From Some Personal Reminiscences of Walter Pater (1894), by William Sharp.

The afternoon sunlight pervaded the room with a quiet beauty. The interior looked to me like an old picture, with something of the home charm of the finest Dutch art, and more of the remote grace, the haven-like serenity, so beloved of the early Italians. I noticed a long ray of sunlight slant across the flowers and waver into a shadowy corner, where it moved like a golden finger, and seemed to point out or lead forth unexpected vagaries of light and shade. When I glanced at my companion, I saw that his gaze was arrested by the same vagrant sunbeam. He began to speak in a low voice about gold: the gold of nature; above all, the chemic action of golden light; and how it was “the primary color of delight” throughout nature and in nearly all art.