On the occasion of my first visit to Cheyne Walk, it was indeed the breadth of his sympathy both in literature and art, no less than the fineness and delicacy of his taste, that most impressed me. Those never-to-be-forgotten evenings that I passed in his company became at the time a sort of enchantment. His talk was assuredly more inspiring than that of any man I have ever known; most inspiring certainly to a youth who had ambitions of his own, for, although intolerant of any utterance that was merely conventional, and quick to detect the smallest lack of sincerity, he was ever patient with the expression of any enthusiasm however crude, and was as ready to listen as to reply. I can see him now as he used to lie coiled up on the sofa in his studio after dinner, and can hear the deep tones of his rich voice as he ranged widely over the fields of literature and art, always trenchant, always earnest, yet now and again slipping with sudden wit and humour into a lighter vein. I remember that one afternoon as I sat beside him while he worked, the late Mr. Virtue Tebbs came in fresh from an exhibition of the old masters at Burlington House, and full of enthusiasm for a picture by Turner which he insisted that Rossetti must speedily go and see. “What is it called?” asked Rossetti. “‘Girls Surprised while Bathing,’” replied Tebbs. “Umph!” returned Rossetti. “Yes, I should think devilish surprised to see what Turner had made of them.” On one point he was always absolutely emphatic. “A picture,” he used to say to me, “is a painted poem, and those who deny it have simply no poetry in their nature.” It was, I think, the absence of this quality that made him intolerant of the work of artists like Albert Moore. “Often pretty,” he said, “pretty enough, but sublimated café-painting and nothing more.” But he could be unstintedly generous in his praise, as he was searching and even scathing in his criticism. Of Millais he once said to me: “I don’t believe since painting began there has ever been a man more greatly endowed with the mere painter’s power.” And of Burne-Jones, not once, but often, he spoke in terms of the warmest and highest praise. “He has oceans of imagination,” he used to say, “and in this respect there has been nobody like him since Botticelli.” And then, reverting to his favourite maxim, he added in those round and ringing tones that seemed at once to invite and to defy contradiction: “If, as I hold, the noblest picture is a painted poem, then I say that in the whole history of art there has never been a painter more greatly gifted with poetic invention.” Of Leighton he was wont to speak with genuine respect and sincere appreciation. There was only one point, and that concerned not the character but the manners of the graceful and accomplished President, on which he was not quite tolerant.