of his "Mother and Child" groups must also have place on the walls of my imaginary room—the "Mrs. Russell," in a green dress at Swallowfield Park, holding the sash of her small child, who is standing upon a table, back to the spectator, regarding its chubby face in a circular mirror—a happy design this, most natural and winning ”

“ 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! ”

“ We have come too far to abandon the change we fought for these past few years. We have to move forward, to the future we imagined in 2008, where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules. That’s the choice in this election, and that’s why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States. Governor Romney is a patriotic American who has raised a wonderful family, and he has much to be proud of. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ I cannot give her any other epithet, for I think her superior to all womankind." Shortly afterwards the painter was plunged into gloom by an apparent coolness on the part of the lady, but it passed. She again sits to him, and we read of Romney, the recluse, giving a party in Cavendish Square in her honour: "She is the talk of the whole town and really surpasses everything, both in singing and acting, that ever appeared." Then followed her marriage to Sir William Hamilton at Marylebone Church and return to Italy. Romney and Emma never met again. ”

“ After all, Romney relied upon the one fact that such meetings as he had known in the twilight in the court of the Consulate, did not in the nature of things rouse one heart alone. There was no magic in life, if meetings such as that did not contain magic. Still he had not won Moira Kelvin.... ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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?” ”