It was already fading! Within a few years it will be a blur of indistinct outlines.

I compared its condition with the cartoons of Raphael, and a superb Giorgione in the same building; these were as warm and bright as though recently painted.

It is not Leighton's fault that his works are doomed to perish as completely off the canvas as though he had never traced them; it is his dire misfortune, and that of every other nineteenth-century painter, thanks to the magnificent institution of free trade, which has resulted in a vulgar competition of all countries and all classes to see which can most quickly jostle the other out of existence.

But I am wearying you, mademoiselle--pardon me! To resume my own story.

As I told you, I could think of nothing but the one subject of Colour; it haunted me incessantly.