noon
`` That is not saying much . Your pleasures , by your own account , have been few ; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist 's dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints . Did you sit at them long each day ? '' `` I had nothing else to do , because it was the vacation , and I sat at them from morning till noon , and from noon till night : the length of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply . '' `` And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours ? '' `` Far from it . I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork : in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise . ''