It was a cup of sunny wine that refreshed but brought no intoxicating visions.

There is something very noble in the genius of Spain, there is such an intensity and singleness; it seems to me it has not half shown itself, and must have an important part to play yet in the drama of this planet.
At the Dulwich Gallery I saw the Flower Girl of Murillo, an enchanting picture, the memory of which must always "Cast a light upon the day, A light that will not pass away, A sweet forewarning." Who can despair when he thinks of a form like that, so full of life and bliss! Nature, that made such human forms to match the butterfly and the bee on June mornings when the lime-trees are in blossom, has surely enough of happiness in store to satisfy us all, somewhere, some time.
It was pleasant, indeed, to see the treasures of those galleries, of the British Museum, and of so charming a place as Hampton Court, open to everybody.

In the National Gallery one finds a throng of nursery-maids, and men just come from their work; true, they make a great deal of noise thronging to and fro on the uncarpeted floors in their thick boots, and noise from which, when penetrated by the atmosphere of Art, men in the thickest boots would know how to refrain; still I felt that the sight of such objects must be gradually doing them a great deal of good.

The British Museum would, in itself, be an education for a man who should go there once a week, and think and read at his leisure moments about what he saw.
Hampton Court I saw in the gloom, and rain, and my chief recollections are of the magnificent yew-trees beneath whose shelter--the work of ages--I took refuge from the pelting shower.

The expectations cherished from childhood about the Cartoons were all baffled; there was no light by which they could be seen.