INTRODUCTION xi 



I believe I have always loved literature and 

 knowledge more than Art, though I had longed to 

 be a painter ever since reading Cunningham's 

 " Life of Blake." How well I remember standing 

 in the old shrubbery one bright warm summer 

 morning, arresting myself under a Portugal laurel 

 in a state of the wildest excitement, and panting, 

 partly from the speed with which I had rushed 

 there from the schoolroom where I had been 

 reading, and partly with intense longing to paint, 

 paint, paint not anything visible in heaven or 

 earth, but my fancies, as Blake did ! I think it 

 was reading that life that made me a painter. 



' Well do I remember, too, the delight of 

 reading some of Scott's works, and also his Life, 

 under that same old Portugal laurel that I called 

 my "Castle" in the days when we each had a 

 tree-castle, from the top of which our flags floated. 

 When I had finished Scott's Life, I put up a chalk 

 monument to him under one of the fir-trees. I 

 did it quite seriously, from a deep feeling of 

 affection and reverence. And I did it secretly ; 

 that was characteristic. Any expression of emo- 

 tion I was always curiously careful to conceal. 

 For this reason 1 buried more than one early 



