RECOLLECTIONS
Chapter I.
Several years ago, when discharging the duties of a clerk in a banking establishment (located in the extreme west of England) in a somewhat listless fashion, one or two associates and myself regularly subscribed for the Illustrated London News. One item contained in a particular issue of that journal remains indelibly engraven upon my mind. Whilst studying its contents on the morning of its arrival, during the ten minutes grace allowed us after the mid-day meal, I recollect seeing a paragraph containing a quotation from a letter which had appeared in a recent number of the Athenæum. This was to the effect that Mr. D. G. Rossetti had not given up oil for water-colour, but that he still practised both. As far as I could then see, the intimation in no way affected me. I was simply attracted by it through the keen interest I felt towards painting, and a yearning long experienced to adopt Art as a profession.
