“‘What one learns most by experience is the value of reflected light. I once had a discussion with Gladstone about what was the brightest colour in Nature. He maintained red was: he was perfectly certain, and very determined in his opinion. I said blue was. I told him how, in the evening, when all was mysterious, the red flowers in the garden disappeared, but the blue remained visible. But he was unconvinced. Then I showed him how, in a photograph of a flower-bed, the red flowers remained dead, undetached from the leaves, but the blue flowers were light and visible in all their forms. Then—“Good night, Mr. Eddis,” he said.’
“‘Did you know D’Israeli?’ said Mr. Eddis. ‘No, he must have been before your time, but I used to meet him often. He always struck me as lying in wait for points: to make a point was what he cared for most.
“‘James Croker had much to do with the building of the Athenaeum. They wanted him—the members did—to make an icehouse for them, but he wouldn’t. Afterwards some one found in a waste-paper basket a couplet he had written—
‘My name is James Croker, I’ll do as I please;
You wish for an ice-house, I’ll give you a frieze.’
“‘Sydney Smith did not make at the time all the jokes which were attributed to him: he thought of them afterwards, and circulated them. He told me once, for instance, that Landseer had asked him to sit for his portrait, and that he had answered, “How could I possibly refuse a chance of immortality,” which was perhaps a very natural thing to say. But it was reported afterwards in London, and reported with at least his consent, that he had answered, “Is thy servant a dog, that I should do this thing?”
“‘One of his best real sayings was of Dr. Whewell—“Science is his forte, omniscience his passion.”
“‘Macaulay, it is true, talked incessantly—talked like a machine, but he had his attractive points. I found this out especially when he brought the present Lady Knutsford, as a very little girl, to me to be painted, and talked nonsense to her the whole time, but it was always nonsense which had a lesson in it.
“‘Lady Waterford was the most glorious specimen of womanhood I ever saw. She came in with Lady Canning when I was drawing the Archbishop of Armagh[515]—“the Beauty of Holiness,” as he was called. Lady Canning had the lovelier face and the more beautiful eyes, but Lady Waterford was always the more striking from the grand pose of her head and her majestic mien. In seeing her, one felt as if one looked upon a goddess.’
“This afternoon Victoria took me to see Mr. Watts.[516] A drive through wooded lanes and water-meadows; then the carriage stopped at the foot of a wooded knoll, and we walked up little winding paths through the bracken and Scotch firs to the house—a rustic hermitage. You enter directly upon the principal dwelling apartment—two low rooms, with old carved furniture and deep windows, and much colour and many pictures. The ceiling is in panels, decorated in stucco by Mrs. Watts (née Fraser Tytler). At least she has finished one room, and is going to do the other with an epitome of the religion of all the nations of the earth—‘A work,’ she said, ‘which gives me much study.’
“Soon Mr. Watts came in, like a pilgrim, like a mediaeval hermit-saint, in a brown blouse and slippers, with a skull-cap above his white hair and beard, and his sharp eager features, in which there is also boundless tenderness and refinement. He sat by me on the window-sill, and began at once to talk of Lady Waterford—of her wonderful inspirations, her unrivalled colouring, her utter unconsciousness of self, and her majestic beauty—how, when he first saw her out walking at Blickling, with her grand mien, he could not but exclaim—‘It is Pallas Athene herself!’