tself
tuned to action.

But London, London! I have yet some brief notes to make on London. We
had scarcely any sunlight by which to see pictures, and I postponed
all visits to private collections, except one, in the hope of being in
England next time in the long summer days. In the National Gallery I
saw little except the Murillos; they were so beautiful, that with me,
who had no true conception of his kind of genius before, they took
away the desire to look into anything else at the same time. They
did not affect me much either, except with a sense of content in this
genius, so rich and full and strong. It was a cup of sunny wine that
refreshed but brought no intoxicating visions. There is something
very noble in the genius of Spain, there is such an intensity and
singleness; it seems to me it has not half shown itself, and must have
an important part to play yet in the drama of this planet.

At the Dulwich Gallery I saw the Flower Girl of Murillo, an enchanting
picture, the memory of which must always

"Cast a light upon the day,
A light that will not pass away,
A sweet forewarning."

Who can despair when he thinks of a form like that, so full of life
and bliss! Nature, that made such human forms to match the butterfly
and the bee on June mornings when the lime-trees are in blossom, has
surely enough of happiness in store to satisfy us all, somewhere, some
time.

It was pleasant, indeed, to see the treasures of those galleries, of
the British Museum, and of so charming a place as Hampton Court,
open to everybody. In the National Gallery one finds a throng of
nursery-maids, and men just come from their work; true, they make a
great deal of noise thronging to and fro on the uncarpeted floors
in their thick boots, and noise from which, when penetrated by
the atmosphere of Art, men in the thickest boots would know how to
refrain; still I felt that the sight of such objects must be gradually
doing them a great deal of good. The British Museum would, in itself,
be an education for a man who should go there once a week, and think
and read at his leisure moments about what he saw.

Hampton Court I saw in the gloom, and rain, and my chief recollections
are of the magnificent yew-trees beneath whose shelter--the work
of ages--I took refuge from the pelting shower. The expectations
cherished from childhood about the Cartoons were all baffled; there
was no light by which they could be seen. But I must hope