Arthur Dixon letters

your Father (Thursday 11.a.m.) he is well. He said I was no stranger for he saw me every day. – Saw your studies, very good. I like them, much. They are really capital. Quite right, good stuff. Strongly & truly (for the most part) drawn. Coloring broad & flat, quite on the principle & full of the qualities I admire. Go on my dearest John, & to the absorbing & powerful interest I feel in your advancement attribute these & excuse them.
Last Sunday, I seemed to make the round of one of our old Norwich Sundays as you say, only without him who made them so enjoyed as that even in retrospect they seem to have a halo of light & a playing warmth about them as though they were not spent on common Earth. – I had thought to read the hours away, & was turned in for the day, that is I had not thought of turning out, when about half past ten (your earliest time) Geldart came, said he intended to stay & dine me, proposed a walk, & not to Thorpe, so our old track, thinking & talking of whom do you guess? Down Bracondale we wended, - through all the scene of our first rencontre with my [fair – crossed out] fat Eliza, & the Lady Elizabeth. Thoughts there strayed, but oh! I might not speak, (& oh! I didn’t want). We had a delightful walk, for though I said you were not there, yet indeed you were, each moment of the way. When we dined, I tempted