Identifier: autobiographical02scot (find matches)
Title: Autobiographical notes of the life of William Bell Scott : and notices of his artistic and poetic circle of friends, 1830 to 1882
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Scott, William Bell, 1811-1890 Minto, William, 1845-1893
Subjects: Scott, William Bell, 1811-1890 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882 Poets, English -- 19th century Painters -- Great Britain
Publisher: London : Osgood, McIlvaine
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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to truth the cleverguessing of the practised thought-reader by theexpression of the countenance. Every card-sharperhas this faculty, showing him how far he may go ;and every successful schemer and man of law orbusiness, with or without his consciousness of anyimpropriety, works by the same means. It wasat best guessing nearly right while the first clueguided, and then farther and farther wrong. Read-ing the expression is the art, and I believe w^omenwho are not usually troubled by logic and habitsof ratiocination are quicker than men in it. MissBoyd and I have a game at bezique every evening,and I have found her a hundred times tell me whatcard I had drawn, simply by looking at me. Youhave got a good card this time, I see! I believe itis the king—yes, the king, not the ace! and soit has been. The death of Spencer left his sister well dis-posed to carry out his pious work of re-edifyingthe old house, and she did so by proposing that Ishould paint with some pictorial history the great
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na Tjyiriiiiir Eoikes jZe^z^^^ ^^2i4^^ <^^^<f^v VI WALL-PAINTING OF PENKILL STAIRCASE 83 circular staircase which her brother had built. Iselected as my subject a series of scenes fromthe lovely story of The Kings Quair, the poemwritten by King James the First of Scotland atthe end of his imprisonment at Windsor. Thiswork, executed on the wall with oil pigments, themedium being wax dissolved in turpentine, en-caustic in short, occupied me three or four monthsin each year, beginning in 1S65 and ending 1868.The wall was three feet thick, and therefore takingvery long to be free either of damp or of thecorrosive quality of the lime, I had begun uponit rather too soon, occasioning some repainting,but I found this species of encaustic was almostperfect; most probably the pictures will now re-main without further change. Before determining: on this method of wall-painting, the water-glass being then in successfuluse by Kaulbach in Germany, and as it appearedadmirable in the hands of M

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