and in people's houses, as may be seen from the very streets, there
is noticeable a minute and scrupulous air of care-taking and
neatness. Antony Watteau remarks this more than ever on returning to
Valenciennes, and savours greatly, after his lodging in Paris, our
Flemish cleanliness, lover as he is of distinction and elegance.
Those worldly graces he seemed when a young lad almost to hunger and
thirst for, as though truly the mere adornments of life were its
necessaries, he already takes as if he had been always used to them.
And there is something noble--shall I say?--in his half-disdainful
way of serving himself with what he still, as I think, secretly
values over-much. There is an air of seemly thought--le bel serieux-
-about him, which makes me think of one of those grave old Dutch
statesmen in their youth, such as that famous William the Silent.
And yet the effect of this first success [12] of his (of more
importance than its mere money value, as insuring for the future the
full play of his natural powers) I can trace like the bloom of a
flower upon him; and he has, now and then, the gaieties which from
time to time, surely, must refresh all true artists, however hard-
working and "painful."

July 1705.

The charm of all this--his physiognomy and manner of being--has
touched even my young brother, Jean-Baptiste. He is greatly taken
with Antony, clings to him almost too attentively, and will be
nothing but a painter, though my father would have trained him to
follow his own profession. It may do the child good. He needs the
expansion of some generous sympathy or sentiment in that close little
soul of his, as I have thought, watching sometimes how his small face
and hands are moved in sleep. A child of ten who cares only to save