s. All serious criticism on the drawings, even if I
had been disposed to volunteer it, was rendered impossible by Miss
Halcombe's lively resolution to see nothing but the ridiculous side of
the Fine Arts, as practised by herself, her sister, and ladies in
general. I can remember the conversation that passed far more easily
than the sketches that I mechanically looked over. That part of the
talk, especially, in which Miss Fairlie took any share, is still as
vividly impressed on my memory as if I had heard it only a few hours
ago.

Yes! let me acknowledge that on this first day I let the charm of her
presence lure me from the recollection of myself and my position. The
most trifling of the questions that she put to me, on the subject of
using her pencil and mixing her colours; the slightest alterations of
expression in the lovely eyes that looked into mine with such an
earnest desire to learn all that I could teach, and to discover all
that I could show, attracted more of my attention than the finest view
we passed through, or the grandest changes of light and shade, as they
flowed into each other over the waving moorland and the level beach.
At any time, and under any circumstances of human interest, is it not
strange to see how little real hold the objects of the natural world
amid which we live can gain on our hearts and minds? We go to Nature
for comfort in trouble, and sympathy in joy, only in books. Admiration
of those beauties of the inanimate world, which modern poetry so
largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of us,
one of the original instincts of our nature. As children, we none of
us possess it. No uninstructed man or woman possesses it. Those whose
lives are most exclusively passed amid the ever-changing wonders of sea
and land are also those who are most universally insensible to every
aspect of Nature not directly associated with the human interest of
their calling. Our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth
we live on is, in truth, one of the civilised accomplishments which we
all learn as an Art; and, more, that very capacity is rarely practised
by any of us except when our minds are most indolent and most
unoccupied. How much share have the attractions of Nature ever had in
the pleasurable or painful interests and emotions of ourselves or our
friends? What space do they ever occupy in the thousand little
narratives of personal experience which pass every day by