ichmonds held themselves
responsible to him for my at least moderately decent orthodoxy in art,
taking in that matter a tenderly inquisitorial function, and warning my
father solemnly of two dangerous heresies in the bud, and of things
really passing the possibilities of the indulgence of the Church, said
against Claude or Michael Angelo. The death of Turner and other things,
far more sad than death, clouded those early days, but the memory of
them returned again after I had well won my second victory with the
"Stones of Venice"; and the two Mr. Richmonds, and Mr. Harrison, and my
father, were again happy on my birthday, and so to the end.

10. In a far deeper sense than he himself knew, Mr. Harrison was all
this time influencing my thoughts and opinions, by the entire
consistency, contentment, and practical sense of his modest life. My
father and he were both flawless types of the true London citizen of
olden days: incorruptible, proud with sacred and simple pride, happy in
their function and position; putting daily their total energy into the
detail of their business duties, and finding daily a refined and perfect
pleasure in the hearth-side poetry of domestic life. Both of them, in
their hearts, as romantic as girls; both of them inflexible as soldier
recruits in any matter of probity and honor, in business or out of it;
both of them utterly hating radical newspapers, and devoted to the House
of Lords; my father only, it seemed to me, slightly failing in his
loyalty to the Worshipful the Mayor and Corporation of London. This
disrespect for civic dignity was connected in my father with some little
gnawing of discomfort--deep down in his heart--in his own position as a
merchant, and with timidly indulged hope that his son might one day move
in higher spheres; whereas Mr. Harrison was entirely placid and resigned
to the will of Providence which had appointed him his desk in the Crown
Life Office, never in his most romantic visions projected a marriage for
any of his daughters with a British baronet or a German count, and
pinned his little vanities prettily and openly on his breast, like a
nosegay, when he went out to dinner. Most especially he shone at the
Literary Fund, where he was Registrar and had proper official relations,
therefore, always with the Chairman, Lord Mahon, or Lord Houghton, or
the Bishop of Winchester, or some other magnificent person of that sort,
with whom it was Mr. Harrison's supremest felicity to