four o'clock
Music and painting have always meant much to me ; here I can enjoy them only in memory . Of course there is the discomfort of concert-hall and exhibition-rooms . My pleasure in the finest music would be greatly spoilt by having to sit amid a crowd , with some idiot audible on right hand or left , and the show of pictures would give me a headache in the first quarter of an hour . _ Non sum qualis eram _ when I waited several hours at the gallery door to hear Patti , and knew not a moment 's fatigue to the end of the concert ; or when , at the Academy , I was astonished to find that it was four o'clock , and I had forgotten food since breakfast . The truth is , I do not much enjoy anything nowadays which I can not enjoy _ alone _ . It sounds morose ; I imagine the comment of good people if they overheard such a confession . Ought I , in truth , to be ashamed of it ?