But perhaps if the truth were known
his two hours was not quite two hours.
Returning to Mr Pontifex, whether he liked what he believed to be the
masterpieces of Greek and Italian art or no he brought back some copies
by Italian artists, which I have no doubt he satisfied himself would bear
the strictest examination with the originals. Two of these copies fell
to Theobald's share on the division of his father's furniture, and I have
often seen them at Battersby on my visits to Theobald and his wife. The
one was a Madonna by Sassoferrato with a blue hood over her head which
threw it half into shadow. The other was a Magdalen by Carlo Dolci with
a very fine head of hair and a marble vase in her hands. When I was a
young man I used to think these pictures were beautiful, but with each
successive visit to Battersby I got to dislike them more and more and to
see "George Pontifex" written all over both of them. In the end I
ventured after a tentative fashion to blow on them a little, but Theobald
and his wife were up in arms at once. They did not like their father and
father-in-law, but there could be no question about his power and general
ability, nor about his having been a man of consummate taste both in
literature and art--indeed the diary he kept during his foreign tour was
enough to prove this.
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