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And then the picture-galleries, the museums, the botanical and zoological gardens of all countries—"Magna sed Apta" had space for them all, even to the Elgin Marbles room of the British Museum, which I added myself.
What enchanted hours have we spent among the pictures and statues of the world, weeding them here and there, perhaps, or hanging them differently, or placing them in what we thought a better light! The "Venus of Milo" showed to far greater advantage in "Magna sed Apta" than at the Louvre.
And when busied thus delightfully at home, and to enhance the delight, we made it shocking bad weather outside; it rained cats and dogs, or else the north wind piped, and snow fell on the desolate gardens of "Magna sed Apta," and whitened the landscape as far as eye could see.
Nearest to our hearts, however, were many pictures of our own time, for we were moderns of the moderns, after all, in spite of our efforts of self-culture.
There was scarcely a living or recently living master in Europe whose best works were not in our possession, so lighted and hung that even the masters themselves would have been content; for we had plenty of space at our command, and each picture had a wall to itself, so toned as to do full justice to its beauty, and a comfortable sofa for two just opposite.
But in the little room we most lived in, the room with the magic window, we had crowded a few special favorites of the English school, for we had so much foreign blood in us that we were more British than John Bull himself—plus royalistes que le Roi.
There was Millais's "Autumn Leaves," his "Youth of Sir Walter Raleigh,"
his "Chill October"; Watts's "Endymion," and "Orpheus and Eurydice";
Burne-Jones's "Chant d'Amour," and his "Laus Veneris"; Alma-Tadema's
"Audience of Agrippa," and the "Women of Amphissa"; J. Whistler's
portrait of his mother; the "Venus and Aesculapius," by E. J. Poynter;
F. Leighton's "Daphnephoria"; George Mason's "Harvest Moon"; and
Frederic Walker's "Harbor of Refuge," and, of course, Merridew's
"Sun-God."
While on a screen, designed by H. S. Marks, and exquisitely decorated round the margin with golden plovers and their eggs (which I adore), were smaller gems in oil and water-color that Mary had fallen in love with at one time or another. The immortal "Moonlight Sonata," by Whistler; E, J. Poynter's exquisite "Our Lady of the Fields" (dated Paris, 1857); a pair of adorable "Bimbi" by V. Prinsep, who seems very fond of children; T. R. Lamont's touching "L'Après Dîner de l'Abbé Constantin," with the sweet girl playing the old spinet; and that admirable work of T. Armstrong, in his earlier and more realistic manner, "Le Zouave et lâ Nounou," not to mention splendid rough sketches by John Leech, Charles Keene, Tenniel, Sambourne, Furniss, Caldecott, etc.; not to mention, also, endless little sketches in silver point of a most impossibly colossal, blackavised, shaggy-coated St. Bernard—signed with the familiar French name of some gay troubadour of the pencil, some stray half-breed like myself, and who seems to have loved his dog as much as I loved mine.
Then suddenly, in the midst of all this unparalleled artistic splendor, we felt that a something was wanting. There was a certain hollowness about it; and we discovered that in our case the principal motives for collecting all these beautiful things were absent.