Sweet Melancholy

Et je m'en vais

Au vent mauvais

Qui m'emporte

Deçà, delà,

Pareil à la

Feuille morte.*

The long sobs of the viols of autumn have now passed us by here in Melbourne, however, I continue to flutter about, much like any falling leaf.

In a recent post, I emphasised that one needs to be a manly man to apply paint to one’s otherwise recalcitrant Spencer Smiths. Now, if the mood takes me as it has for the past fortnight I can out-manly Bear Grylls or even Teddy Rooseveldt, but now, and with the days drawing in, I find myself in a more reflective mood.

So, let me turn up the lamp (but not too far!) and hold forth. I may, on occasion cough into a handkerchief. Do not dwell upon that!

I am, as many of you may have guessed somewhat of a two-sided character. One part of my nature is deeply practical and pragmatic, however I feel that this is something of a camouflage which conceals something of the decadent and the romantic. There is always the backward glance to the fin-de-siecle, the work of Beardsley and Wilde. The bold Cavalier, the dark and liquid eye that gazes calmly back from a Van Dyck.

This mood can be evoked for me by many things. A misty morning. Day-long rain. The way a thin wash of a beautiful yellow buff moulds the supple limbs of a Gilder Cavalier. Oh! The way in which it flows over the cleanly white of the undercoat. The perfect way in which a thin line of darkest brown finishes the shape. One yearns to apply the gloss varnish.

But! Patience! Patience! Consummation will be the sweeter for waiting.

*And I'm going

On an ill wind

That carries me

Here and there,

As if a

Dead leaf.