One or two of the ladies present at Dr. ------'s little party
seemed to be mediums.
I have made several visits to the picture-galleries since my last date;
and I think it fair towards my own powers of appreciation to record that
I begin to appreciate Turner's pictures rather better than at first. Not
that I have anything to recant as respects those strange, white-grounded
performances in the chambers at the Marlborough House; but some of his
happier productions (a large landscape illustrative of Childe Harold, for
instance) seem to me to have more magic in them than any other pictures.
I admire, too, that misty, morning landscape in the National Gallery;
and, no doubt, his very monstrosities are such as only he could have
painted, and may have an infinite value for those who can appreciate the
genius in them.
The shops in London begin to show some tokens of approaching Christmas;
especially the toy-shops, and the confectioners',--the latter ornamenting
their windows with a profusion of bonbons and all manner of pygmy figures
in sugar; the former exhibiting Christmas-trees, hung with rich and gaudy
fruit. At the butchers' shops, there is a great display of fat
carcasses, and an abundance of game at the poulterers'. We think of
going to the Crystal Palace to spend the festival day, and eat our
Christmas dinner; but, do what we may, we shall have no home feeling or
fireside enjoyment. I am weary, weary of London and of England, and can
judge now how the old Loyalists must have felt, condemned to pine out
their lives here, when the Revolution had robbed them of their native
country.
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