I saw him very often after that time, for he was, I think, disposed to exaggerate the small share I had taken in making his work better known; and he was always anxious for my criticism or approval on new work he had in hand. But I never left his studio without some feeling of melancholy apprehension, for it seemed to me always that his overwrought and highly-strung nervous temperament gave no fair promise of long life. On one of the last of our meetings he had specially invited my visit, as he particularly wanted my judgment upon a picture just completed. It happened when I reached his studio that it did not so strongly appeal to me as other examples of his work, and yet I did not then quite understand the sudden look of pain that passed over his face when my opinion was expressed. It was only afterwards that I received from him a touching little letter telling me that he saw plainly I did not greatly care for the picture, and that he was disappointed, because he had intended to offer it to me as an acknowledgment of my friendship. “I hope later,” he said, “to do something that will really please you.” But the time left to him was shorter than either of us could have guessed, and within only a little while his career was ended. He was a very lovable man, full of high ambition, and inspired in the happier moments of his life with a just confidence in his great powers. But these more buoyant moods alternated with seasons of great depression, and in this respect his temperament showed a marked resemblance to that of Fred Walker. His spirit fed upon itself, and his hunger for success, linked with a still nobler desire to realise the many dreams of beauty that thronged his brain, left him with but little leisure for repose. I think the eager intensity of his nature was sometimes a terror to himself, and although the end came more swiftly than I had divined, it was scarcely wonderful that the constant excitability of his temperament should have prematurely worn down a physique that never was robust. CHAPTER XII ART JOURNALISM My connection with the Grosvenor Gallery was due, in the first instance, to a series of articles upon the reform of the Royal Academy published by me in the columns of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. These papers had attracted the attention of Sir Charles Dilke, who based upon them a motion brought forward in the House of Commons, which, however, had no practical result.