Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/48

20 spectacles when drawing. This reminds me how much more prevalent short-sight must be now than it was forty years ago. I seldom ventured out in my glasses without this sort of thing being said — “Bill ! here’s a buffer as won’t believe his own eyes ! ” This seems strange and hard of belief, but the statement is none the less true. Now every third person one meets wears a pince-nez, and spectacles are painfully common. I have seen them on the noses of butchers’ and bakers’ boys — of a street newsvendor, while the number of quite young children, almost babies, in * barnacles ’ seems increasing daily.

I will say no more with reference to Maddox Street. All or nearly all my associations and re- collections of “Leigh’s” are connected with New- man Street, of which we will say more hereafter.

To return to the Repository. In the year 1850 I find this entry in my diary : — “ Ever longing for the day when I can cut business. Rejected as probationer at the Royal Academy.” No exclama- tions of sorrow or disappointment, be it observed ; for I always, after destroying a very early diary, in which I found opinions recorded that verged on idiotcy, resolved for the future to record facts rather than sentiments. In the following year I was more fortunate. My father allowed me three days a week off for study, and in December