The Grange advance., 1874-12-22
1olD Al Nl6iATFAlL. !.
From Peteson's Journal Of Popular Liter
atnre

From Peterson's Journal Of Popular Liter
ature.1
It was q stormy September evening.
Guy Urquehart and my respected self
Charles livingstone, painter-were sit
ting in the studio-w window of his delight.
full little villa at Frascati, near Rome,
high over the rounded tops of woods
now lurid in the red setting sun. Be.
meath leaden sky the gloomy Cam
pagna stretched like dead sea, and
with its far rim cut the disc, porteH.
tous blood red ball, slowly, slowl y sink
ing.
Guy and I had been old friends and
school-fellows in England. He was two
or three years older than myself, but
that had made his friendship for me all
the tenderer, and mine for him rever-
entail. Resides, had looked Oh Guy
as kind Of genial young saint. had
always felt rather wicked in his COM
pany, because he really seemed, quite
naturally, never to do anything wrong,
or to have so much as wrong thought.
He would have chosen art as his pro-
fession, I knew, had he been allowed
voice in the arrangement of his own
future; but the bilious old father who
ruled his destiny made civil engineer
of him, without the slightest reference
to any possible fancy or protest of the
lads. Naturally, he did not take kind
ly to his work, though he buckled to it
conscicntious!y.
When came to italy to study art,
Guy and kept up pretty brisk cor.
respondence for about twelvemonth.
But in my second Italian summer his
letters suddenly ceased to arrive.
wrote to him in vain hope Of answer
for six menths, a:d then let the CORES
pondence 60 with a sigh.
easily ascertained that he was
alive and we'll, bat could find out moth.
ing else about him that was more reli.
able than the gossip retailed out by
certain English military men, who had
tapped their lazy fight across the sea
one winter and perched in Rome. SCOT
into scrape abouta woman, and didn't
behave we'll to her, or something Of
that Sort" drswled out one of these
amiab;e gentlemen. And this was all
l could discover about poor Urquehart.
! But at last heard from Guy him
self once more. Lo! re had inherited
small fortune from a distant relation !;
he had thrown civil engineering over
board !; he was coming to Rome forth
with to study art in earnest at last,
and we must spend the ensuing sum-
mer in Villegiatura together, eating
figs at Tuscu}am. At the time my
story begins he had been about six
weeks in Rome, and had already paint
ed one or two;capital little pictures.
/ No village in the world drives such a
roaring trade in scandal as grand old
Rome. You'have seen how Urqnehart' S
character vert before him, as Sir Peter
Tcazle's stayed behind, for the comfort
Of the community, and what mercy it
met with. Now, when circumstances
are served upinthis mixed way. there
are generally certain facts which one
may trace like pebbles through disturb
ing waves. I felt convinced that l
should do so in Urquehart's case, if it
ever pleased him to give me his conf.
dence.
But could not try to thrust into any
chamber Of his past not freely opened
to me. 1could not help guessing that
there was shut and locked door, be-
hind which 'lurked the solution of a
mystery. Thismystery was the great
. and grievouschangein my friend, not
to be accounted for by the mere lapse
of two or three years. And this change
was al! the more remarkable that it was
not always obvious. No two men could
be more unlike than Urquehart to
Urquehart in different moods. It
seemed to rae as If much evil had flowed
into his hea1t by some rent where much
good had run'out, but that the poison
had never MIXED with the healthy juice
of his life.
On this September evening, as we sat
! together, Guy had been muttering some
very bad sentiments, which would hav e
grieved me more if had not attributed
them in part to some unripc peaches
and the state of his stomach.
"Guy," said /. suddenly, "I've found
key to much that makes people gasp
and stare at yeu:"
rather roughly.
! t'Most persons I went on, ':are half
angel, half-devii, they say. But your
angel and devil seem to share their
lodging on the most curious terms of
mutual forbearance. They seem to
take you turn and turn shout, in
watches, as it were- Your angel never
terments your devil, or interfHes with
his mode Of enjoying himself, his Wal.
purgis nights with his man; and your
devil, with equal po1iteness, never in
trudes himself on the angelical prayer
meetings. They could not possibly
come in contact without disturbing the
harmony of the system but they seem
to agree to differ, like certain polite
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