We always met every afternoon at a certain place in the grounds, where we talked or some one read aloud.

On these occasions, at Gallait's suggestion, everybody who was so disposed sketched.

My portrait, which he drew for my mother at that time in black and red pencils, is now in my wife's possession.

I also took my sketch-book, for he had seen the school volume I had filled with arabesques just before leaving Keilhau, and I still remember the 'merveilleux and incroyable, inoui, and insense' which he lavished on the certainly extravagant creatures of my love-sick imagination.
During these exercises in drawing he related many incidents of his own life, and never was he more interesting than while describing his first success.
He was the son of a poor widow in the little Belgian town of Tournay.
While a school-boy he greatly enjoyed drawing, and an able teacher perceived his talent.
Once he saw in the newspaper an Antwerp competition for a prize.

A certain subject--if I am not mistaken, Moses drawing water from the rock in the wilderness--was to be executed with pencil or charcoal.