A little whiskey
would always stop the pain, and soon a little became a great deal
and he found himself a drunkard, but having signed his liberty
away for certain months he was completely cured. He had acquired,
however, the need of some liquid which he could sip constantly. I
brought him an admiration settled in early boyhood, for my father
had always said, 'George Wilson was our born painter but
Nettleship our genius,' and even had he shown me nothing I could
care for, I had admired him still because my admiration was in my
bones. He showed me his early designs and they, though often badly
drawn, fulfilled my hopes. Something of Blake they certainly did
show, but had in place of Blake's joyous intellectual energy a
Saturnian passion and melancholy. 'God creating evil' the death-
like head with a woman and a tiger coming from the forehead, which
Rossetti--or was it Browning?--had described 'as the most sublime
design of ancient or modern art' had been lost, but there was
another version of the same thought and other designs never
published or exhibited.
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