ks are now to be found enshrined in
some of the noblest public and private collections both at home and
abroad.

He was a tall and singularly handsome man; with clear grey eyes, and a
stern resolute-looking mouth shadowed by a heavy moustache which, like
his short curly hair and carefully trimmed beard, was of a pale golden
tint.

My mother died in giving me birth; and this, together with the fact that
she was a native of Italy, was all I, for some years, knew concerning
her.

One of the earliest impressions made upon my infant mind--for I cannot
recall the time when I was free from it--was that my parents suffered
great unhappiness during the latter part of their short married life;
unhappiness resulting from some terrible mistake on the part of one or
the other of them; which mistake was never explained and rectified--if
explanation and rectification were indeed possible--during my mother's
lifetime.

Having received this impression at so very early an age, I cannot, of
course, say with certainty whence I derived it; but I am inclined to
attribute it chiefly to the singularity of my father's conduct toward
myself.

I was his only child.

He was a man to whom solitude and retirement appeared to be the chief
essentials of existence. Though living in London, he very rarely
mingled in society, yet I have since heard that he always met with a
most cordial welcome when he did so--and it was seldom indeed that his
studio doors unfolded to admit anyone but their master. If he went into
the country, as of course was often the case, in search of subjects, he
never by any chance happened to be going in the same direction as any of
his brethren of the brush; his destination was invariably some wild
spot, unfrequented--possibly even unknown--alike by painter and tourist.
And there--if undisturbed--he would remain, diligently working all day
in the open air during favourable weather; and, when the elements were
unpropitious for work, taking long walks over solitary heaths and
desolate mountain sides, or along the lonely shore. And when the first
snows of winter came, reminding him that it was time to turn his face
homeward once more, he would pack up his paraphernalia and return to
town, laden with studies of skies and seas, of barren moorland, rocky
crag, and foaming mountain torrent which provoked alike the envy and the
admiration of his brother artists.

It will naturally be supposed that, to a man of such solitary