Holman Hunt

Upon a wintry afternoon in London, in the year 1834, a little boy of six years old was standing on the stairs of a poor artist’s house, watching, through a window in the wall, the marvellous deeds of the man within. The man within was painting the “Burning of the Houses of Parliament. ” Scarlet and gold! Scarlet and gold! He used them up so quickly that he had to grind and prepare more and more. The warehouse was a mysterious place full of laughter and talk by day; empty, silent, and vast at night when the master went over it with a bull’s-eye lantern. A funny man called Henry Pinchers busied himself with velvet binding on the third floor. The jests of Henry Pinchers were of infinite charm.