THE CASTAWAY. 191 



lips, and wished I had but been in time to have bidden her 

 farewell. Every cause of sorrow that embittered her life seems 

 to have been lessened, as she prepared for death, and the kindly, 

 affectionate feelings she had for all of us were in full force. . . . 

 I remember the thousand kindnesses she showed me, from her 

 earliest days ; the generous presents which afforded a thought- 

 less schoolboy the means of gratifying many an eager desire, 

 and the manifold unnameable favours freely rendered to an 

 often ungracious recipient. The dead are hallowed. To think 

 of them as they lived, is, with me, to think only of their love 

 and their noble qualities ; if the image of faults comes back 

 with their memory to me, it so swiftly reminds me of my un- 

 kindnesses to them, that I dare not, even if I would, think 

 evilly of them. Catherine suffered little before her death ; she 

 retained her intellect unimpaired to the last, and with most 

 steadfast declarations of firm hope in Christ, increasing as death 

 drew near, she sighed away her spirit, and went to be with 

 God. James was desolate and woebegone, but by timely con- 

 versation I have won him to a brighter mood, and he daily 

 grows more cheerful." 



A visit paid within the next fortnight to the Exhibition 

 of Paintings by Living Artists, which each spring enlivens the 

 citizens of Edinburgh, gives rise to impressions communicated 

 in a letter to Daniel, which cannot fail to be read with interest 

 by many : 



" Harvey's picture, ' The Castaway/ is to be engraved. It is 

 a fine picture. I am every day more and more convinced how 

 little judgment, and taste, and knowledge I have about pictures. 

 I only care for what touches my feelings. I am quite dead, 

 from mental dulness, to the dexterities and resources of the art. 

 But this picture influenced me as the ' Titian' in the Louvre did 

 Haydon. I looked over my shoulder, and past Mary's arm, and 

 through the doorway, till my eye fixed on the solitary figure of 

 the helpless sailor, huddled up on some broken spars, arranging 

 his position so as to elevate a fluttering rag as a signal, while 

 his curved hand shaded his eye from the lurid glare of a sun 

 setting in blood. A lean, famished dog standing shivering on 



