"This is certainly the millennium of the Smiths." ***** " I was at the Academy on Tuesday (in 1866) for five hours. There is one little painting of a bough of apple-blossom that would alone be worth going for. The exquisite freshness of the picture seems absolutely to pervade the room ; but the gem of the whole collection, I think, is Noel Paton's ' Mors Janua Vitse,' for thought, and poetry, and power.
" The story is told in an extract from 'The good Fight,' but this is scarcely needed ; every detail is so eloquent. The Christian knight, led by an unseen presence along his dark and untortuous way, his triumph laid aside in the jewelled sword which he leaves behind ; his dead hopes lying beneath his feet as withered leaves ; his armour bright, only because it will not take a stain ; so through conflict, and darkness, and pain, he presses on, till the supreme moment comes. Then the shadowy angel lays her hand on his shoulder with the touch of death, and with the agony comes the ecstacy ; the veil is drawn back, a glory of light shines in from heaven. The shadow is seen to be an angel ; Death is swallowed up in Life. This is the moment of the picture ; a climax so extreme that the slightest failure anywhere would be terribly disappointing, but there is none.
"The face and figure of the knight seem perfect, and the angel is the only angel I ever saw who was neither a pale negation nor a sensuous woman. The way in which the artist contrives to give the joyful brightness of her colouring, and yet keep her perfectly spiritual, is something wonderful." ***** "What a dreadful piece of bosh that is 'an honest man's the noblest work of God ! ' To say nothing of the angels — a good woman is infinitely higher— not than a good man though ; so there we come back again."
