The Gentle Music of a Bygone Day by John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope (Cannon Hall 1829 – Florence 1908) at Wightwick Manor, West Midlands. Two female figures in a pastoral idealised landscape with hills, trees, river, bridge, one standing, leaning against a tree, on the left, playing a stringed instrument (lute), and the other, singing whilst seated on a fallen tree trunk with music book on her lap.

What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.

~ Walter Pater, 4.