I sometimes think that those who haunt the country, without conscious sense of its many beauties, are apt to learn and love its beauties best. How often the memory of a day’s shooting is indissolubly linked with the pattern of a fading autumn sky, when we have stood at the edge of a stubble field wondering whether the growing twilight will suffice for the last drive. And if this is true of other forms of sport, it is everlastingly true of fishing. There is hardly a remembered day on a Scotch loch, or beside a southern stream, which has not stamped upon it some unfading image of landscape beauty. It was not for that we set forth in the morning, for then the changing lights in a dappled sky counted for no more than a promise of good sport; during those earlier hours there is no feeling but a feeling of impatience to be at work; and the splash of a rising trout, before the rod is joined and ready and the line run through its rings, is heard with a sense of half-resentment lest we should have missed the favourable moment of the day. But as the hours pass, the mind becomes more tranquilly attuned to its surroundings. The keenness of the pursuit is still there, but little by little the still spirit of the scene invades our thoughts, and as we tramp home at nightfall the landscape that was unregarded when we set forth upon our adventure now seems to wrap itself like a cloak around us with a spell that it is impossible to resist. A hundred such visions, born of an angler’s wanderings, come back to me across the space of many years. I can see the reeds etched against a sunset sky, as they spring out of a little loch in the hills above the inn at Tummel. And then, with a changing flash of memory, the broad waters of Rannoch are outspread, fringed by its purple hills. And then, again, in a homelier frame, I can see the willows that border the Lea, their yellow leaves turned to gold under the level rays of the evening sun; and I can hear the nightingale in the first notes of its song as I cross the plank bridge that leads me homeward to the cottage by the stream.
INDEX
Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence, [26]-[41]
Barnard, Fred, [217], [218]
Barry, James, [119]
Beauty Stone, the, [251]
Bell, Professor: Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, [167]
Bernhardt, Sarah, [233], [237], [238]
Black, William, [264]
Blake, William, [120]
Bleheris: story of the Holy Grail, [148]
Boaden, James: Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, [167]
Bohemia Past and Present, [1]-[11]
Bough, Sam, [131]
Bret Harte, [215]
Brough, Robert Barnabas, [119]
Brown, Ford Madox, [126]
Brown, Oliver Madox, [52]
Browning, Robert, [12]
Burne-Jones, Edward, [56]-[88];
friendship with Alma-Tadema, [31];
appreciation of Rossetti, [49], [56], [86];
paintings referred to, [60];
friendship with William Morris, [86];
paintings at Roman Exhibition, [127];
Du Maurier’s opinion of, [217]
Caldecott, Randolph, [216]
Clayden, P. W., [164]
Clint, George, [109]
Collins, Henn, [255]
Constable, John, [130]
Coquelin, B. C., [233], [234], [240]
Cotman, John Sell, [131]
Cox, David, [131]
Craven, Hawes, [207]
Crestien de Troyes—story of the Holy Grail, [148]
Crome, John, [131]
Crompton, Charles, [253]
De Hoogh, [33]
Desclée, Mme., [237]
Dickens, Charles, [215]
Du Maurier, George, [216]
Duse, Eleanora, [238]
Dyce, William, [125]
English School of Painting at the Roman Exhibition, [101]-[133]
Etty, William, [120]
Faulkner, Charles, [86]
Faust, Irving’s preparations for, [206]
Fletcher, Charles, [232]
Fletcher, Mr., [164]
Frith, William Powell, [107]
Froude, James Anthony, [264]
Furse, [119]
Fuseli, Johann Caspar, [119]
Gainsborough, Thomas, [113], [114], [115], [129]
Geddes, Andrew, [118]
George Eliot, [142]
Gilbert, Sir William, [247]-[250]
Gregory, E. J., [109]
Haydon, B. R., [119]
Herschel, Sir F., [255]
Hogarth, William, [104]-[106]
Holker, Sir John, [255]-[257]
Holl, Frank, [119]
Hook, [131]
Hoppner, John, [113], [118]
Humour, A Sense of, [213]-[226]
Hunt, Holman, [44], [124];
pre-Raphaelite movement, [43], [50], [121]
Irving, Sir Henry, [199]-[212], [233], [235], [240]
Junior of the Circuit, the, [253]-[263]
Keene, Charles, [216]
Kemble, Mrs., [163]
Kennedy, Mr. Justice, [253], [255]
King Arthur, Mr. Carr’s version of, for Henry Irving, [210];
music for, written by Sir Arthur Sullivan, [247]
Kingsley, Charles, [264]
Lang, Andrew, [264]
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, [118]
Lawson, Cecil, [131]
Leech, John, [216], [217]
Leighton, Sir Frederick, [19], [35], [128], [234];
paintings at Roman Exhibition, [129]
Lewis, John Frederick, [109]
Leyland, Fred, referred to, [52]
Lorraine, Claude, [131]
Macbeth, [162]-[198];
Irving’s reading of, [205]
Maclise, Daniel, [108]
M‘Connell, W. R., [262]
Malory, Sir Thomas, [147]
Mason, [131]
May, Phil, [217]
Meredith, George, [134]-[146]
Mersey, Lord, [255]
Millais, Sir John Everett, [13]-[25], [65];
pre-Raphaelite movement, [43], [50], [121];
paintings referred to, [23], [44], [123];
Rossetti’s praise of, [51];
portrait painting, [119];
paintings at Roman Exhibition, [123];
Du Maurier’s praise of, [217]
Montgomery, Walter, [231]
Morris, William, [86]
Nutt, Alfred: story of the Holy Grail, [150], [160]
Opie, John, [119]
Orchardson, Sir William, [106]
“Parsifal”: origin of legend, etc., [147]-[161]
Pettie, John, [110]
Phelps, Edmund (jun.), [231]
Phelps, Samuel, [230]
Pope, Sam, [255]
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood—aims and achievements of, etc., [5], [42], [50], [55], [120], [125]
Rae, Mr., [45]
Raeburn, Sir Henry, [113], [118]
Ramsay, Allan, [118]
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, [110], [114], [116]
Ristori, Mme., [234]
Roman Exhibition, English school of painting at, [101]-[133]
Romney, George, [113], [117]
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, [42]-[55];
paintings referred to, [46], [122];
praise of Millais, [51];
encouragement and appreciation of Burne-Jones, [56], [57];
pre-Raphaelite movement, [43], [50], [55], [121];
paintings at Roman Exhibition, [122];
Du Maurier’s opinion of, [217]
Ruskin, John, [125]
Russell of Killowen, Lord, [255], [256], [258]
Salvini, Tomaso, [234]
Sandys, Frederick, [119], [126]
Selby, Lord (Mr. Gully), [255]
Sex in Tragedy—Macbeth, [162]-[198], [205]
Shield, Hugh, [262]
Siddons, Mrs.: personation of Lady Macbeth, [166]-[170], [205]
Sitting at a Play, [227]-[241]
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, [242]-[252]
Terriss, William, [202]
Terry, Ellen, [201], [210], [239]
Terry, Kate, [232]
Tissot, Amédée Angelot, referred to, [31]
Toole, J. L., [220]-[226]
Tristram and Iseult, [147]
Trout-fishing, [264]-[277]
Turner, Joseph Mallord William, [131]-[132];
paintings at Roman Exhibition, [131]
Walker, Frederick, [131]
Watts, G. F., [119], [128]
Wauchier: story of the Holy Grail, [148]
Weston, Miss Jessie: story of the Holy Grail, [150], [156]
Whistler, James McNeill, [89]-[100]
Wilkie, Sir David, [106]
Wills, W. G., [206], [210]
Wilson, Richard, [130], [131]
Wolfram von Eschenbach: story of the Holy Grail, [149]
Zoffany, Johann, [109]
THE END
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
KING ARTHUR. A Drama. 8vo. 2s. net; sewed, 1s. net.
A SELECTION OF NEW BOOKS
THE LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, FIRST LORD AVEBURY. By Horace Hutchinson. With Portraits. Two vols. 8vo.
LETTERS FROM AND TO JOSEPH JOACHIM. Selected and Translated by Nora Bickley. With Preface by J. A. Fuller Maitland, M.A. With 8 full-page Plates. 8vo.