ch. iv. J REMINISCENCES. 83 



biography and a book of travels. He did not often read 

 out-of-the-way or old standard books, but generally kept to 

 the books of the day obtained from a circulating library. 



His literary tastes and opinions were not on a level with 

 the rest of his mind. He himself, though he was clear as 

 to what he thought good, considered that in matters of 

 literary tastes he was quite outside the pale, and often spoke 

 of what those within it liked or disliked, as if they formed 

 a class to which he had no claim to belong. 



In all matters of art he was inclined to laugh at pro- 

 fessed critics and say that their opinions were formed by 

 fashion. Thus in painting, he would say how in his day 

 every one admired masters who are now neglected. His 

 love of pictures as a young man is almost a proof that he 

 must have had an appreciation of a portrait as a work of 

 art, not as a likeness. Yet he often talked laughingly of 

 the small worth of portraits, and said that a photograph 

 was worth any number of pictures, as if he were blind to 

 the artistic quality in a painted portrait. But this was 

 generally said in his attempts to persuade us to give up the 

 idea of having his portrait painted, an operation very irk- 

 some to him. 



This way of looking at himself as an ignoramus in all 

 matters of art, was strengthened by the absence of pretence, 

 which was part of his character. With regard to questions 

 of taste, as well as to more serious things he had the 

 courage of his opinions. I remember, however, an instance 

 that sounds like a contradiction to this : when he was look- 

 ing at the Turners in Mr. Ruskin's bedroom, he did not con- 

 fess, as he did afterwards, that he could make out absolutely 

 nothing of what Mr. Ruskin saw in them. But this little 

 pretence was not for his own sake, but for the sake of 

 courtesy to his host. He was pleased and amused when 

 subsequently Mr. Ruskin brought him some photographs 

 of pictures (I think Vandyke portraits), and courteously 

 seemed to value my father's opinion about them. 



Much of his scientific reading was in German, and this 

 was a serious labour to him ; in reading a book after him, I 

 was often struck at seeing, from the pencil-marks made 

 each day where he left off, how little he could read at a 

 time. He used to call German the " Verdammte," pro- 

 nounced as if in English. He was especially indignant 

 with Germans, because he was convinced that they could 

 write simply if they chose, and often praised Professor 



