quite satisfactory."

FOOTNOTES:

[90] "I began this letter, my dear friend" (he wrote it from Venice on
Tuesday night the 12th of November), "with the intention of describing
my travels as I went on. But I have seen so much, and travelled so hard
(seldom dining, and being almost always up by candle light), that I must
reserve my crayons for the greater leisure of the Peschiere after we
have met, and I have again returned to it. As soon as I have fixed a
place in my mind, I bolt--at such strange seasons and at such unexpected
angles, that the brave C stares again. But in this way, and by insisting
on having everything shewn to me whether or no, and against all
precedents and orders of proceeding, I get on wonderfully." Two days
before he had written to me from Ferrara, after the very pretty
description of the vineyards between Piacenza and Parma which will be
found in the _Pictures from Italy_ (pp. 203-4): "If you want an antidote
to this, I may observe that I got up, this moment, to fasten the window;
and the street looked as like some byeway in Whitechapel--or--I look
again--like Wych Street, down by the little barber's shop on the same
side of the way as Holywell Street--or--I look again--as like Holywell
Street itself--as ever street was like to street, or ever will be, in
this world."

[91] Four months later, after he had seen the galleries at Rome and the
other great cities, he sent me a remark which has since had eloquent
reinforcement from critics of undeniable authority. "The most famous of
the oil paintings in the Vatican you know through the medium of the
finest line-engravings in the world; and as to some of them I much
doubt, if you had seen them with me, whether you might not think you had
lost little in having only known them hitherto in that translation.
Where the drawing is poor and meagre, or alloyed by time,--it is so, and
it must be, often; though no doubt it is a heresy to hint at such a
thing--the engraving presents the forms and the idea to you, in a simple
majesty which such defects impair. Where this is not the case, and all
is stately and harmonious, still it is somehow in the very grain and
nature of a delicate engraving to suggest to you (I think) the utmost
delicacy, finish, and refinement, as belonging to the original.
Therefore, though the Picture in this latter case will greatly charm and
interest you, it does not take you by surprise. You are quite prepared
beforehand for the fullest