3 J 6 Watts' Good Sayings [1899 



Lady de Vesci. The handsomest head he had ever painted was Sir 

 Henry Taylor's, but his best man's portrait he considers to be Burne- 

 Jones', his best woman's portrait, Madeline Wyndham's. He 

 sets greater store, however, on his allegorical subjects than on his 

 portraits. 



' nth March. — To Limnerslease again, having slept the night at 

 Milford. To-day we talked much on the subject of the destruction of 

 the weak races by the strong, and, like so many people nowadays, 

 while deploring it Watts excused it as inevitable, a law of nature and 

 the fulfilment of destiny. I thought he must have been talking about 

 this to Gerald Balfour, whose portrait he has just been painting, but 

 he told me how he had hardly had any conversation with Gerald dur- 

 ing their sittings. With me he has talked uninterruptedly, sometimes 

 leaving his work for five minutes altogether to explain and illustrate 

 his arguments. Two of his illustrations I remember. Speaking of the 

 ritualistic controversy and the necessity of ceremony in all religions, 

 ' Ceremony,' he said, ' is the substance of religious belief, it is what 

 outline is in a picture, it ought not to be required, indeed it does not 

 exist in nature, but it is often impossible to understand what is meant 

 without it.' This seemed to me a particularly good illustration. Again, 

 speaking of the part reason plays in our religious ideas, ' Here,' he said, 

 pointing to his forefinger, ' is sentiment, here is faith, here is charity, 

 here is hope, all four fingers stand together on more or less equal terms, 

 yet they can grasp nothing without this,' bending down his thumb, 

 ' which is reason.' He was intensely pleased when I applauded and 

 said he had always thought it good. 



" 12th March (Sunday). — At Newbuildings, gathering the first 

 spring flowers, which I am going to colour in my Gerarde's Herbal, 

 the one bought at Morris's Sale. 



" I have concluded the purchase of Fernycroft in the New Forest 

 from Lord Montagu, 31 acres of woodland. It formed part of the 

 hereditary lands of Beaulieu Abbey, an outlying croft where the monks 

 kept their cows. 



"14th March. — Entertained York Powell with others at dinner. 

 I have known him since 1863, when he was a boy, and I a quite young 

 man, travelling in the Pyrenees, but we have hardly met since, though 

 in correspondence now and then on literary and political subjects, where 

 we mostly agree. He was made Professor of History at Oxford, some 

 years ago, and is a good fellow, with a larger mind than Dons usually 

 possess. 



" lyth March. — Again at Limnerslease. Mrs. Watts took me to 

 see Mrs. Hichens' house close by, where there is a portrait of old 

 Prinsep, the finest Watts ever did. Indeed, I think it almost the 

 finest portrait ever painted in England. The house is set under a chalk 



