to value that dainty world he is now privileged to enter, and has
certainly but little relish for his own works--those works which I
for one so thirst to see.

March 1714.

We were all--Jean-Philippe, Michelle Watteau, and ourselves--half in
expectation of a visit from Antony; and to-day, quite suddenly, he is
with us. I was lingering after early Mass this morning in the church
of Saint Vaast. It is good for me to be there. Our people lie under
one of the great marble slabs before the jube, some of the memorial
brass balusters of which are engraved with their names and the dates
of their decease. The settle of carved oak which runs all round the
wide nave is my father's own work. The quiet spaciousness of the
place is itself like a meditation, an "act of recollection," and
clears away the confusions of the heart. I suppose the heavy droning
of the carillon had smothered the sound of his footsteps, for on my
turning round, when I supposed myself alone, Antony Watteau was
standing near me. Constant observer as he is of the lights and
shadows of things, he visits [20] places of this kind at odd times.
He has left Jean-Baptiste at work in Paris, and will stay this time
with the old people, not at our house; though he has spent the better
part of to-day in my father's workroom. He hasn't yet put off, in
spite of all his late intercourse with the great world, his distant
and preoccupied manner--a manner, it is true, the same to every one.
It is certainly not through pride in his success, as some might
fancy, for he was thus always. It is rather as if, with all that
success, life and its daily social routine were somewhat of a burden
to him.