Blyth's house, in such a
prostrate condition of mind, and talked of his delinquencies and their
effect on his father's spirits, with such vehement bitterness of
self-reproach, as quite amazed Valentine, and even alarmed him a little
on the lad's account. The good-natured painter was no friend to
contrite desperation of any kind, and no believer in repentance, which
could not look hopefully forward to the future, as well as sorrowfully
back at the past. So he laid down his brush, just as he was about to
begin varnishing the "Golden Age;" and set himself to console Zack, by
reminding him of all the credit and honor he might yet win, if he was
regular in attending to his new studies--if he never flinched from work
at the British Museum, and the private Drawing School to which he was
immediately to be introduced--and if he ended as he well might end, in
excusing to his father his determination to be an artist, by showing
Mr. Thorpe a prize medal, won by the industry of his son's hand in the
Schools of the Royal Academy.
A necessary characteristic of people whose spirits are always running
into extremes, is that they are generally able to pass from one change
of mood to another with unusual facility. By the time Zack had
exhausted Mr.
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