PICTURES. 



103 



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 professed 

 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 pict- 

 ures 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 like- 

 ness. 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 irksome 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 always 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 cour- 

 tesy to his host. He was pleased and amused when subse- 

 quently Mr. Ruskin brought him some photographs of pict- 

 ures (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 great 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," pronounced 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 Dr. F. Hildebrand for writing German 

 which was as clear as French. He sometimes gave a German 



