greatly pleased, and left untasted the glass of old Malaga which was
offered to him. His father will hear nothing of educating him as a
painter. Yet he is not ill-to-do, and has lately built himself a new
stone house, big and grey and cold. Their old plastered house with
the black timbers, in the Rue des Cardinaux, was prettier; dating
from the time of the Spaniards, and one of the oldest in
Valenciennes.

October 1701.

Chiefly through the solicitations of my father, old Watteau has
consented to place Antony with a teacher of painting here. I meet
him betimes on the way to his lessons, as I return from Mass; for he
still works with the masons, [7] but making the most of late and
early hours, of every moment of liberty. And then he has the feast-
days, of which there are so many in this old-fashioned place. Ah!
such gifts as his, surely, may once in a way make much industry seem
worth while. He makes a wonderful progress. And yet, far from being
set-up, and too easily pleased with what, after all, comes to him so
easily, he has, my father thinks, too little self-approval for
ultimate success. He is apt, in truth, to fall out too hastily with
himself and what he produces. Yet here also there is the "golden
mean." Yes! I could fancy myself offended by a sort of irony which
sometimes crosses the half-melancholy sweetness of manner habitual
with him; only that as I can see, he treats himself to the same
quality.

October 1701.

Antony Watteau comes here often now. It is the instinct of a natural