A DAY IN LONDON 293 



avoiding what we do not like -when not able to fix our 

 eyes on what we do, which is the acquired knack of the 

 habitual haunter of galleries and exhibitions, and sit down 

 quietly to study Mr. Abbey's most remarkable picture of 

 Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the Lady Anne. 



Was ever woman in this humour woo'd ? 

 Was ever woman in this humour won ? 



And the more we looked, the more we studied, the 

 more remarkable the picture appeared to us. The young, 

 angry, and yet wicked face under the strange headdress, 

 the nervous clasp of the left hand, while the right seizes 

 the black veil, true to the instinct of some women, who, 

 in the moment of their greatest joy or deepest grief, 

 never forget their clothes! Eichard, with his winning 

 courtesy and the bow which conceals the defects of his 

 figure, in his red clothes, is a strange contrast to that 

 other figure which we know, rather than see, lies stiff and 

 cold behind the guards. Historically, perhaps, Richard 

 looks a little old, as he was but thirty-five when killed on 

 Bosworth field. The guards, the crowd, the varied ex- 

 pressions fading actually away into the canvas, are very 

 fine. The painting reminds one of the old Germans, and 

 yet is entirely original. Is it not indeed in Art what 

 'Esmond' is in literature an old story told in an old 

 manner, and yet without absolute mimicry of anything ? 



And so the two old friends of forty years wandered on 

 and began to get tired, when we met an acquaintance, 

 and she said, ' Have you seen the picture that Mr. Watts 

 in his generosity says is better painted than anything he 

 ever did?' 'No, where is it? What is it?' '"The 

 Leper's Wife," by George Harcourt, in the eleventh room.' 

 And so on we went with renewed strength into this 

 honoured eleventh room, and stood before one of the most 

 dramatic and moving of modern pictures A splendid 



