Yours is red as a lobster. Mais il parait qu'il etait rouge comme un
homard.' Sir Charles himself wrote: 'It is Gambetta as he lives and
moves and has his being. What more can I ask for or expect?' He always
predicted that its painter, whose merit had never in his opinion been
adequately recognized, would after death come to his due place.

The rooms had been lined with the grandfather's books, but soon after he
came into possession Sir Charles disposed of them. He had a strong
belief in keeping round him only the necessary tools for his work, and a
large library was an encumbrance to him. But sentiment was strong, and
for some time they remained, till a comment of George Odger's sealed
their fate. Looking round the shelves, he remarked with wonderment on
the number of the books and the wisdom of the friend who had read them
all. Sir Charles, conscious that he had not done so, and that he never
should lead the life of a purely literary man, gave away the more
valuable, and sold the rest of the collection. Lord Carlingford profited
by the Junius papers; Mr. John Murray by the Pope manuscripts; the
British Museum by the Caryll papers; and pictures took the place of
shelves. [Footnote: See Chapter XI. (Vol. I., pp. 161, 162).]

A number of fine old prints after Raphael were there, and also a
photograph of the head of Fortune in Burne-Jones's 'Wheel.' Sir Charles
had commissioned Burne-Jones to paint a head of Fortune, and the
correspondence on the subject was sufficiently complete to suggest that
the commission had been executed, though as a fact it was never carried
out. Sir Charles, who knew something of the difficulty of tracing and
attributing pictures, used to declare laughingly that the correspondence
might go far to mislead some critic of the future into search after a
non-existent original. Anyway, the beautiful head with its closed eyes
hung there always, presiding over the varying fortunes of the last