Читать книгу The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear - Edward Lear - Страница 16

These irascibilities which play so large and so amusing a part in his letters, are mere whimsies when compared with his pecuniary anxieties. Money, always in ‘short supply’, is a stock subject of his letters, and at times, and much against the grain, he is forced to become a borrower. He is inclined to be thrifty but does not succeed in saving more than £300 until he is past fifty, and rejoices in the thought that henceforward he will be ‘entitled annually to £9’. The labour of ‘hopelessly endeavouring to get in subscriptions’ for one of his books, is so great that ‘I abhor the sight of a pen, and if I were an angel I would immediately moult all my quills for fear of their being used in calligraphy’. He dislikes the financial aspect of his work, but in spite of a large circle of friends and acquaintances and growing reputation both as artist and humorist, the task of earning a living remains a problem and a cause of anxiety. He has long been an artistic lion, one of the ‘sights’ of Cannes, Valetta, Corfu—or where-ever he may have pitched his studio, but his numerous visitors seem more inclined to sponge on his personal charm than to buy his pictures, and he dislikes being lionised at any time. At Malta he was ‘dubbed a mystery and a savage’ because he fled from the crowd of visitors who would have thronged his rooms without dreaming of spending £5 on a drawing. In a whole season he ‘only got £30 from the rich Cannes public’. He had a bad winter in 1878 at San Remo, having sold but one drawing for £7, and would have ‘come to grief’ had it not been for two friends who bought some of his smaller oil paintings. In addition to these fluctuations in turnover, he suffers from the failure of his publisher, and his troubles are increased when the tenants of his villa at San Remo abscond owing him nearly £100.