Præraphaelite diaries and letters

Dante Alighieri · en
... I have got my fresco-ground prepared at last, and brought
  home. My sand and lime is all mixed, and I am only waiting
  for tracing-paper to begin my fresco. In the mean time I have
  finished off the top part of the Cartoon, ready to paint from it.
  I have also finished the Knight and the Lawyer and the Widow, and
  have begun the Father of the Knight. I am getting on, and _so is
  the time_,--I hardly know which the faster.

  I had to go to the Westminster Hall, [and] roll-up my Cartoons,
  as they were clearing the Hall for next exhibition. It took me
  a day’s work nearly; but they are now safely packed up, thank
  goodness, and hid away by Pickham, as I did not know where to
  have them brought to....

  I have just been writing to Manchester about sending _Parisina_
  there, and the wax sketch....

  I will tell you an amusing anecdote. Mrs. Warton, the Model, came
  to sit to Mr. Lucy the other morning; she came while I was gone
  to breakfast. She is rather a pretty girl. When I was there,
  Mr. Lucy left the room a moment, when the girl asked me if Mrs.
  Lucy was jealous of her husband. I said I did not think so--but
  why?--“Why,” says the woman, “while I was waiting for Mr. Lucy
  here this morning, Mrs. Lucy came into the room, and pretended to
  look for a book. And says she, ‘Are you come here to sit for Mr.
  Lucy?’ Says I, ‘I don’t know, I’m sure, which of the gentlemen
  I’m wanted [for],--I believe it is for Mr. Lucy,’ says I. So says
  she, ‘Are you going to sit undressed to him?’ And I answered her,
  ‘I’m sure I don’t know if he wants me to.’ ‘Well,’ says she, ‘I’m
  sure I can’t think how ever a woman can be so nasty undelicant as
  to take off all her things before a man; it’s a filthy disgusting
  thing to do, and I can’t think how they can get any woman to
  do [it]. _I_ wouldn’t’, says she--‘No, that I wouldn’t.’”--Mrs.
  Warton answered her not a word to increase her choler; “so with
  that she flounced out of the room, with her face as red as a
  turkey-cock’s.”

  Mrs. Warton would have it that she was on the tiles, peeping
  down through the skylight; because it rattled with the wind,
  and Mr. Lucy looked up once now and then, and told her it was
  the wind. But nevertheless the story is sure to go unimpaired
  all over London, as Mrs. Warton, being pretty, seemed to derive
  satisfaction from the idea of Mrs. Lucy’s being jealous....

                                 Your affectionate _dear_ Husband,
                                                      FORD M. BROWN.


                              LETTER IV.

                                          [35 Arlington Street.
                                                        May ? 1845.]

  My blessed Lizz,...