exhibited at last to my professional eyes. All serious criticism
on the drawings, even if I had been disposed to volunteer it, was
rendered impossible by Miss Halcombe's lively resolution to see
nothing but the ridiculous side of the Fine Arts, as practised by
herself, her sister, and ladies in general. I can remember the
conversation that passed far more easily than the sketches that I
mechanically looked over. That part of the talk, especially, in
which Miss Fairlie took any share, is still as vividly impressed
on my memory as if I had heard it only a few hours ago.

Yes! let me acknowledge that on this first day I let the charm of
her presence lure me from the recollection of myself and my
position. The most trifling of the questions that she put to me,
on the subject of using her pencil and mixing her colours; the
slightest alterations of expression in the lovely eyes that looked
into mine with such an earnest desire to learn all that I could
teach, and to discover all that I could show, attracted more of my
attention than the finest view we passed through, or the grandest
changes of light and shade, as they flowed into each other over
the waving moorland and the level beach. At any time, and under
any circumstances of human interest, is it not strange to see how
little real hold the objects of the natural world amid which we
live can gain on our hearts and minds? We go to Nature for comfort
in trouble, and sympathy in joy, only in books. Admiration of
those beauties of the inanimate world, which modern poetry so
largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of
us, one of the original instincts of our nature. As children, we
none of us possess it. No uninstructed man or woman possesses it.
Those whose lives are most exclusively passed amid the ever-
changing wonders of sea and land are also those who are most