My invention and machinery, by the way, these warm-hearted people believe to be something after the fashion of their own sluice-boxes—and I dare not undeceive them.
Atlas, je te la souhaite bonne et heureuse!
St. Ives, Cornwall,
Dec. 27.
The Easy Expert
Atlas—They have sent me the Spectator—a paper upon which our late 'Arry lingered to the last as art critic. In its columns I find a correspondent calling aloud for our kind intervention. Present me, brave Atlas, to the editor, that I may say to him:
The World, Jan. 30, 1884.
"Good sir,—'Your Reviewer' is doubtless my unburied 'Arry. Why, then, should 'his mistaking a photogravure reproduction of a pen-and-ink drawing by Samuel Palmer for a finished etching by the same hand' seem, 'to say the least of it, astounding'?
"Not at all! By this sort of thing was he known among us, poor chap—and so was he our fresh gladness and continued surprise."
"Did I not make historical his enchanting encounter with Mr. Herkomer's water-colour drawing of Mr. Ruskin at the Grosvenor, which he described as the 'first oil portrait we have of the great master'? Amazing that, if you like!