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important to Ned; since his nude Phyllis and Demophöon had been removed in an uproar from the Old Water Colour Society exhibition seven years ago he had scarcely been able to show anywhere. Now he was given a single gallery room to himself, save for a few pieces by that odd American-French chap Whistler. The crowd was thicker here, more viewers in fact than in any other room, which irked him for his own sake but made him happy for his friend. The centre piece of Burne-Jones’ work was the six-panel Days of Creation, each panel presenting a life-size angel bearing a luminous globe in which was depicted the work of God’s hand for that day. He felt the tension draining from his body as he stood before Ned’s angels, placidly presenting the handiwork of the Creator. Fiat lux. Their round eyes and finely drawn lips belonged to neither man nor woman, rollicking putti nor sword-bearing archangel; and their manifest and yet neutral beauty made gazing upon them almost an salvific activity in itself. Surely these were what seraphim, if they possessed any corporality whatsoever, would resemble, an unknown and impossible mixed sex, lacking all carnality but combining the physical perfection of an idealized youth and maiden. All of Burne-Jones’ figures, be they kings or angels, were thus. All possessed a natural elegance of expression in their solemn but not sorrowing faces; and if the torsos and legs were unnaturally attenuated, well, it was the artist’s ideal scotching Truth, and if anything was to attempt to scotch Truth, if had better be a well-conceived and executed ideal. He was wearied now, and nearly sleepy. He had not slept well in months. But there was more of Ned to see, the Merlin. The Beguiling of Merlin, Ned called it, with the old and unwise sorcerer sinking to the earth amongst a fall of blossoms under the charms of the unscrupulous enchantress Nimuë. Both figures were swathed in dusky draperies, and Nimuë bore the strikingly beautiful face and form of Maria Zambuco, who Ned had made such a fool of himself over. The eyes of victim and prey were locked, Merlin’s long-fingered hands powerless to rise against the female to whom he had lost his heart. His robes were midnight blue, with a sash fallen away from his neck to reveal the vulnerability of his throat. How terrible was love! Ruskin looked at his haggard face, the dark-rimmed eyes suffering under the pitiless gaze of the temptress he had succumbed to. Merlin, the great adapt of Arthur’s fabled court, wise man and magician and sage. Stricken, stricken. He roused himself, turned from this to face the end wall. The Whistlers hung there, six or eight of them, but he had turned so as to be directly in line of one, and did not move. It was dark, very much so, of an indistinct blackish green. A golden sprinkling of dots and smears, bright as phosphorescence, ran down one side and dropped into a void of blackness. They were specks of fire falling through an impenetrable murk, vaguely illuminating some unknown or unspeakable terror. Sparks of destruction glittering in an unholy night. There was a foulness to it, something innately unwholesome, like the worst of the plague winds darkening the skies of modern Britain. Ruskin felt held in place by the very sense of revulsion that urged him to look away. He pulled out his programme. James McNeill Whistler. Nocturne in Black and Gold. Ruskin exhaled sharply, and