3-008-529 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Day Dream", by J. Hill, in the Exhibition of the Society of British Artists, 1862. Engraving of a painting. 'What the subject of this Welsh lassie's day dream may be we must leave to the reader to guess. She had, it is not too much to suppose, a foregone determination to indulge in reverie on arriving at this, perhaps, favourite spot, whether it be the well itself or a rest by the way under the sometimes shady tree. Her attitude and folded hands seem to tell us that she has systematically and semi-consciously subsided into a condition of sweet do-nothingness and forgetfulness...From her unkempt, dishevelled hair and careless dress one might suppose that she had been doing little else than dream all day, did we not know that such is the normal condition of the bright-eyed witches of the Welsh valleys. From the wheat and poppy in her broad-brimmed, woefully[sic]-dilapidated, slouched hat it is also quite evident that she has not all day been unmindful of her personal appearance, and that she may be something of a coquette, frank and naive as she looks. It is, however, still more likely that the little bit of finery of Nature's own supplying was intended to catch the eye of some one not far even now from her wandering fancies'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.