Henry Fuseli

Benjamin Haydon writes: I followed the maid into a gallery or show room, enough to frighten anybody at twilight.  Galvanized devils — malicious witches brewing their incantations — Satan bridging Chaos, and springing upwards like a pyramid of fire — Lady Macbeth — Paolo and Francesca — Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly — humour, pathos, terror, blood and murder, met one at every look!  I expected the floor to give way — I fancied Fuseli himself to be a giant.  I heard his footsteps and saw a little bony hand slide round the edge of the door, followed by a little white-headed lion-faced man in an old flannel dressing-gown tied round his waist with a piece of rope and upon his head the bottom of Mrs. Fuseli’s work-basket.

~ From Hayon’s Autobiography (1855) via the Drawings of Henry Fuseli (1949)