all loveliness, and drink it in, simply and earnestly, with all your
eyes; it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing.

Therefore I said that picture-galleries should be the townsman's paradise
of refreshment. Of course, if he can get the real air, the real trees,
even for an hour, let him take it, in God's name; but how many a man who
cannot spare time for a daily country walk, may well slip into the
National Gallery in Trafalgar Square (or the South Kensington Museum), or
any other collection of pictures, for ten minutes. _That_ garden, at
least, flowers as gaily in winter as in summer. Those noble faces on the
wall are never disfigured by grief or passion. There, in the space of a
single room, the townsman may take his country walk--a walk beneath
mountain peaks, blushing sunsets, with broad woodlands spreading out
below it; a walk through green meadows, under cool mellow shades, and
overhanging rocks, by rushing brooks, where he watches and watches till
he seems to _hear_ the foam whisper, and to _see_ the fishes leap; and
his hard worn heart wanders out free, beyond the grim city-world of stone
and iron, smoky chimneys, and roaring wheels, into the world of beautiful
things--_the world which shall be hereafter_--ay, which shall be! Believe
it, toil-worn worker, in spite of thy foul alley, thy crowded lodging,
thy grimed clothing, thy ill-fed children, thy thin, pale wife--believe
it, thou too and thine, will some day have _your_ share of beauty. God
made you love beautiful things only because He intends hereafter to give
you your fill of them. That pictured face on the wall is lovely, but
lovelier still may the wife of thy bosom be when she meets thee on the
resurrection morn! Those baby cherubs in the old Italian painting--how
gracefully they flutter and sport among the soft clouds, full of rich
young life and baby joy! Yes, beautiful indeed, but just such a one at
this very moment is that once pining, deformed child of thine, over whose
death-cradle thou wast weeping a month ago; now a child-angel, whom thou
shalt meet again never to part! Those landscapes, too, painted by
loving, wise old Claude, two hundred years ago, are still as fresh as
ever. How still the meadows are! how pure and free that vault of deep
blue sky! No wonder that thy worn heart, as thou lookest, sighs aloud,
"Oh that I had wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest."
Ah, but gayer meadows and bluer skies await thee in