Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

;110 WOTTON REINFEEDthe man, sitting there, thrown negligently backwards,speaking with such vividness and penetration, yet socool, so indifferent ;and there were moments when, hadit not been for a softer gleam, perhaps of sorrow, nowand then blending in the steady fire of those darkeyes, he could almost have fancied him a man moltenout of bronze.In a little while, the gay Isabella had retired toher room, and Walter, who professed an unabatedlove for art, volunteered to attend our two studentsin a farther survey of the gallery.Wotton was againamong his pictures ; his eye still followed that of hisfair instructress ; but the pleasm'e of the lesson wasnow in great part gone.His late growing frankness,checked rudely enough by this rencounter, had givenplace to a certain irksome estrangement, which,indeed, Walter himself by many little attentions,the more artful that they seemed involuntary, wasthe readiest to attempt removing. Walter's feelingof art appeared much more distinct, but also muchcoarser and narrower, than Wotton' s ;you would havesaid he admired inthe picture little more than somereflex of himself. For the still beauty, and meek,graceful significance of Eaphael he expressed no lovebe lingered rather over the scenes of Gaspard Poussinand Salvator, as ifenjoying their savage strength, asifin art in general the superiority of beauty to forcehad not been revealed to him. But what he chieflydwelt on were portraits, by eminent masters, of