which we were going--their idleness and luxury--the large grammar-school
which they were bound by their charter to keep up, and did not--and hints
about private interest in high quarters, through which their wealthy
uselessness had been politely overlooked, when all similar institutions
in the kingdom were subject to the searching examination of a government
commission. Then there were stories of boat-races and gay noblemen,
breakfast parties, and lectures on Greek plays flavoured with a spice of
Cambridge slang, all equally new to me--glimpses into a world of wonders,
which made me feel, as I shambled along at his side, trying to keep step
with his strides, more weakly and awkward and ignorant than ever.

We entered the gallery. I was in a fever of expectation.

The rich sombre light of the rooms, the rich heavy warmth of the
stove-heated air, the brilliant and varied colouring and gilded frames
which embroidered the walls, the hushed earnestness of a few artists,
who were copying, and the few visitors who were lounging from picture to
picture, struck me at once with mysterious awe. But my attention was in a
moment concentrated on one figure opposite to me at the furthest end. I
hurried straight towards it. When I had got half-way up the gallery I
looked round for my cousin. He had turned aside to some picture of a Venus
which caught my eye also, but which, I remember now, only raised in me then
a shudder and a blush, and a fancy that the clergymen must be really as
bad as my mother had taught me to believe, if they could allow in their
galleries pictures of undressed women. I have learnt to view such things
differently now, thank God. I have learnt that to the pure all things are
pure. I have learnt the meaning of that great saying--the foundation of all
art, as well as all modesty, all love, which tells us how "the man and his
wife were both naked, and not ashamed." But this book is the history of my
mental growth; and my mistakes as well as my discoveries are steps in that