fine night. I prefer the Salut at Saint Vaast. The walk thither is a
longer one, and I have a fancy always that I may meet Antony Watteau
there again, any time; just as, when a child, having found one day a tiny
box in the shape of a silver coin, for long afterwards I used to try
every piece of money that came into my hands, expecting it to open.


September 1714.

We were sitting in the Watteau chamber for the coolness, this sultry
evening. A sudden gust of wind ruffled the lights in the sconces on the
walls: the distant rumblings, which had continued all the afternoon, broke
out at last; and through the driving rain, a coach, rattling across the
Place, stops at our door: in a moment Jean-Baptiste is with us once again;
but with bitter tears in his eyes;--dismissed!


October 1714.

Jean-Baptiste! he too, rejected by Antony! It makes our friendship and
fraternal sympathy closer. And still as he labours, not less sedulously
than of old, and still so full of loyalty to his old master, in that
Watteau chamber, I seem to see Antony himself, of whom Jean-Baptiste
dares not yet speak,--to come very near his work, and understand his great
parts. So Jean-Baptiste's work, in its nearness to his, may stand, for the
future, as the central interest of my life. I bury myself in that.


February 1715.