MEN I HAVE PAINTED
only by the occasional whirring of the partridge, and where I lingered in its depths until the last rays of the sun have warned me, by their deep red glow on the bark of leafless trees, that night would overtake me if I did not retrace my paths and seek the protection of humankind. On several different occasions Nature has seemed to reveal to my eyes alone spectacles of entrancing splendour that she would not grant to less discerning faculties, lest her chastity be outraged by imperfect worship; and so I found myself in complete harmony with the sentiments of this great thinker and dreamer of Hindhead.
I lived at "The Hut" near by while I was painting the portrait of Tyndall. One day at dinner a guest at the inn, who was sitting not far from me, on the same side of the table, handed me a glass with a yellow liquid in it, and asked me what it was, saying that he had ordered ginger beer, but that there seemed to be something wrong with it. After a whiff at the glass, I replied that most men would think that there was something right about it, because it was whisky. "Oh my!" he replied, "I'm a teetotaller, and I have drunk nearly all of it; it is a large glass, and it was full." "And that is what you will be, I should think, very shortly," I replied.
Noticing something very familiar in his face, I asked him if he happened to be Dr. Porter, of Philadelphia. "No," he replied, "I have never been to America, but at the same time I know you." "Well," said I, "if you are not Dr. Porter, whom you strangely resemble, I cannot imagine how you can know me." "I have been in your house—Alpha House—to see you about your portrait of Mr. Gladstone. You permitted me, afterwards, to introduce it in a volume of his speeches that I was editing. My name is Hutton."
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