At eleven o'clock I went out into the midst of the fog-bank,
which for the moment seemed a little more interfused with daylight; for
there seem to be continual changes in the density of this dim medium,
which varies so much that now you can but just see your hand before you,
and a moment afterwards you can see the cabs dashing out of the duskiness
a score of yards off. It is seldom or never, moreover, an unmitigated
gloom, but appears to be mixed up with sunshine in different proportions;
sometimes only one part sun to a thousand of smoke and fog, and sometimes
sunshine enough to give the whole mass a coppery line. This would have
been a bright sunny day but for the interference of the fog; and before I
had been out long, I actually saw the sun looking red and rayless, much
like the millionth magnification of a new halfpenny.
I was bound towards Bennoch's; for he had written a note to apologize for
not visiting us, and I had promised to call and see him to-day.
I went to Marlborough House to look at the English pictures, which I care
more about seeing, here in England, than those of foreign artists,
because the latter will be found more numerously and better on the
Continent. I saw many pictures that pleased me; nothing that impressed
me very strongly. Pictorial talent seems to be abundant enough, up to a
certain point; pictorial genius, I should judge, is among the rarest of
gifts. To be sure, I very likely might not recognize it where it
existed; and yet it ought to have the power of making itself known even
to the uninstructed mind, as literary genius does.
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