Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
MOMENTS WITH ART 
 

 C^e^. 
 
Copyright, 
 
 By A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 A.D. 1899. 
 
^■/Vi ./ >. fr /Wv ,s f * 
 
 SO*. I 
 
 3) -*»v 
 
 I*? 04 
 
 J. W. D. 
 
 I 194650 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 
 
 For permission to use poems in this col- 
 lection, the compiler wishes to thank Mrs. 
 E. S. P. Ward, Miss Dickinson, Miss Marie 
 van Vorst, Mr. T. B. Aldrich, Rev. Dr. Henry 
 Van Dyke, Prof. Richard Burton, Mr. William 
 Allen Butler, Mr. A. R. Macdonough, Mr. C. 
 M. Sciple, and Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus. 
 
 Poems by Mrs. Elizabeth S. P. Ward, Emma 
 Lazarus, Mrs. Deland, Edgar Fawcett, James 
 Russell Lowell, E. R. Sill, E. C. Stedman, 
 Henry W. Longfellow, W. W. Story, and 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, are used by per- 
 mission of and by special arrangement ,with 
 Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
 
 Thanks are also due the following authors 
 and their publishers : — Messrs. Cassell & Co., 
 Magazine of Art : J. M. Templeton, J. F. 
 Sullivan, and Sir Joseph Noel Paton. Cassell 
 Publishing Co. : Helen Gray Cone. The 
 
atfenotoleKgment. 
 
 viii 
 
 Century Co. : Mrs. F. E. Coates, Mrs. A. W. 
 Brotherton, Mrs. Bessie C. Parker, Richard 
 Watson Gilder, Kenyon Cox, S. Weir 
 Mitchell, and R. R. Bowker. Messrs. Dodd, 
 Mead & Co. : Austin Dobson and Hamilton 
 W. Mabie. Messrs. Harper & Brothers: 
 Mrs. A. A. James, Mrs. Minna C. Smith, 
 Mrs. ’Harriet L. Bradley, Marrion Wilcox, 
 and Hon. John Hay. The Independent: 
 Mrs. L. W. Reese, John Lane, William 
 Watson. Leslie’s Weekly : Wm. H. Hayne. 
 Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. : Mrs. Louise 
 C. Moulton, Susan Coolidge, and Sir Edwin 
 Arnold. Messrs. Macmillan & Co. : Chris- 
 tina Rossetti and Matthew Arnold. G. P. 
 Putnam’s Sons : Augusta Lamed. 
 
 J. E. P. D. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., 
 
 October, 1899. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 After Albert Cuyp .... 
 
 After Ruysdael 
 
 After Teniers ...... 
 
 After Watteau 
 
 Andrea del Sarto 
 
 “ Angelo, thou art the Master ” 
 Anthony of Padua .... 
 Antinous of the Vatican . . 
 
 ^ Any Sculptor to Any Model 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell^ 
 
 A ustin Dobson . 
 Robert Brozvning 
 Richard W. Gilder 
 Harriet L. Bradley 
 Owen Innsly . . . 
 
 J. A ddington Symonds 
 
 Apollo, and Venus of Medici, The James Thomson 
 
 Ars Servatrix Henry Norman 
 
 T. B. Aldrich . 
 
 William Watson 
 
 Florence Earle Coates 
 
 PAGE 
 
 J°5 
 
 80 
 
 46 
 
 90 
 
 126 
 
 193 
 
 32 
 
 114 
 
 Sonnet on Briton Riviere’s 
 Painting 
 
 22 
 
 183 
 
 14 
 
 169 
 
 182 
 
 
 
 
 198 
 
 
 William Watson . 
 
 
 47 
 
 Ascending Magdalen, by Ribera, 
 
 Michael A ngelo . 
 
 
 60 
 
 The 
 
 Minna C. Smith . 
 
 
 54 
 
 Before the Picture of the Baptist, 
 
 Robert Leighton . 
 
 
 153 
 
 by Raphael 
 
 William Wordsworth 
 
 *5° 
 
 Before Titian’s Portrait of Himself 
 
 Minna C. Smith . 
 
 
 i37 
 
 Christ Blessing Little Children 
 Christ, The (suggested by the 
 
 Sir Edwin A mold 
 
 
 177 
 
 Pictures of Tissot) . . . 
 
 Martha G. Dickinson 
 
 61 
 
 
 Richard Burton 
 
 
 48 
 
 Corot’s Orpheus 
 
 Cradle Tomb in Westminster 
 
 A ugusta Lamed . 
 
 * 
 
 42 
 
 Abbey, The 
 
 Daniel’s Answer to the King. 
 
 Susan Coolidge . . 
 
 * 
 
 92 
 
 F. W. Gunsaulus . . 173 
 
X 
 
 Contents, 
 
 Discouraging Model, A . . . . 
 
 Dutch Picture, A 
 
 Easter in Florence 
 
 Engraving, after Murillo, An . . 
 
 Epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller . 
 EurydicetoOrpheus(by Leighton) 
 Extemporaneous Lines on a Por- 
 trait of Lady Montagu, by 
 
 Kneller 
 
 Face, A 
 
 Femme Inconnue of the Louvre 
 “ Fini^ Coronat Opus ” . . . . 
 
 Flight into Egypt, The .... 
 For “The Wine of Circe,” by 
 
 Burne-Jones 
 
 ^ Four Pictures by Burne-Jones . 
 
 Fra Angelico 
 
 Fra Lippo Lippi 
 
 Gospel of Art, The 
 
 Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave . . 
 
 Holy Family, by Michelangelo . 
 Hour in a Studio, An (F. L.) . . 
 
 Household Art 
 
 In an Artist’s Studio .... 
 
 In an Atelier 
 
 In the Court of the Lions : by 
 Moonlight ....... 
 
 Individuality 
 
 Ivory Miniature, An 
 
 Last Supper, The (by Leonardo) 
 Lepage’s Joan of Arc .... 
 Lines to a Stupid Picture . . . 
 
 Lines written on the Roof of 
 Milan Cathedral .... 
 Lion of Lucerne, The .... 
 
 Madonna 
 
 Madonna, The 
 
 Madonna and Child 
 
 Madonna of Dagnan-Bouveret, A 
 Madonna of Fra Lippo Lippi, A 
 Magdalen of the Dresden Gal- 
 lery, A . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 J. Whitcomb Riley . 19 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow 47 
 Lord Houghton . . 149 
 Marrion Wilcox . . 119 
 
 Alexander Pope . . 188 
 
 Robert Browning . . 62 
 
 Alexander Pope . . 169 
 Robert Browning . . 23 
 
 Kenyon Cox . . . . 12 1 
 
 R. R . Bowker . . . 199 
 
 Henry Van Dyke . . 125 
 
 D. G. Rossetti . . . 148 
 
 y. A ddington Symonds 88 
 Sir yoseph Noel Pat on 102 
 Robert Browning . . 154 
 
 Kenyon Cox .... 13 
 
 E. B. Browning . . 176 
 
 D. G. Rossetti . . . 103 
 
 Richard W. Gilder . 18 1 
 
 Austin Dobson . . . 117 
 
 Christina Rossetti . . 87 
 
 T. B. Aldrich ... 94 
 
 Louise C. Moulton . . 115 
 
 Sidney Lanier ... 21 
 
 Helen Gray Cone . . 33 
 
 William Wordsworth 99 
 Helen Gray Cone . . 104 
 
 Austin Dobson . . . 106 
 
 y. A ddington Symonds 44 
 Edgar Fawcett . . . 19 1 
 
 Lizette W. Reese . . 195 
 
 Emily H. Miller . . 46 
 
 Alice Archer yames . 112 
 
 Robert U. yohnson . 86 
 
 Richard W. Gilder . 141 
 
 A. R. Macdo?iough . 174 
 
Contents. 
 
 XI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mater Dolorosa 
 
 William H. Hayne . 
 
 i5 
 
 Meissonier • 
 
 Edgar Fawcett . . . 
 
 43 
 
 Michael Angelo 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow 
 
 116 
 
 122 
 
 Michael Angelo’s Slave . . • 
 
 >> ft >» 
 
 Richard W. Gilder . 
 
 176 
 
 Michael Angelo’s Studio . . . 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow 
 
 59 
 
 Michelangelo’s Moses .... 
 
 William Watson . . 
 
 135 
 
 Milan (Da Vinci’s Christ) . . . 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell . . 
 
 151 
 
 Millais’ Huguenots 
 
 Anonymous ...» 
 
 184 
 
 Millet and Zola 
 
 Lord Houghton . . 
 
 100 
 
 Near Amsterdam (after Cuyp) . 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell y . . 
 
 123 
 
 ,^New Colossus, The 
 
 Emma Lazancs . - 
 
 136 
 
 Old and New Art 
 
 D. G. Rossetti . . . 
 
 187 
 
 Old Picture-Dealer, The . . . 
 
 Edmund C. Stedman 
 
 54 
 
 Old Pictures in Florence . • . 
 
 Robert Browning . . 
 
 67 
 
 On a Head of Christ, by Quintin 
 Matsys 
 
 Bessie C. Parker . . 
 
 3i 
 
 On a Portrait of Dante, by Giotto 
 
 James Rtissell Lowell 
 
 113 
 
 On a Portrait of Wordsworth, by 
 B. R. Haydon 
 
 E. B. Browning . . 
 
 52 
 
 On a Surf-Rolled Torso of Venus 
 
 E. Lee Hamilton . . 
 
 196 
 
 On Beethoven composing “The 
 Moonlight Sonata” (by Benj. 
 Constant) 
 
 
 141 
 
 On Diirer’s Melencolia .... 
 
 William Watson . . 
 
 102 
 
 On Raphael’s Archangel Michael 
 
 E. Lee Hamilton . . 
 
 142 
 
 Our Lady of the Rocks (by Da 
 Vinci) 
 
 D. G. Rossetti . . . 
 
 172 
 
 Passtum 
 
 John Hay .... 
 
 36 
 
 Parthenon by Moonlight, The 
 
 Richard W. Gilder . 
 
 108 
 
 Pathos of Art, The 
 
 Sir Lewis Morris . . 
 
 179 
 
 Perfection 
 
 William Watson . . 
 
 30 
 
 Pictor Ignotus 
 
 Robert Browning . . 
 
 49 
 
 Picture at Newstead, A . . . 
 
 Matthew A mold . . 
 
 37 
 
 Pictures 
 
 Sir Lewis Morris . . 
 
 189 
 
 Poet expresses his Feelings re- 
 specting a Portrait in Delia’s 
 Parlor, The 
 
 Robert Southey . . . 
 
 53 
 
 Portia’s Picture ...... 
 
 William Shakespeare 
 
 196 
 
 Portrait by Burne-Jones, A . . 
 
 Marie van Vorst . . 
 
 192 
 
 Portrait d’une Dame Espagnole 
 (Fortuny) 
 
 
 124 
 
XU 
 
 Contents, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Portrait, The 
 
 D. G. Rossetti . • • 
 
 U5 
 
 Recognition 
 
 Martha G. Dickinson 
 
 30 
 
 Romney’s Remorse 
 
 Lord Tennyson . . . 
 
 143 
 
 ^<Rose and the Statue, The . . . 
 
 Owen Innsly .... 
 
 91 
 
 
 
 no 
 
 Saint Cecilia 
 
 Richard Burton . . 
 
 63 
 
 Sistine Madonna, The .... 
 
 M.E.S 
 
 17 
 
 Spring, by Sandro Botticelli . . 
 Students’ Day, in the National 
 
 D. G. Rossetti . . . 
 
 16 
 
 Gallery 
 
 Supper at Emmaus, The (by 
 
 Sir Edwin A mold . 
 
 81 
 
 Rembrandt) 
 
 R. IV. Gilder . . . 
 
 197 
 
 Thorwaldsen 
 
 T. B. Aldrich . . . 
 
 36 
 
 Titian’s Assumption 
 
 Titian’s Studio (Titian, Michael 
 
 William. Allen Butler 
 
 57 
 
 Angelo, and Vasari) . . . 
 
 H. W. Long fellow 
 
 38 
 
 To Art 
 
 / To the Child of the Sistine Ma- 
 
 William Watson . . 
 
 21 
 
 donna 
 
 Margaret Deland . . 
 
 18 
 
 To Vittoria Colonna 
 
 Michael A ngelo . . 
 
 65 
 
 Turner’s Old Tem^raire . . . 
 
 James Russell Lovjell 
 
 170 
 
 Under Raphael’s Magdalene . . 
 
 C. Morton Sciple . . 
 
 118 
 
 Unpaid Work 
 
 Robert Leighton . . 
 
 152 
 
 Untrammelled Art 
 
 James F. Sullivan 
 
 64 
 
 Venus of Milo 
 
 Richard W. Gilder . 
 
 US 
 
 Venus of Milo, The 
 
 Edward Rowland Sill 
 
 24 
 
 Venus of the Louvre .... 
 Very Woful Ballade of the Art 
 
 Emma Lazarus . . 
 
 18 
 
 Critic, A. (To E. A. Abbey) 
 
 A ndrew Lang . . . 
 
 120 
 
 Vittoria 
 
 Elizabeth S. P. Ward 
 
 98 
 
 Winged Victory, The .... 
 
 Marie van Vorst . . 
 
 X 38 
 
 | Woman and Artist 
 
 Alice W. Brother ton . 
 
 190 
 
MOMENTS WITH ART. 
 
 i. 
 
 The world of art is an ideal world, — . 
 
 The world I love, and that I fain would live in ; 
 
 So speak to me of artists and of art. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 II. 
 
 God sometimes granteth unto a man to learn 
 and know how to make a thing, the like whereof 
 in his day no other can contrive; and perhaps 
 for a long time none hath been before him, and 
 after him another cometh not soon. 
 
 Albrecht Durer. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF ART. 
 
 Work thou for pleasure : paint or sing or carve 
 The thing thou lovest, though the body starve. 
 
 Who works for glory misses oft the goal ; 
 
 Who works for money coins his very soul. 
 
 Work for the work’s sake, then, and it may be 
 That these things shall be added unto thee. 
 
 Kenyon Cox. 
 
14 
 
 foments toit!) 3Crt. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ART. 
 
 “ Let art be all in all,” one time I said, 
 
 And straightway stirred the hypercritic gall: 
 
 I said not, “ Let technique be all in all,” 
 
 But art — a wider meaning. Worthless, dead — 
 The shell without its pearl, the corpse of things — 
 Mere words are, till the spirit lend them wings. 
 The poet who breathes no soul into his lute 
 Falls short of art : ’t were better he were mute. 
 
 The workmanship wherewith the gold is wrought 
 Adds yet a richness to the richest gold : 
 
 Who lacks the art to shape his thought, I 
 hold, 
 
 Were little poorer if he lacked the thought. 
 
 The statue’s slumber were unbroken still 
 Within the marble, had the hand no skill. 
 Disparage not the magic touch that gives 
 The formless thought the grace whereby it lives ! 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 
 V. 
 
 Painting is welcome. 
 Painting is almost the natural man ; 
 
 For since dishonor traffics with man’s nature, 
 He is but outside ; these pencilled figures are 
 Even such as they give out. I like your 
 work ; 
 
 And you shall find I like it. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
foments tottf) 21rt* 
 
 IS 
 
 VI. 
 
 The one thing you have to learn — the one 
 power truly called that of “painting” — is to 
 lay on any colored substance, whatever its con- 
 sistence may be (from mortar to ether), at once, 
 of the exact tint you want, in the exact form 
 you want, and in the exact quantity you want. 
 That is painting. 
 
 Now, you are well aware that to play on the 
 violin well requires some practice. Painting is 
 playing on a color-violin, seventy-times-seven 
 stringed, and inventing your tune as you play 
 it ! That is the easy, simple, straightforward 
 business you have to learn. The primary ques- 
 tion of all is — can you play ? Perfectly, you 
 never can, but by birth-gift. The entirely first- 
 rate musicians and painters are born, like Mer- 
 CU ry ; — their words are music, and their touch 
 is gold : sound and color wait on them from 
 their youth ; and no practice will ever enable 
 other human creatures to do anything like them. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 VII. 
 
 MATER DOLOROSA. 
 
 (Painting in the Antwerp Museum.) 
 
 Mother of Sorrows ! On your Virgin brow 
 The shade of Calvary seems falling now ; 
 
 And from your heart a mother’s tears uprise 
 To fill the fountains of your deathless eyes. 
 
 William H. Hayne. 
 
1 6 
 
 foments toitl) art. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 SPRING, BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI. 
 
 (In the Accademia of Florence.) 
 
 What masque of what old wind-withered New 
 Year 
 
 Honors this Lady ? 1 Flora, wanton-eyed 
 For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and 
 pied: 
 
 Aurora, Zephyrus, with mutual cheer 
 Of clasp and kiss : the Graces circling near, 
 ’Neath bower-linked arch of white arms glori- 
 fied : 
 
 And with those feathered feet which hovering 
 glide 
 
 O’er Spring’s brief bloom, Hermes the har- 
 binger. 
 
 Birth-bare, not death-bare yet, the young stems 
 stand, 
 
 This Lady’s temple-columns : o’er her head 
 Love wings his shaft. What mystery here is 
 read 
 
 Of homage and of hope ? But how command 
 Dead Springs to answer ? And how question 
 here 
 
 These mummers of that wind-withered New 
 Year ? 
 
 D. G. Rossetti. 
 
 1 The same lady, here surrounded by the masque of Spring, 
 is evidently the subject of a portrait by Botticelli, formerly in 
 the Pourtalks collection in Paris. This portrait is inscribed, 
 “ Smeralda Bandinelli.” 
 
JHmnenta toitf) 3trt. 
 
 i7 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE SISTINE MADONNA. 
 
 Mary, Mary ! pure and holy, 
 
 Onward floating, onward soaring, 
 
 Heaven's effulgence round thee pouring. 
 
 Mary, Mary ! sweet and lowly, 
 
 Radiant with the mystic shining, 
 
 Angels languish for divining. 
 
 Mary, Mary ! pure and holy, 
 
 In thine arms the Lord of Glory, 
 
 In thine heart the wondrous story. 
 
 Mary, Mary ! sweet and lowly, 
 
 Cherubs pausing to adore thee, 
 
 Lost in love and awe before thee ! 
 
 Mary, Christus ! pure and holy, 
 
 Shadowed eyes, O Love pathetic ! 
 
 Starry eyes, O Light prophetic ! 
 
 Mary, Mary! sweet and lowly, 
 
 Throbs the hush with music’s swaying, 
 Human pain and grief allaying. 
 
 M. E. S. 
 
 x. 
 
 What we most need is not so much to real- 
 ize the ideal, as to idealize the real. 
 
 F. H. Hedge. 
 
i8 
 
 JHomntfi toitj) &xt. 
 
 XI. 
 
 VENUS OF THE LOUVRE. 
 
 Down the long hall she glistens like a star,* 
 
 The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to 
 stone, 
 
 Yet none the less immortal, breathing on. 
 
 Time’s brutal hand hath maimed but could not 
 mar. 
 
 When first the enthralled enchantress from afar 
 Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone, 
 
 Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne, 
 As when she guided once her dove-drawn car, — 
 But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew, 
 
 Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love. 
 
 Here Heine wept ! Here still he weeps anew, 
 Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move, 
 
 While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain, 
 
 For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain. 
 
 Emma Lazarus. 
 
 XII. 
 
 TO THE CHILD OF THE SISTINE MADONNA. 
 
 Through all the mists of years, 
 
 One smiling baby face 
 Forever young appears, 
 
 Aglow with childish grace ! 
 
 O questioning sweet eyes, 
 
 O head all golden brown, 
 
 Above thee softly lies 
 The shadow of a crown ! 
 
 Margaret Deland. 
 
Jftoments tottf) &tt. 
 
 19 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A DISCOURAGING MODEL. 
 
 Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing, 
 
 With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly’s wing, 
 Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air, 
 
 And a knot of red roses sown in under there 
 Where the shadows are lost in her hair. 
 
 Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground 
 Of that shadowy hair where the roses are 
 wound ; 
 
 And the gleam of a smile O as fair and as faint 
 And as sweet as the masters of old used to paint 
 Round the lips of their favorite saint ! 
 
 And that lace at her throat, and the fluttering 
 hands 
 
 Snowing there, with a grace that no art under- 
 stands, 
 
 The flakes of their touches — first fluttering at 
 The bow — then the roses — the hair — and 
 then that 
 
 Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat. 
 
 O what artist on earth with a model like this, 
 Holding not on his palette the tint of a kiss, 
 
 Nor a pigment to hint of the hue of her hair, 
 Nor the gold of her smile — O what artist could 
 dare 
 
 To expect a result half so fair ? 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley. 
 {Front Green Fields and Running Brooks: The 
 Bow en-Mer rill Co.) 
 
20 
 
 foments toitf) &rt. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 il I am always at work,” said a great artist, 
 
 “ and when an inspiration comes, I am ready to 
 make the most of it.” Inspiration rarely leaves 
 such a man long unvisited. One looks at Tur- 
 ner’s pictures with wonder in his heart. In 
 this rushing, roaring, sooty London, with its 
 leaden skies, its returning clouds and obscuring 
 fogs, how were such dreams wooed and won? 
 The painter’s life answers the question. Lon- 
 don had small share of Turner ; he lived in a 
 world of his own making, and the flush of its 
 sky, the glory of its golden atmosphere, never 
 wholly faded from his vision. ^ ^ 
 
 XV. 
 
 As to clever people hating each other, I 
 think a little extra talent does sometimes make 
 people jealous. They become irritated by per- 
 petual attempts and failures, and it hurts their 
 tempers and dispositions. Unpretending medi- 
 ocrity is good, and genius is glorious ; but a 
 weak flavor of genius in an essentially common 
 person is detestable. It spoils the grand neu- 
 trality of a commonplace character, as the 
 rinsings of an unwashed wine-glass spoil a 
 draught of fair water. 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A picture is a poem without words. 
 
 Horace. 
 
foments toitt) 3trt. 
 
 21 
 
 XVII. 
 
 INDIVIDUALITY. 
 
 What the cloud doeth 
 The Lord knoweth, 
 
 The cloud knoweth not . 
 
 What the artist doeth , 
 
 The Lord knoweth; 
 
 Knoweth the artist not ? 
 
 Well answered ! O dear artists, ye — 
 Whether in forms of curve or hue 
 Or tone your gospels be — 
 
 Say wrong This work is not of me, 
 
 But God : it is not true, it is not true. 
 
 Awful is Art because ’t is free. 
 
 The artist trembles o’er his plan, 
 
 Where men his Self must see. 
 
 Who made a song or picture, he 
 Did it, and not another, God nor man. 
 
 Sidney Lanier. 
 
 {From Poems of Sidney Lanier, copyright, 1884, 1891, 
 by Mary D. Lanier, and published by Charles Scribner 1 s 
 Sons.) 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 TO ART. 
 
 To Art we go as to a well, athirst, 
 
 And see our shadow ’gainst its mimic skies, 
 But in its depth must plunge and be immersed 
 To clasp the naiad Truth where low she lies. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
22 
 
 foments tottl) &xt. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE APOLLO, AND VENUS OF MEDICI. 
 
 All conquest-flushed, from prostrate Python, 
 came 
 
 The quivered god. In graceful act he stands, 
 His arm extended with the slackened bow; 
 
 Lio-ht flows his easy robe, and fair displays 
 A manly, softened form. The bloom of gods 
 Seems youthful o’er the beardless cheek to 
 wave : 
 
 His features yet, heroic ardor warms ; 
 
 And sweet subsiding to a native smile,. 
 
 Mixed with the joy elating conquest gives, 
 
 A scattered frown exalts his matchless air. 
 
 The Queen of Love arose, as from the deep 
 She sprung in all the melting pomp of charms. 
 Bashful she bends, her well-taught look aside 
 Turns in enchanting guise, where dubious mix 
 Vain conscious beauty, a dissembled sense 
 Of modest shame, and slippery looks of love. 
 The gazer grows enamoured, and the stone, 
 
 As if exulting in its conquest, smiles. 
 
 So turned each limb, so swelled with softening art, 
 That the deluded eye the marble doubts. 
 
 James Thomson. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Hunt’s “ Light of the World,” is, I believe, 
 the most perfect instance of expressional pur- 
 pose with technical power which the world has 
 yet produced. John Ruskin- 
 
foments tott!) 3tt. 
 
 23 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A FACE. 
 
 If one could have that little head of hers 
 Painted upon a background of pale gold, 
 
 Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers ! 
 
 No shade encroaching on the matchless mould 
 Of those two lips, which should be opening soft 
 In the pure profile ; not as when she laughs, 
 For that spoils all : but rather as if aloft 
 
 Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff s 
 Burthen of honey-colored buds to kiss . 
 
 And capture ’twixt the lips apart for this. 
 
 Then her lithe neck, three fingers might sur- 
 round, 
 
 How it should waver on the pale gold ground 
 Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts ! 
 
 I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts 
 Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb 
 Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb : 
 But these are only massed there, I should think, 
 Waiting to see some wonder momently 
 Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky 
 (That ’s the pale ground you ’d see this sweet 
 face by), 
 
 All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one 
 eye 
 
 Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 It is the perfection of art to conceal art. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
24 
 
 foments toitj) ^Crt. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE VENUS OF MILO. 
 
 There fell a vision to Praxiteles : 
 
 Watching through drowsy lids the loitering seas 
 That lay caressing with white arms of foam 
 The sleeping marge of his Ionian home, 
 
 He saw great Aphrodite standing near, 
 
 Knew her, at last, the Beautiful he had sought 
 With life-long passion, and in love and fear 
 Into unsullied stone the vision wrought. 
 
 Far other was the form that Cnidos gave 
 To senile Rome, no longer free or brave, — 
 
 The Medicean, naked like a slave. 
 
 The Cnidians built her shrine 
 Of creamy ivory line ; 
 
 Most costly was the floor 
 Of scented cedar, and from door 
 Was looped to carven door 
 Rich stuff of Tyrian purple, in whose shade 
 Her glistening shoulders and round limbs out- 
 shone, 
 
 Milk-white as lilies in a summer moon. 
 
 Here honey-hearted Greece to worship came, 
 And on her altar leaped a turbid flame, 
 
 The quickened blood ran dancing to its doom, 
 And lip sought trembling lip in that rich gloom. 
 
 But the island people of Cos, by the salt main 
 From Persia’s touch kept clean, 
 
 Chose for their purer shrine amid the seas 
 That grander vision of Praxiteles. 
 
foments tott?) %LvU 
 
 25 
 
 Long ages after, sunken in the ground 
 Of sea-girt Melos, wondering shepherds found 
 The marred and dinted copy which men name 
 Venus of Milo, saved to endless fame. 
 
 Before the broken marble, on a day, 
 
 There came a worshiper : a slanted ray 
 Struck in across the dimness of her shrine 
 And touched her face as to a smile divine ; 
 
 For it was like the worship of a Greek 
 At her old altar. Thus I heard him speak : — 
 
 Men call thee Love : is there no holier name 
 Than hers, the foam-born, laughter-loving dame ? 
 Nay, for there is than love no holier name : 
 
 All words that pass the lips of mortal men 
 With inner and with outer meaning shine ; 
 
 An outer gleam that meets the common ken, 
 
 An inner light that but the few divine. 
 
 Thou art the love celestial, seeking still 
 The soul beneath the form ; the serene will ; 
 The wisdom, of whose deeps the sages dream ; 
 The unseen beauty that doth faintly gleam 
 In stars, and flowers, and waters where they 
 roll; 
 
 The unheard music whose faint echoes even 
 Make whosoever hears a homesick soul 
 Thereafter, till he follow it to heaven. 
 
 Larger than mortal woman I see thee stand, 
 With beautiful head bent forward steadily, 
 
 As if those earnest eyes could see 
 
2 6 
 
 foments tottl) &xt 
 
 Some glorious thing far off, to which thy hand 
 Invisibly stretched onward seems to be. 
 
 From thy white forehead’s breadth of calm, the 
 hair 
 
 Sweeps lightly, as a cloud in windless air. 
 Placid thy brows, as that still line at dawn 
 Where the dim hills along the sky are drawn, 
 When the last stars are drowned in deeps afar. 
 Thy quiet mouth — I know not if it smile, 
 
 Or if in some wise pity thou wilt weep, — 
 Little as one may tell, some summer morn, 
 Whether the dreamy brightness is most glad, 
 Or wonderfully sad, — 
 
 So bright, so still thy lips serenely sleep ; 
 
 So fixedly thine earnest eyes the while, 
 
 As clear and steady as the morning star, 
 
 Their gaze upon that coming glory keep. 
 
 Thy garment’s fallen folds 
 Leave beautiful the fair, round breast 
 In sacred loveliness ; the bosom deep 
 Where happy babe might sleep ; 
 
 The ample waist no narrowing girdle holds, 
 Where daughters slim might come to cling and 
 rest, 
 
 Like tendriled vines against the plane-tree 
 pressed. 
 
 Around thy firm, large limbs and steady feet 
 The robes slope downward, as the folded hills 
 Slope round the mountain’s knees, when shadow 
 fills 
 
Momenta tott \ Slrt* 
 
 27 
 
 The hollow canons, and the wind is sweet 
 From russet oat-fields and the ripening wheat. 
 
 From our low world no gods have taken 
 wing ; 
 
 Even now upon our hills the twain are wander- 
 ing; 
 
 The Medicean’s sly and servile grace, 
 
 And the immortal beauty of thy face. 
 
 One is the spirit of all short-lived love 
 And outward, earthly loveliness : 
 
 The tremulous rosy morn is her mouth’s smile, 
 The sky her laughing azure eyes above ; 
 
 And, waiting for caress, 
 
 Lie bare the soft hill-slopes, the while 
 Her thrilling voice is heard 
 In song of wind and wave, and every flitting 
 bird. 
 
 Not plainly, never quite herself she shows; 
 
 Just a swift glance of her illumined smile 
 Along the landscape goes ; 
 
 Just a soft hint of singing, to beguile 
 A man from all his toil ; 
 
 Some vanished gleam of beckoning arm, to 
 spoil 
 
 A morning’s task with longing wild and vain. 
 Then if across the parching plain 
 He seek her, she with passion burns 
 His heart to fever, and he hears 
 The west wind’s mocking laughter when he 
 turns, 
 
 Shivering in mist of ocean’s sullen tears. 
 
28 
 
 foments tottf) %LxU 
 
 It is the Medicean: well I know 
 The arts her ancient subtlety will show ; 
 
 The stubble-field she turns to ruddy gold ; 
 
 The empty distance she will fold 
 
 In purple gauze : the warm glow she has kissed 
 
 Along the chilling mist : 
 
 Cheating and cheated love that grows to hate 
 And ever deeper loathing, soon or late. 
 
 Thou too, O fairer spirit, walkest here 
 Upon the lifted hills : 
 
 Wherever that still thought within the breast 
 The inner beauty of the world hath moved; 
 
 In starlight that the dome of evening fills; 
 
 On endless waters rounding to the west : 
 
 For them who thro* that beauty’s veil have loved 
 The soul of all things beautiful the best. 
 
 For lying broad awake, long ere the dawn, 
 Staring against the dark, the blank of space 
 Opens immeasurably, and thy face 
 Wavers and glimmers there and is withdrawn. 
 And many days, when all one’s work is vain, 
 And life goes stretching on, a waste gray plain, 
 With even the short mirage of morning gone, 
 No cool breath anywhere, no shadow nigh 
 Where a weary man might lay him down and die, 
 Lo ! thou art there before me suddenly, 
 
 With shade as if a summer cloud did pass, 
 
 And spray of fountains whispering to the grass. 
 Oh, save me from the haste and noise and heat 
 That spoil life’s music sweet : 
 
 And from that lesser Aphrodite there — 
 
JJtaraentE! tnitf) Stct. 
 
 29 
 
 Even now she stands 
 
 Close as I turn, and, O my soul, how fair ! 
 
 Nay, I will heed not thy white beckoning hands, 
 Nor thy soft lips like the curled inner leaf 
 In a rosebud’s breast, kissed languid by the sun, 
 Nor eyes like liquid gleams where waters run. 
 Yea, thou art beautiful as morn ; 
 
 And even as I draw nigh 
 
 To scoff, I own the loveliness I scorn. 
 
 Farewell, for thou hast lost me : keep thy train 
 Of worshipers ; me thou dost lure in vain : 
 
 The inner passion, pure as very fire, 
 
 Burns to light ash the earthlier desire. 
 
 O greater Aphrodite, unto thee 
 Let me not say farewell. What would Earth be 
 Without thy presence ? Surely unto me 
 A life-long weariness, a dull, bad dream. 
 
 Abide with me, and let thy calm brows beam 
 Fresh hope upon me every amber dawn, 
 
 New peace when evening’s violet veil is drawn. 
 Then, tho’ I see along the glooming plain 
 The Medicean’s waving hand again, 
 
 And white feet glimmering in the harvest-field, 
 I shall not turn, nor yield ; 
 
 But as heaven deepens, and the Cross and Lyre 
 Lift up their stars beneath the Northern Crown, 
 Unto the yearning of the world’s desire 
 I shall be ’ware of answer coming down ; 
 
 And something, when my heart the darkness 
 stills, 
 
 Shall tell me, without sound or any sight, 
 
30 
 
 J&oraentB toitl) 9trt. 
 
 That other footsteps are upon the hills ; 
 
 Till the dim earth is luminous with the light 
 Of the white dawn, from some far-hidden shore, 
 That shines upon thy forehead evermore. 
 
 Edward Rowland Sill. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 RECOGNITION. 
 
 An artist feels the genius where 
 A critic cries, 
 
 “ Only the hinted beauty of a fair 
 Conception marred beyond repair, 
 
 That truth belies.” 
 
 To him whose heart has borne the strain 
 Of hope and fear, 
 
 His own swift visions to retain 
 Beyond a semblance of disdain, 
 
 All work is dear. 
 
 Martha Gilbert Dickinson. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 PERFECTION. 
 
 To keep in sight Perfection, and adore 
 The vision, is the artist’s best delight; 
 
 His bitterest pang, that he can ne’er do more 
 Than keep her long’d-for loveliness in sight. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
foments tottl) &rt. 
 
 3i 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 ON A HEAD OF CHRIST, BY QUINTIN 
 MATSYS. 
 
 (Fifteenth Century.) 
 
 A grieving face, adown whose hollow cheek 
 
 The bright tears fall from tender, mournful 
 eyes ; 
 
 Eyes, sad with never finding what they seek, 
 
 Lips, curved by many weary, wasting sighs. 
 
 The tear-drops glisten — frail they seem and 
 slight, 
 
 As though a breath would sweep them into 
 air; 
 
 And yet four hundred years of day and night 
 
 Have passed since first the painter formed 
 them there. 
 
 How strange that they should last, those painted 
 tears, 
 
 While kingdoms perish, nations fall and rise ; 
 
 Strange that through all the stormy rush of 
 years 
 
 They lie unchanged in those sad, grieving 
 eyes. 
 
 Does He yet mourn ? The world from Him 
 enticed 
 
 Wanders afar, and will not walk His way. 
 
 O patient One ! O weary, watching Christ, 
 
 Are the tears wet upon Thy face to-day ? 
 
 Bessie Chandler Parker. 
 
32 
 
 jHoraents toitl) art 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 ANTHONY OF PADUA. 
 (Murillo.) 
 
 This story with its simple rhyme. 
 This picture by a hand sublime, 
 Spring from a legend in the time 
 Of Anthony of Padua. 
 
 Some doubt had cast its shadows strong 
 Upon the Saint, who well and long 
 Fought manfully to right this wrong - 
 Fought day and night in Padua. 
 
 Till in his arms, so it is told, 
 
 The Saint did his dear Lord enfold. 
 And there appeared a light like gold 
 From out the skies of Padua. 
 
 « O Christ Child, art Thou come to me . 
 With wonder sweet I welcome Them 
 o Christ Child, can this wonder be . 
 Cried Anthony of Padua. 
 
 “I thank Thee, Blessed One, for this. 
 Forgive what I have done amiss . 
 
 And let me greet Thee with a kiss. 
 Thou Dear One, come to Padua. 
 
 « To him who struggles with his might 
 Our Lord has promised to bring light 
 And glory, as of lilies white, 
 
 The angels sang in Padua. 
 
 Harriet Lewis Bradley 
 
jHomenta tottf) 
 
 33 
 
 XXVIII . 
 
 AN IVORY MINIATURE. 
 
 When State Street homes were stately still; 
 When out of town was Murray Hill; 
 
 In late-deceased “ old times ” 
 
 Of vast, embowering bonnet-shapes, 
 
 And creamy-crinkled Canton crapes, 
 
 And florid annual-rhymes, 
 
 He owned a small suburban seat 
 Where now you see a modern street, 
 
 A monochrome of brown ; 
 
 The sad “brown-brown ” of Dante’s dreams, 
 A twilight turned to stone, that seems 
 To weight our city down. 
 
 Through leafy chestnuts whitely showed 
 The pillared front of his abode : 
 
 A garden girt it ’round, 
 
 Where pungent box did trim enclose 
 The marigold and cabbage-rose, 
 
 And “ pi’ny ” heavy-crowned. 
 
 Yea, whatso sweets, the changing year’s, 
 He most affected. Gone, but here ’s 
 His face who loved them so. 
 
 Old eyes like sherry, warm and mild ; 
 
 A cheek clear-hued as cheek of child; 
 Sleek head, a sphere of snow. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 Jflnmtutc tottf) Sri 
 
 His mouth was pious, and his nose 
 Patrician ; with which mould there goes 
 A disaffected view. 
 
 In those sublime, be-oratored, 
 
 Spread-eagle days, his soul deplored 
 So much red-white-and-blue ! 
 
 In umber ink, with S’s long, 
 
 He left behind him censure strong 
 In stiffest phrases clothed ; 
 
 But Time — a pleasant jest enough ! — 
 
 Has turned the tory leaves to buff, 
 
 The liberal hue he loathed. 
 
 Of many a gentle deed he made 
 Brief simple record. Never fade 
 Those everlasting-flowers 
 That spring up wild by good men’s walks ; 
 Opinions wither on their stalks, 
 
 And sere grow Fashion’s bowers. 
 
 Erect, be-frilled, in neckcloth tall. 
 
 His semblance sits, removed from all 
 Our needs and noises new ; 
 
 Released from all the rent we pay 
 As tenants of the large To-day, 
 
 Cool, in a background blue. 
 
 And he, beneath a cherub chipped, 
 
 Plump, squamous-pinioned, pouting-lipped, 
 Sleeps calm where Trinity 
 Points finger dark to clouds that fleet; 
 
 A warning, seen from surging street, 
 
 A welcome, seen from sea. 
 
foments toil!) &rt. 
 
 35 
 
 There fall, ghosts glorified of tears 
 
 Shed for the dead in buried years, 
 
 The silver notes of chimes ; 
 
 And there, with not unreverent hand 
 
 Though light, I lay this “ greene garland,” 
 This woven wreath of rhymes. 
 
 Helen Gray Cone. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Of all God’s gifts to the sight of man, color 
 is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. 
 We speak rashly of gay color and sad color, 
 for color cannot at once be good and gay. All 
 good color is in some degree pensive; the 
 loveliest is melancholy, and the purest and most 
 thoughtful minds are those which love color 
 the most. John Ruskin. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Architecture is the art which so disposes 
 and adorns the edifices raised by man, for 
 whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may 
 contribute to his mental health, power, and 
 pleasure. John Ruskin. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Genius is nothing but a great capacity for 
 patience. Buffon. 
 
 xxxii. 
 
 Nature is the art of God. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne. 
 
36 
 
 ^omenta tottt) 
 
 XXXIII . 
 
 PiESTUM. 
 
 Two thousand years these temples have been 
 
 old, £ , 
 
 Yet were they not more lovely the first day 
 When o’er yon hills the young light blushed 
 and lay 
 
 Along these tapering columns, and eve s gold 
 Over the Tyrrhene sea in glory rolled. 
 
 By power of truth, by beauty’s royal sway, 
 While men and creeds and kingdoms pass 
 away, 
 
 Their gift to charm and awe they calmly hold. 
 Beauty and truth ! by that high grace divine 
 They force the tribute of the vassal years. 
 Clouds gloom ; the blue wave dimples ; the 
 stars shine, 
 
 To make them fairer ; even Time, that tears 
 And shames all other things, here can but bless 
 And beautify this crumbling loveliness. 
 
 John Hay. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 THORWALDSEN. 
 
 We often fail by searching far and wide 
 For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn 
 We ask fair wind and favorable tide. 
 
 From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn 
 To make Occasion, not to be denied. 
 
 Against the sheer, precipitous mountain-side 
 Thorwaldsen carved his Lion at Lucerne. 
 
 T. B. Aldrich. 
 
foments tout!) &rt 
 
 37 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 A PICTURE AT NEWSTEAD. 
 
 What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest 
 swell ? 
 
 ’T was not the thought of Byron, of his cry 
 Stormily sweet, his Titan agony ; 
 
 It was the sight of that Lord Arundel 
 
 Who struck, in heat, his child he loved so well, 
 And his child’s reason flicker’d, and did die. 
 Painted (he will’d it) in the gallery 
 They hang ; the picture doth the story tell. 
 
 Behold the stern, mailed father, staff in hand ! 
 The little fair-hair’d son, with vacant gaze, 
 Where no more lights of sense or knowledge 
 are ! 
 
 Methinks the woe which made that father stand 
 Baring his dumb remorse to future days, 
 
 Was woe than Byron’s woe more tragic far. 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 An artist is — and recollect this definition 
 (put in capitals for quick reference), — A per- 
 son WHO HAS SUBMITTED TO A LAW WHICH IT 
 WAS PAINFUL TO OBEY, THAT HE MAY BESTOW 
 A DELIGHT WHICH IT IS GRACIOUS TO BESTOW. 
 
 Ruskin. 
 
38 
 
 ^omenta tottl) 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 TITIAN’S STUDIO. 
 
 (A painting of Danae with a curtain before it. Titian, 
 Michael Angelo, and Vasari.) 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 So you have left at last your still lagoons, 
 
 Your City of Silence floating in the sea, 
 
 And come to us in Rome. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 I come to learn, 
 
 But I have come too late. I should have seen 
 Rome in my youth, when all my mind was open 
 To new impressions. Our Vasari here 
 Leads me about, a blind man, groping darkly 
 Among the marvels of the past. I touch them, 
 But do not see them. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 There are things in Rome, 
 That one might walk barefooted here from 
 Venice 
 
 But to see once, and then to die content. 
 
 Tell me of art in Venice. Three great names, 
 Giorgione, Titian, and the Tintoretto, 
 
 Illustrate your Venetian school, and send 
 A challenge to the world. The first is dead, 
 But Tintoretto lives. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 And paints with fire, 
 
 Sudden and splendid, as the lightning paints 
 The cloudy vault of heaven. 
 
foments toitf) 9trt. 
 
 39 
 
 Vasari. 
 
 Does he still keep 
 
 Above his door the arrogant inscription 
 That once was painted there, — “ The color of 
 Titian, 
 
 With the design of Michael Angelo ” ? 
 
 Titian. 
 
 Indeed, I know not. *T was a foolish boast, 
 And does no harm to any but himself. 
 
 Perhaps he has grown wiser. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 And now, Maestro, pray unveil your picture 
 Of Danae, of which I hear such praise. 
 
 Titian, drawing back the curtain • 
 What think you ? 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 That Acrisius did well 
 To lock such beauty in a brazen tower, 
 
 And hide it from all eyes. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 The model truly 
 
 Was beautiful. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 And more, that you were present, 
 And saw the showery Jove from High Olympus 
 Descend in all his splendor. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 F rom your lips 
 
 Such words are full of sweetness. 
 
40 
 
 Jiloments tottl) &rt. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 You have caught 
 These golden hues from your Venetian sunsets. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 Possibly. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 Or from sunshine through a shower 
 On the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic. 
 
 And thus the works of every artist show 
 Something of his surroundings and his habits. 
 The uttermost that can be reached by color 
 Is here accomplished. Warmth and light and 
 softness 
 
 Mingle together. Never yet was flesh 
 Painted by hand of artist, dead or living, 
 
 With such divine perfection. 
 
 Wonderful ! wonderful ! The charm of color 
 Fascinates me the more that in myself 
 The gift is wanting. I am not a painter. 
 
 Vasari. 
 
 Messer Michele, all the arts are yours, 
 
 Not one alone ; and therefore I may venture 
 To put a question to you. 
 
 Which is the greater of the sister arts, 
 
 Painting or sculpture ? Solve for me the doubt. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 Georgio Vasari, I have often said 
 That I account that painting as the best 
 
JftomentsJ toitf) &xU 
 
 41 
 
 Which most resembles sculpture. Here before 
 us 
 
 We have the proof. Behold these rounded 
 limbs ! 
 
 How from the canvas they detach themselves, 
 Till they deceive the eye, and one would say, 
 
 It is a statue with a screen behind it ! 
 
 And now, Maestro, I will say once more 
 How admirable I esteem your work, 
 
 And leave you, without further interruption. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 Your friendly visit hath much honored me. 
 Vasari. 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 Michael Angelo, to Vasari, going out 
 
 If the Venetian painters knew 
 But half as much of drawing as of color, 
 
 They would indeed work miracles in art, 
 
 And the world see what it hath never seen. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Even in portraits, the grace — and, we may 
 add, the likeness — consists more in taking the 
 general air than in observing the exact simil- 
 itude of every feature. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
42 
 
 foments to it!) 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 COROT’S ORPHEUS. 
 
 Sweet dove of dawn with silver breast, 
 
 Seen dimly through the fleeting shade, 
 
 Drugged with her warm and dreamless rest, 
 
 The earth scarce wakes ere thou dost fade. 
 
 Color unborn in herb or tree, 
 
 Floats dimly on the silent air, 
 
 And beauty, fluent still and free, 
 
 A spirit breathing everywhere. 
 
 Vast depths of space that seem to thrill 
 And tremble with the coming day, 
 
 That mystic moment prayerful still, 
 
 Ere gold has flooded all the gray. 
 
 High mottled clouds upon the edge 
 Have caught a little quivering beam, 
 
 No dewdrop shining on the hedge, 
 
 No light upon the hidden stream. 
 
 But all the landscape drenched with dew, 
 
 And freshness stealing from the founts ; 
 
 Bright beams that pierce the tree-tops through, 
 While in the east a glory mounts. 
 
 Stealthy the breath from herb and flower 
 
 Creeps now through dripping leaves and grass, 
 
 To pay sweet tribute to the hour, 
 
 And freeze the breezes as they pass. 
 
^aments tottj) girt* 
 
 43 
 
 The god comes forth to greet the light, 
 Dilating with the breath of song, 
 
 And like a swallow in its flight 
 By inspiration borne along. 
 
 He grasps the lyre with careless hand, 
 Forgetful of its charmed strings ; 
 
 One moment ere their tones expand, 
 
 The voiceless spirit soars and sings. 
 
 Sacred as truth these hues and lines, 
 
 Religious as a minster aisle ; 
 
 When reverence thy soul inclines, 
 
 Come gaze and lose thyself the while. 
 
 Augusta Larned. 
 
 XL. 
 
 MEISSONIER. 
 
 Watching your precious work, we vainly guess 
 What miracle creates as potent fact 
 Such height in brevity, width in narrowness, 
 And liberal vigor wed with cunning tact. 
 
 Your virile patience that no toil can crush, 
 
 The more we muse upon we prize the more, 
 
 O Liliput Angelo, whose wizard brush 
 Could paint a battle upon a louis d'or! 
 
 Edgar Fawcett. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt ; 
 Nothing ’s so hard but search will find it out. 
 
 Herrick. 
 
44 
 
 Jfloraents toitl) &rt. 
 
 XL II. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN ON THE ROOF OF MILAN 
 CATHEDRAL. 
 
 “A mount of marble, a hundred spires.” 
 
 The long, long night of utter loneliness, 
 
 Of conflict, pain, defeat, and sore distress, 
 
 Hath vanished ; and I stand as one whose life 
 Wages with death a scarcely winning strife, 
 Here, on this mount of marble. Like a sea 
 Waveless and blue, the sky’s transparency 
 Bathes spire and statue. Was it man or God 
 Who built these domes, whereon the feet have 
 trod 
 
 Of eve and night and morn with rose and gold 
 And silver and strange symbols manifold 
 Of shadow ? Fabric not of stone but mist 
 Or pearl or cloud beneath heaven’s amethyst 
 Glitters the marvel : cloud congealed to shine 
 Through centuries with lustre crystalline; 
 
 Pearl spiked and fretted like an Orient shell ; 
 Mist on the frozen fern-wreaths of a well. 
 
 Not God’s but man’s work this : God’s yonder 
 fane, 
 
 Reared on the distant limit of the plain, 
 
 From azure into azure, to blue sky 
 Shooting from vapors blue that folded lie 
 Round valley-basements, robed in royal snow, 
 Wherefrom life-giving waters leaping flow, 
 Aerial Monte Rosa ! — God and man 
 Confront each other, with this narrow span 
 
foments toitlj &ct. 
 
 45 
 
 Of plain to part them, try what each can do 
 To make applauding Seraphs from the blue 
 Lean marvel-smitten, or alight with song 
 Upon the glittering peaks, or clustering throng 
 The spacious pathways. God on man’s work 
 here 
 
 Hath set His signature and symbol clear ; 
 
 Man’s soul that thinks and feels, to God’s work 
 there 
 
 Gives life, which else were cold and dumb and 
 bare. 
 
 God is man’s soul; man’s soul a spark of God : 
 By God in man the dull, terrestrial clod 
 Becomes a thing of beauty ; thinking man 
 Through God made manifest, outrival can 
 His handiwork of nature. Do we dream 
 Mingling reality with things that seem ? 
 
 Or is it true that God and man appear 
 One soul in sentient art self-conscious here, 
 
 One soul o’er senseless nature stair by stair 
 Raised to create by comprehending there ? 
 
 J. Addington Symonds. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Artists are of three classes : those who per- 
 ceive and pursue the good, and leave the evil ; 
 those who perceive and pursue the good and 
 evil together, the whole thing as it verily is ; 
 and those who perceive and pursue the evil and 
 leave the good. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
46 
 
 foments toitf) §l?t* 
 
 XL IV. 
 
 THE MADONNA. 
 
 Down from her shrine the dear Madonna gazed, 
 Her baby lying warm against her breast, 
 
 “ What does she see ? ” he whispered ; “ can she 
 guess 
 
 The cruel thorns to those soft temples 
 pressed? ” 
 
 “ Ah, no ! ” she said, “she shuts him safe from 
 harms, 
 
 Within the love-locked harbor of her arms. 
 
 No fear of coming fate could make me sad 
 If so, to-night, I held my little lad 
 
 Emily Huntington Miller. 
 XLV. 
 
 AFTER TENIERS. 
 
 A quiet curve of sombre brown water, 
 
 Flecked with duck-weed and dotted with 
 leaves ; 
 
 A low brick cottage, where shadows nestle 
 ’Neath velvet edges of well-thatched eaves. 
 
 In front a space, with its gaudy dahlias, 
 
 And solid shade of the branching lime, 
 Where, soberly gay, two boors are drinking 
 In the deep’ning gloom of the evening time. 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell. 
 
JHoments tottl) &rt 
 
 47 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 ' A DUTCH PICTURE. 
 
 But when the winter rains begin, 
 
 He sits and smokes by the blazing brands, 
 And old sea-faring men come in, 
 
 Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin, 
 
 And rings upon their hands. 
 
 They sit there in the shadow and shine 
 Of the flickering fire of the winter night ; 
 Figures in color and design 
 Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, 
 
 Half darkness and half light. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 ART MAXIMS. 
 
 Often ornateness 
 Goes with greatness ; 
 
 Oftener felicity 
 Comes of simplicity. 
 
 Talent that’s cheapest 
 Affects singularity. 
 
 Thoughts that dive deepest 
 Rise radiant in clarity. 
 
 No record Art keeps 
 Of her travail and throes. 
 
 There is toil on the steeps, — 
 
 On the summits, repose. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
48 foments tottl) &tU 
 
 XL VI II. 
 
 A COPY. 
 
 I walked a gallery of famous names 
 And famous fancies, framed in lines of gold,— 
 The paintings that a world has reckoned good, — 
 And saw, before a canvas that did limn 
 Some mythic story with a wondrous grace 
 (For Rubens was the painter, I recall), 
 
 An old, bent man whose long and silvered locks 
 Swept down his shoulders, and whose trembling 
 hand 
 
 Moved steadier as it grasped the brush, where- 
 with 
 
 He sketched a copy of the masterpiece ; 
 
 His easel just aside, that no offence 
 Of barring sight from those who came to gaze 
 At Rubens’ work might be imputed his. 
 Straightway the wall, with all its freight of tales 
 In colors told, grew blurred before mine eyes, 
 And lost its old allurement ; for I could 
 See nothing but the patient plodder there, 
 Whom death might overtake, and find undone 
 Full half the figures he must fitly draw 
 To all-complete the picture, let alone 
 The laying on of oils to give it life; 
 
 And who, undaunted, calm, and happy-eyed, 
 
 Did sit and sketch, and leave the rest to God. 
 Without the hope of making earthly fame, . 
 
 Yet cheered, perchance, in knowing that his art 
 Would have eternity to ripen in, 
 
 Until he blent his soul with Rubens’ own. 
 
 Richard Burton. 
 
^aments toitl) 2lrt. 
 
 49 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 PICTOR IGNOTUS. 
 
 (Florence, 15—.) 
 
 I could have painted pictures like that youth s 
 Ye praise so. How my soul springs up ! No 
 bar 
 
 Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while 
 it soothes ! 
 
 — N ever did fate forbid me, star by star, 
 
 To outburst on your night, with all my gift 
 Of fires from God : nor would my flesh have 
 shrunk 
 
 From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift 
 
 And wide to heaven, or straight like thunder, 
 sunk 
 
 To the centre, of an instant ; or around 
 Turned calmly or inquisitive, to scan 
 The license and the limit, space and bound, 
 Allowed to truth made visible in man. 
 
 And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw, 
 
 Over the canvas could my hand have flung, 
 Each face obedient to its passion’s law, 
 
 Each passion clear proclaimed without a 
 tongue : 
 
 Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, 
 A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, 
 
 Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood 
 Pull down the nesting dove’s heart to its 
 place ; 
 
 Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, 
 
 And locked the mouth fast, like a castle 
 braved, — 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 JStomente toitl) 
 
 O human faces ! hath it split, my cup ? 
 
 What did ye give me that I have not saved ? 
 
 Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well !) 
 Of going— - 1, in each new picture, — forth, 
 
 As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, 
 To Pope, or Kaiser, East, West, South, or 
 North, 
 
 Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, 
 
 Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, 
 
 Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, 
 Through old streets named afresh from the 
 event, 
 
 Till it reached home, where learned age should 
 greet 
 
 My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct 
 
 Above his hair, lie learning at my feet ! — 
 
 Oh ! thus to live, I and my picture, linked 
 
 With love about, and praise, till life should 
 end, 
 
 And then not go to heaven, but linger here. 
 
 Here on my earth, earth’s every man my friend, 
 The thought grew frightful, ’t was so wildly 
 dear ! 
 
 But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such 
 sights 
 
 Have scared me, like the revels through a 
 door 
 
 Of some strange house of idols at its rites ! 
 This world seemed not the world it was, 
 before : 
 
 Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there 
 trooped 
 
foments tottb 2lrt* 
 
 5i 
 
 . . . Who summoned those cold faces that 
 begun 
 
 To press on me and judge me ? Though I 
 stooped 
 
 Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, 
 
 They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . 
 enough ! 
 
 These buy and sell our pictures, take and 
 gi ye » 
 
 Count them for garniture and household-stuff, 
 And where they live needs must our pictures 
 live 
 
 And see their faces, listen to their prate, 
 Partakers of their daily pettiness, 
 
 Discussed of, — “ This I love, or this I hate, 
 This likes me more, and this affects me less ! ” 
 Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles 
 My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint 
 These endless cloisters and eternal aisles 
 
 With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint, 
 With the same cold calm beautiful regard, — 
 
 At least no merchant traffics in my heart ; 
 
 The sanctuary’s gloom at least shall ward 
 
 Vain tongues from where my pictures stand 
 apart : 
 
 Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine 
 While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, 
 They moulder on the damp wall’s travertine, 
 ’Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. 
 So, die my pictures ! surely, gently die ! 
 
 O youth ! men praise so, — holds their praise 
 its worth ? 
 
52 
 
 jporaents to it!) &rt. 
 
 Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry ? 
 Tastes sweet the water with such specks of 
 earth ? 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 L. 
 
 ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH, BY B. R. 
 HAYDON. 
 
 Wordsworth upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud 
 Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind 
 Then break against the rock, and show behind 
 The lowland valleys floating up to crowd 
 The sense with beauty. He with forehead 
 bowed 
 
 And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined 
 Before the sovran thought of his own mind, 
 
 And very meek with inspirations proud, 
 
 Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest 
 By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer 
 To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free 
 Our Haydon’s hand has flung out from the mist : 
 No portrait this, with Academic air ! 
 
 This is the poet and his poetry. 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 LI. 
 
 The Greek in nature saw his gods half-hidden 
 lurk ; 
 
 And copying nature, wrought his gods into his 
 work. 
 
 W. W. Story. 
 
foments tottl; 
 
 53 
 
 LI I. 
 
 THE POET EXPRESSES HIS FEELINGS RE- 
 SPECTING A PORTRAIT IN DELIA’S 
 PARLOR. 
 
 I would I were that portly gentleman, 
 
 With gold-laced hat and golden-headed cane, 
 Who hangs in Delia’s parlor ! for, whene’er 
 From book or needlework her looks arise, 
 
 On him converge the sunbeams of her eyes, 
 
 And he unblamed may gaze upon My Fair, 
 And oft My Fair his favored form surveys. 
 
 Oh, Happy Picture, still on Her to gaze ! 
 
 I envy him 5 and jealous fear alarms, 
 
 Lest the strong glance of those divinest charms 
 Warm him to life, as in the ancient days, 
 When marble melted in Pygmalion’s arms. 
 
 I would I were that portly gentleman, 
 
 With gold-laced hat and golden-headed cane ! 
 
 Robert Southey. 
 
 LIU. 
 
 I say that the art is greatest which conveys 
 to the mind of the spectator, by any means, 
 whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest 
 ideas ; and I call an idea great in proportion as 
 it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, 
 and as it more fully occupies, and in occupying, 
 exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is 
 received. If this then be the definition of great 
 art, that of a great artist naturally follows.. He 
 is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the 
 sum of his works, the greatest number of the 
 greatest ideas. John Ruskin. 
 
54 
 
 JRoments tottf) Strt. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 THE ASCENDING MAGDALEN, BY RIBERA. 
 
 Forgiven woman, spirit unafraid 
 
 Borne upward by child angels to the throne, 
 Nearing the presence of thy Lord alone, 
 Humanly outcast, neither wed nor maid, 
 
 But with thy soul’s soul pure, although the 
 shade 
 
 Of anguish past is in thy eyes, the moan 
 Of sorrow stilled upon thy lips, its tone 
 Piercing the breast as ’t were grief unallayed. 
 
 Yet is thy ragged garment royal dress, 
 
 And in the Lamb’s blood is thy mantle dyed 
 From the deep heart of slain and risen Love. 
 Thy hair a halo is — each holy tress 
 
 That wiped thy Master’s feet a sign above 
 All pardoning words thou shalt in peace abide ! 
 
 Minna C. Smith. 
 
 LV. 
 
 THE OLD PICTURE-DEALER. 
 
 The second landing-place. Above, 
 Sun-pictures for a shilling each. 
 
 Below, a haunt that Teutons love, — 
 
 Beer, smoke and pretzels all in reach. 
 Between the two, a mouldy nook 
 
 Where loungers hunt for things of worth 
 Engraving, curio, or book — 
 
 Here drifted from all over Earth. 
 
foments tottf) &rt* 
 
 55 
 
 Be the day’s traffic more or less, 
 
 Old Brian seeks his Leyden chair 
 Placed in the ante-room’s recess, 
 
 Our connoisseur’s securest lair : 
 
 Here, turning full the burner’s rays, 
 
 Holds long his treasure-trove in sight, — 
 Upon a painting sets his gaze 
 Like some devoted eremite. 
 
 The book-worms rummage as they will, 
 Loud roars the wonted Broadway din, 
 Life runs its hackneyed round, — but still 
 One tireless boon can Brian win, — 
 
 Can picture in this modern time 
 
 A life no more the world shall know, 
 
 And dream of Beauty at her prime 
 In Parma, with Correggio. 
 
 Withered the dealer’s face, and old, 
 
 But wearing yet the first surprise 
 Of him whose eyes the light behold 
 Of Italy and Paradise : 
 
 Forever blest, forever young, 
 
 The rapt Madonna poises there, 
 
 Her praise by hovering cherubs sung, 
 
 Her robes by ether buoyed, not air. 
 
 See from the graybeard’s meerschaum float 
 A cloud of incense ! Day or night, 
 
 He needs must steal apart to note 
 Her grace, her consecrating light. 
 
56 
 
 foments tottl) Strt. 
 
 With less ecstatic worship lay, 
 
 Before his marble goddess prone, 
 
 The crippled poet, that last day 
 
 When in the Louvre he made his moan. 
 
 Warm grows the radiant masterpiece, 
 
 The sweetness of Correggio ! 
 
 The visionary hues increase, 
 
 Angelic lustres come and go ; 
 
 And still, as still in Parma too, — 
 
 In Rome, Bologna, Florence, all, — 
 
 Goes on the outer world’s ado, 
 
 Life’s transitory, harsh recall. 
 
 A real Correggio? And here ! 
 
 Yes, to the one impassioned heart, 
 Transfiguring all, the strokes appear 
 That mark the perfect master’s art. 
 
 You question of the proof ? You owe 
 More faith to fact than fancy? Hush ! 
 
 Look with expectant eyes, and know, 
 
 With him, the hand that held the brush ! 
 
 The same wild thought that warmed from stone 
 The Venus of the monkish Gest, 
 
 The image of Pygmalion, 
 
 Here finds Correggio confest. 
 
 And Art requires its votary : 
 
 The Queen of Heaven herself may pine 
 When these quaint rooms no longer see 
 The one that knew her all divine. 
 
foments toitl) art* 
 
 57 
 
 Ah me! ah me, for centuries veiled ! 
 
 (The desolate Virgin then may say,) 
 
 Once more my rainbow tints are paled 
 With that unquestioning soul away — 
 Whose faith compelled the sun, the stars, 
 
 To yield their halos for my sake, 
 
 And saw through Time’s obscuring bars 
 The Parmese master’s glory break ! 
 
 E. C. Stedman. 
 
 LVL 
 
 TITIAN’S ASSUMPTION. 
 
 Burst is the iron gate ! 
 
 And, from the night of fate ; 
 
 Out of the darkness and the gloom abhorred ; 
 Amidst the choral hymn, 
 
 With cloud and cherubim, 
 
 The Virgin leaves the tomb, — arisen like her 
 Lord ! 
 
 Free in the heavens she soars, 
 
 While the clear radiance pours, 
 
 Like a vast glory, round her upward face ; 
 
 And higher still and higher, 
 
 With the angelic choir, 
 
 The soul by grace regained, regains the realms 
 of grace. 
 
 In mortal shape ! and yet, 
 
 Upon her brow is set, 
 
 The new celestial glory like a crown ; 
 
20 
 
 foments tnttb 3trt. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 « I am always at work,” said a great artist, 
 
 “ and when an inspiration comes, I am ready to 
 make the most of it.” Inspiration rarely leaves 
 such a man long unvisited. One looks at Tur- 
 ner’s pictures with wonder in his heart. In 
 
 this rushing, roaring, sooty London, with i s 
 
 leaden skies, its returning clouds and obscuring 
 fogs, how were such dreams wooed and won. 
 The painter’s life answers the question. Lon- 
 don had small share of Turner ; he lived in a 
 world of his own making, and the flush of its 
 sky, the glory of its golden atmosphere, never 
 wholly faded from his vision. ^ ^ Mabie . 
 
 XV. 
 
 As to clever people hating each other, I 
 think a little extra talent does sometimes make 
 people jealous. They become irritated by per- 
 petual attempts and failures, and it hurts their 
 tempers and dispositions. Unpretending medi- 
 ocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a 
 weak flavor of genius in an essentially common 
 person is detestable. It spoils the grand neu- 
 trality of a commonplace character, as the 
 rinsings of an unwashed wine-glass spoil a 
 draught of fair water. 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A picture is a poem without words. 
 
 Horace. 
 
foments tottf) art, 
 
 21 
 
 XVII. 
 
 INDIVIDUALITY. 
 
 What the cloud doeth 
 The Lord knoweth, 
 
 The cloud knoweth not . 
 
 What the artist doeth , 
 
 The Lord knoweth; 
 
 Knoweth the artist not ? 
 
 Well answered ! O dear artists, ye — 
 Whether in forms of curve or hue 
 Or tone your gospels be — 
 
 Say wrong This work is not of me, 
 
 But God : it is not true, it is not true. 
 
 Awful is Art because ’t is free. 
 
 The artist trembles o’er his plan, 
 
 Where men his Self must see. 
 
 Who made a song or picture, he 
 Did it, and not another, God nor man. 
 
 Sidney Lanier. 
 
 {From Poems of Sidney Lanier, copyright, 1884, 1891, 
 by Mary D. Lanier, and published by Charles Scribner 1 s 
 Sons.) 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 TO ART. 
 
 To Art we go as to a well, athirst, 
 
 And see our shadow ’gainst its mimic skies, 
 But in its depth must plunge and be immersed 
 To clasp the naiad Truth where low she lies. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
22 
 
 foments toitl) art. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE APOLLO, AND VENUS OF MEDICI. 
 
 All conquest-flushed, from prostrate Python, 
 
 The quivered god. In graceful act he stands, 
 
 His arm extended with the slackened bow; 
 
 Lio-ht flows his easy robe, and fair displays 
 A manly, softened form. The bloom of gods 
 Seems youthful o’er the beardless cheek to 
 wave : 
 
 His features yet, heroic ardor warms; 
 
 And sweet subsiding to a native smile,^ 
 
 Mixed with the joy elating conquest gives, 
 
 A scattered frown exalts his matchless air. 
 
 The Queen of Love arose, as from the deep 
 She sprung in all the melting pomp of charms. 
 Bashful she bends, her well-taught look aside 
 Turns in enchanting guise, where dubious mix 
 Vain conscious beauty, a dissembled sense 
 Of modest shame, and slippery looks of love. 
 The gazer grows enamoured, and the stone, 
 
 As if exulting in its conquest, smiles. . 
 
 So turned each limb, so swelled with softening art, 
 That the deluded eye the marble doubts. 
 
 James Thomson. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Hunt’s “ Light of the World,” is, I believe, 
 the most perfect instance of expressional pur- 
 pose with technical power which the world has 
 yet produced. j 0HN r uskin . 
 
JHomtnta tottlj &rt. 
 
 23 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A FACE. 
 
 If one could have that little head of hers 
 Painted upon a background of pale gold, 
 
 Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers ! 
 
 No shade encroaching on the matchless mould 
 Of those two lips, which should be opening soft 
 In the pure profile ; not as when she laughs, 
 For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft 
 Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff s 
 Burthen of honey-colored buds to kiss 
 And capture ’twixt the lips apart for this. 
 
 Then her lithe neck, three fingers might sur- 
 round, 
 
 How it should waver on the pale gold ground 
 Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts ! 
 
 I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts 
 Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb 
 Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb : 
 But these are only massed there, I should think, 
 Waiting to see some wonder momently 
 Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky 
 (That ’s the pale ground you ’d see this sweet 
 face by), 
 
 All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one 
 eye 
 
 Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 It is the perfection of art to conceal art. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
24 
 
 ^omenta tott& $LxU 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE VENUS OF MILO. 
 
 There fell a vision to Praxiteles : 
 
 Watching through drowsy lids the loitering seas 
 That lay caressing with white arms of foam 
 The sleeping marge of his Ionian home, 
 
 He saw great Aphrodite standing near, 
 
 Knew her, at last, the Beautiful he had sought 
 With life-long passion, and in love and fear 
 Into unsullied stone the vision wrought. 
 
 Far other was the form that Cnidos gave 
 To senile Rome, no longer free or brave, — 
 
 The Medicean, naked like a slave. 
 
 The Cnidians built her shrine 
 Of creamy ivory fine ; 
 
 Most costly was the floor 
 Of scented cedar, and from door 
 Was looped to carven door 
 Rich stuff of Tyrian purple, in whose shade 
 Her glistening shoulders and round limbs out- 
 shone, 
 
 Milk-white as lilies in a summer moon. 
 
 Here honey-hearted Greece to worship came, 
 And on her altar leaped a turbid flame, 
 
 The quickened blood ran dancing to its doom, 
 And lip sought trembling lip in that rich gloom. 
 
 But the island people of Cos, by the salt main 
 From Persia’s touch kept clean, 
 
 Chose for their purer shrine amid the seas 
 That grander vision of Praxiteles. 
 
Momenta tottf) let. 
 
 25 
 
 Long ages after, sunken in the ground 
 Of sea-girt Melos, wondering shepherds found 
 The marred and dinted copy which men name 
 Venus of Milo, saved to endless fame. 
 
 Before the broken marble, on a day, 
 
 There came a worshiper : a slanted ray 
 Struck in across the dimness of her shrine 
 And touched her face as to a smile divine ; 
 
 For it was like the worship of a Greek 
 At her old altar. Thus I heard him speak : — 
 
 Men call thee Love : is there no holier name 
 Than hers, the foam-born, laughter-loving dame ? 
 Nay, for there is than love no holier name : 
 
 All words that pass the lips of mortal men 
 With inner and with outer meaning shine ; 
 
 An outer gleam that meets the common ken, 
 
 An inner light that but the few divine. 
 
 Thou art the love celestial, seeking still 
 The soul beneath the form ; the serene will ; 
 The wisdom, of whose deeps the sages dream ; 
 The unseen beauty that doth faintly gleam 
 In stars, and flowers, and waters where they 
 roll ; 
 
 The unheard music whose faint echoes even 
 Make whosoever hears a homesick soul 
 Thereafter, till he follow it to heaven. 
 
 Larger than mortal woman I see thee stand, 
 With beautiful head bent forward steadily, 
 
 As if those earnest eyes could see 
 
26 
 
 foments tottf) &rt. 
 
 Some glorious thing far off, to which thy hand 
 Invisibly stretched onward seems to be. 
 
 From thy white forehead’s breadth of calm, the 
 hair 
 
 Sweeps lightly, as a cloud in windless air. 
 Placid thy brows, as that still line at dawn 
 Where the dim hills along the sky are drawn, 
 When the last stars are drowned in deeps afar. 
 Thy quiet mouth — I know not if it smile, 
 
 Or if in some wise pity thou wilt weep, — 
 Little as one may tell, some summer morn, 
 Whether the dreamy brightness is most glad, 
 Or wonderfully sad, — 
 
 So bright, so still thy lips serenely sleep ; 
 
 So fixedly thine earnest eyes the while, 
 
 As clear and steady as the morning star, 
 
 Their gaze upon that coming glory keep. 
 
 Thy garment’s fallen folds 
 Leave beautiful the fair, round breast 
 In sacred loveliness ; the bosom deep 
 Where happy babe might sleep ; 
 
 The ample waist no narrowing girdle holds, 
 Where daughters slim might come to cling and 
 
 rest, - , 
 
 Like tendriled vines against the plane-tree 
 
 pressed. 
 
 Around thy firm, large limbs and steady feet 
 The robes slope downward, as the folded mils 
 Slope round the mountain’s knees, when shadow 
 fills 
 
foments tott& art. 
 
 2 7 
 
 The hollow canons, and the wind is sweet 
 From russet oat-fields and the ripening wheat. 
 
 From our low world no gods have taken 
 wing ; 
 
 Even now upon our hills the twain are wander- 
 ing; 
 
 The Medicean’s sly and servile grace, 
 
 And the immortal beauty of thy face. 
 
 One is the spirit of all short-lived love 
 And outward, earthly loveliness : 
 
 The tremulous rosy morn is her mouth’s smile, 
 The sky her laughing azure eyes above ; 
 
 And, waiting for caress, 
 
 Lie bare the soft hill-slopes, the while 
 Her thrilling voice is heard 
 In song of wind and wave, and every flitting 
 bird. 
 
 Not plainly, never quite herself she shows; 
 
 Just a swift glance of her illumined smile 
 Along the landscape goes ; 
 
 Just a soft hint of singing, to beguile 
 A man from all his toil ; 
 
 Some vanished gleam of beckoning arm, to 
 spoil 
 
 A morning’s task with longing wild and vain. 
 Then if across the parching plain 
 He seek her, she with passion burns 
 His heart to fever, and he hears 
 The west wind’s mocking laughter when he 
 turns, 
 
 Shivering in mist of ocean’s sullen tears. 
 
28 
 
 foments tott& 3trt* 
 
 It is the Medicean: well I know 
 The arts her ancient subtlety will show ; 
 
 The stubble-field she turns to ruddy gold ; 
 
 The empty distance she will fold 
 
 In purple gauze : the warm glow she has kissed 
 
 Along the chilling mist : 
 
 Cheating and cheated love that grows to hate 
 And ever deeper loathing, soon or late. 
 
 Thou too, O fairer spirit, walkest here 
 Upon the lifted hills : 
 
 Wherever that still thought within the breast 
 The inner beauty of the world hath moved; 
 
 In starlight that the dome of evening fills; 
 
 On endless waters rounding to the west : 
 
 For them who thro* that beauty’s veil have loved 
 The soul of all things beautiful the best. 
 
 For lying broad awake, long ere the dawn, 
 Staring against the dark, the blank of space 
 Opens immeasurably, and thy face 
 Wavers and glimmers there and is withdrawn. 
 And many days, when all one’s work is vain, 
 And life goes stretching on, a waste gray plain, 
 With even the short mirage of morning gone, 
 No cool breath anywhere, no shadow nigh 
 Where a weary man might lay him down and die, 
 Lo ! thou art there before me suddenly, 
 
 With shade as if a summer cloud did pass, 
 
 And spray of fountains whispering to the grass. 
 Oh, save me from the haste and noise and heat 
 That spoil life’s music sweet : 
 
 And from that lesser Aphrodite there — 
 
foments tottf) &rt. 
 
 29 
 
 Even now she stands 
 
 Close as I turn, and, O my soul, how fair ! 
 
 Nay, I will heed not thy white beckoning hands, 
 Nor thy soft lips like the curled inner leaf 
 In a rosebud’s breast, kissed languid by the sun, 
 Nor eyes like liquid gleams where waters run. 
 Yea, thou art beautiful as morn ; 
 
 And even as I draw nigh 
 
 To scoff, I own the loveliness I scorn. 
 
 Farewell, for thou hast lost me : keep thy train 
 Of worshipers ; me thou dost lure in vain : 
 
 The inner passion, pure as very fire, 
 
 Burns to light ash the earthlier desire. 
 
 O greater Aphrodite, unto thee 
 Let me not say farewell. What would Earth be 
 Without thy presence ? Surely unto me 
 A life-long weariness, a dull, bad dream. 
 
 Abide with me, and let thy calm brows beam 
 Fresh hope upon me every amber dawn, 
 
 New peace when evening’s violet veil is drawn. 
 Then, tho’ I see along the glooming plain 
 The Medicean’s waving hand again, 
 
 And white feet glimmering in the harvest-field, 
 I shall not turn, nor yield ; 
 
 But as heaven deepens, and the Cross and Lyre 
 Lift up their stars beneath the Northern Crown, 
 Unto the yearning of the world’s desire 
 I shall be ’ware of answer coming down ; 
 
 And something, when my heart the darkness 
 stills, 
 
 Shall tell me, without sound or any sight, 
 
30 
 
 jftomentB tottl) &rt. 
 
 That other footsteps are upon the hills ; 
 
 Till the dim earth is luminous with the light 
 Of the white dawn, from some far-hidden shore, 
 That shines upon thy forehead evermore. 
 
 Edward Rowland Sill, 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 RECOGNITION. 
 
 An artist feels the genius where 
 A critic cries, 
 
 “ Only the hinted beauty of a fair . 
 Conception marred beyond repair, 
 
 That truth belies.” 
 
 To him whose heart has borne the strain 
 Of hope and fear, 
 
 His own swift visions to retain 
 Beyond a semblance of disdain, 
 
 All work is dear. 
 
 Martha Gilbert Dickinson. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 PERFECTION. 
 
 To keep in sight Perfection, and adore 
 The vision, is the artist’s best delight; 
 
 His bitterest pang, that he can ne’er do more 
 Than keep her long’d-for loveliness in sight. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
foments toitj) SLrt. 
 
 3i 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 ON A HEAD OF CHRIST, BY QUINTIN 
 MATSYS. 
 
 (Fifteenth Century.) 
 
 A grieving face, adown whose hollow cheek 
 
 The bright tears fall from tender, mournful 
 eyes ; 
 
 Eyes, sad with never finding what they seek, 
 
 Lips, curved by many weary, wasting sighs. 
 
 The tear-drops glisten — frail they seem and 
 slight, 
 
 As though a breath would sweep them into 
 air; 
 
 And yet four hundred years of day and night 
 
 Have passed since first the painter formed 
 them there. 
 
 How strange that they should last, those painted 
 tears, 
 
 While kingdoms perish, nations fall and rise ; 
 
 Strange that through all the stormy rush of 
 years 
 
 They lie unchanged in those sad, grieving 
 eyes. 
 
 Does He yet mourn ? The world from Him 
 enticed 
 
 Wanders afar, and will not walk His way. 
 
 O patient One ! O weary, watching Christ, 
 
 Are the tears wet upon Thy face to-day ? 
 
 Bessie Chandler Parker. 
 
32 
 
 foments tottl) art. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 ANTHONY OF PADUA. 
 
 (Murillo.) 
 
 This story with its simple rhyme, 
 
 This picture by a hand sublime, 
 
 Spring from a legend in the time 
 Of Anthony of Padua. 
 
 Some doubt had cast its shadows strong 
 Upon the Saint, who well and long 
 Fought manfully to right this wrong 
 Fought day and night in Padua. 
 
 Till in his arms, so it is told, 
 
 The Saint did his dear Lord enfold, 
 
 And there appeared a light like gold 
 From out the skies of Padua. 
 
 “ O Christ Child, art Thou come to me ! 
 
 With wonder sweet I welcome Thee^ 
 
 O Christ Child, can this wonder be ! 
 
 Cried Anthony of Padua. 
 
 “ I thank Thee, Blessed One, for this. 
 Forgive what I have done amiss ! 
 
 And let me greet Thee with a kiss, ^ 
 
 Thou Dear One, come to Padua. 
 
 “ To him who struggles with his might 
 Our Lord has promised to bring light 
 And glory, as of lilies white, 
 
 The angels sang in Padua. 
 
 Harriet Lewis Bradley. 
 
Jftoments tottf) 3Lt fc 
 
 33 
 
 XXVIII . 
 
 AN IVORY MINIATURE. 
 
 When State Street homes were stately still; 
 When out of town was Murray Hill; 
 
 In late-deceased “ old times ” 
 
 Of vast, embowering bonnet-shapes, 
 
 And creamy-crinkled Canton crapes, 
 
 And florid annual-rhymes, 
 
 He owned a small suburban seat 
 Where now you see a modern street, 
 
 A monochrome of brown ; 
 
 The sad “ brown-brown ” of Dante’s dreams, 
 A twilight turned to stone, that seems 
 To weight our city down. 
 
 Through leafy chestnuts whitely showed 
 The pillared front of his abode : 
 
 A garden girt it ’round, 
 
 Where pungent box did trim enclose 
 The marigold and cabbage-rose, 
 
 And “ pi’ny ” heavy-crowned. 
 
 Yea, whatso sweets, the changing year’s, 
 He most affected. Gone, but here ’s 
 His face who loved them so. 
 
 Old eyes like sherry, warm and mild ; 
 
 A cheek clear-hued as cheek of child; 
 Sleek head, a sphere of snow. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 foments tottfc &rt. 
 
 His mouth was pious, and his nose 
 Patrician ; with which mould there goes 
 A disaffected view. 
 
 In those sublime, be-oratored, 
 
 Spread-eagle days, his soul deplored 
 So much red-white-and-blue ! 
 
 In umber ink, with S’s long, 
 
 He left behind him censure strong 
 In stiff est phrases clothed ; 
 
 But Time — a pleasant jest enough ! — 
 
 Has turned the tory leaves to buff, 
 
 The liberal hue he loathed. 
 
 Of many a gentle deed he made 
 Brief simple record. Never fade 
 Those everlasting-flowers 
 That spring up wild by good men’s walks ; 
 Opinions wither on their stalks, 
 
 And sere grow Fashion’s bowers. 
 
 Erect, be-frilled, in neckcloth tall. 
 
 His semblance sits, removed from all 
 Our needs and noises new ; 
 
 Released from all the rent we pay 
 As tenants of the large To-day, 
 
 Cool, in a background blue. 
 
 And he, beneath a cherub chipped, 
 
 Plump, squamous-pinioned, p outing-lipped, 
 Sleeps calm where Trinity 
 Points finger dark to clouds that fleets 
 A warning, seen from surging street, 
 
 A welcome, seen from sea. 
 
foments tottf) 9trt. 
 
 35 
 
 There fall, ghosts glorified of tears 
 
 Shed for the dead in buried years, 
 
 The silver notes of chimes ; 
 
 And there, with not unreverent hand 
 
 Though light, I lay this “ greene garland,” 
 This woven wreath of rhymes. 
 
 Helen Gray Cone. 
 
 xxix. 
 
 Of all God’s gifts to the sight of man, color 
 is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. 
 We speak rashly of gay color and sad color, 
 for color cannot at once be good and gay. All 
 good color is in some degree pensive; the 
 loveliest is melancholy, and the purest and most 
 thoughtful minds are those which love color 
 the most. John Ruskin. 
 
 xxx. 
 
 Architecture is the art which so disposes 
 and adorns the edifices raised by man, for 
 whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may 
 contribute to his mental health, power, and 
 pleasure. John Ruskin. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Genius is nothing but a great capacity for 
 patience. Buffon. 
 
 xxxii. 
 
 Nature is the art of God. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne. 
 
36 
 
 foments tottj) art. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 PiESTUM. 
 
 Two thousand years these temples have been 
 old, 
 
 Yet were they not more lovely the first day 
 When o’er yon hills the young light blushed 
 
 and lay , , u 
 
 Along these tapering columns, and eve s gold 
 Over the Tyrrhene sea in glory rolled. 
 
 By power of truth, by beauty’s royal sway, 
 While men and creeds and kingdoms pass 
 
 away, . , 
 
 Their gift to charm and awe they calmly hold. 
 Beauty and truth ! by that high grace divine 
 They force the tribute of the vassal years. 
 Clouds gloom; the blue wave dimples; the 
 stars shine, 
 
 To make them fairer ; even Time, that tears 
 And shames all other things, here can but bless 
 And beautify this crumbling loveliness. 
 
 John Hay. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 THORWALDSEN. 
 
 We often fail by searching far and wide 
 For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn 
 We ask fair wind and favorable tide. 
 
 From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn 
 To make Occasion, not to be denied. 
 
 Against the sheer, precipitous mountain-side 
 Thorwaldsen carved his Lion at Lucerne. 
 
 T. B. Aldrich. 
 
Jitomenta taritl) &rt 
 
 37 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 A PICTURE AT NEWSTEAD. 
 
 What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest 
 swell ? 
 
 ’T was not the thought of Byron, of his cry 
 Stormily sweet, his Titan agony ; 
 
 It was the sight of that Lord Arundel 
 
 Who struck, in heat, his child he loved so well, 
 And his child’s reason flicker’d, and did die. 
 Painted (he will’d it) in the gallery 
 They hang ; the picture doth the story tell. 
 
 Behold the stern, mailed father, staff in hand ! 
 The little fair-h air’d son, with vacant gaze, 
 Where no more lights of sense or knowledge 
 are ! 
 
 Methinks the woe which made that father stand 
 Baring his dumb remorse to future days, 
 
 Was woe than Byron’s woe more tragic far. 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 xxxvi. 
 
 An artist is — and recollect this definition 
 (put in capitals for quick reference), — A per- 
 son WHO HAS SUBMITTED TO A LAW WHICH IT 
 WAS PAINFUL TO OBEY, THAT HE MAY BESTOW 
 A DELIGHT WHICH IT IS GRACIOUS TO BESTOW. 
 
 Ruskin. 
 
38 
 
 foments tottf) %LxU 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 TITIAN’S STUDIO. 
 
 (A painting of Danae with a curtain before it. Titian, 
 Michael Angelo, and Vasari.) 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 So you have left at last your still lagoons, 
 
 Your City of Silence floating in the sea, 
 
 And come to us in Rome. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 I come to learn, 
 
 But I have come too late. I should have seen 
 Rome in my youth, when all my mind was open 
 To new impressions. Our Vasari here 
 Leads me about, a blind man, groping darkly 
 Among the marvels of the past. I touch them, 
 But do not see them. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 There are things in Rome, 
 That one might walk barefooted here from 
 Venice 
 
 But to see once, and then to die content. 
 
 Tell me of art in Venice. Three great names, 
 Giorgione, Titian, and the Tintoretto, 
 
 Illustrate your Venetian school, and send 
 A challenge to the world. The first is dead, 
 But Tintoretto lives. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 And paints with fire, 
 
 Sudden and splendid, as the lightning paints 
 The cloudy vault of heaven. 
 
foments toitf) art. 
 
 39 
 
 Vasari. 
 
 Does he still keep 
 
 Above his door the arrogant inscription 
 That once was painted there, — “ The color of 
 Titian, 
 
 With the design of Michael Angelo 51 ? 
 
 Titian. 
 
 Indeed, I know not. ’T was a foolish boast, 
 And does no harm to any but himself. 
 
 Perhaps he has grown wiser. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 And now, Maestro, pray unveil your picture 
 Of Danae, of which I hear such praise. 
 
 Titian, drawing back the curtain . 
 What think you ? 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 That Acrisius did well 
 To lock such beauty in a brazen tower, 
 
 And hide it from all eyes. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 The model truly 
 
 Was beautiful. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 And more, that you were present, 
 And saw the showery Jove from High Olympus 
 Descend in all his splendor. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 From your lips 
 
 Such words are full of sweetness. 
 
40 
 
 foments tottl) &tt. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 You have caught 
 These golden hues from your Venetian sunsets. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 Possibly. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 Or from sunshine through a shower 
 On the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic. 
 
 And thus the works of every artist show 
 Something of his surroundings and his habits. 
 The uttermost that can be reached by color 
 Is here accomplished. Warmth and light and 
 softness 
 
 Mingle together. Never yet was flesh 
 Painted by hand of artist, dead or living, 
 
 With such divine perfection. 
 
 Wonderful ! wonderful ! The charm of color 
 Fascinates me the more that in myself 
 The gift is wanting. I am not a painter. 
 
 Vasari. 
 
 Messer Michele, all the arts are yours, 
 
 Not one alone ; and therefore I may venture 
 To put a question to you. 
 
 Which is the greater of the sister arts, 
 
 Painting or sculpture ? Solve for me the doubt. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 Georgio Vasari, I have often said 
 That I account that painting as the best 
 
Jftoments tottf) $rt. 
 
 4i 
 
 Which most resembles sculpture. Here before 
 
 US 
 
 We have the proof. Behold these rounded 
 limbs ! 
 
 How from the canvas they detach themselves, 
 Till they deceive the eye, and one would say, 
 
 It is a statue with a screen behind it ! 
 
 And now, Maestro, I will say once more 
 How admirable I esteem your work, 
 
 And leave you, without further interruption. 
 
 Titian. 
 
 Your friendly visit hath much honored me. 
 Vasari. 
 
 F arewell. 
 
 Michael Angelo, to Vasari, going out . 
 
 If the Venetian painters knew 
 But half as much of drawing as of color, 
 
 They would indeed work miracles in art, 
 
 And the world see what it hath never seen. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 xxxviii. 
 
 Even in portraits, the grace — and, we may 
 add, the likeness — consists more in taking the 
 general air than in observing the exact simil- 
 itude of every feature. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
42 
 
 Jfloments tottj) 3lrt. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 COROT’S ORPHEUS. 
 
 Sweet dove of dawn with silver breast, 
 
 Seen dimly through the fleeting shade, 
 
 Drugged with her warm and dreamless rest, 
 
 The earth scarce wakes ere thou dost fade. 
 
 Color unborn in herb or tree, 
 
 Floats dimly on the silent air, 
 
 And beauty, fluent still and free, 
 
 A spirit breathing everywhere. 
 
 Vast depths of space that seem to thrill 
 And tremble with the coming day, 
 
 That mystic moment prayerful still, 
 
 Ere gold has flooded all the gray. 
 
 High mottled clouds upon the edge 
 Have caught a little quivering beam, 
 
 No dewdrop shining on the hedge, 
 
 No light upon the hidden stream. 
 
 But all the landscape drenched with dew, 
 
 And freshness stealing from the founts ; 
 
 Bright beams that pierce the tree-tops through, 
 While in the east a glory mounts. 
 
 Stealthy the breath from herb and flower 
 
 Creeps now through dripping leaves and grass, 
 
 To pay sweet tribute to the hour, 
 
 And freeze the breezes as they pass. 
 
foments tottl) &xt 
 
 43 
 
 The god comes forth to greet the light, 
 Dilating with the breath of song, 
 
 And like a swallow in its flight 
 By inspiration borne along. 
 
 He grasps the lyre with careless hand, 
 Forgetful of its charmed strings ; 
 
 One moment ere their tones expand, 
 
 The voiceless spirit soars and sings. 
 
 Sacred as truth these hues and lines, 
 
 Religious as a minster aisle ; 
 
 When reverence thy soul inclines, 
 
 Come gaze and lose thyself the while. 
 
 Augusta Larned. 
 
 XL. 
 
 MEISSONIER. 
 
 Watching your precious work, we vainly guess 
 What miracle creates as potent fact 
 Such height in brevity, width in narrowness, 
 And liberal vigor wed with cunning tact. 
 
 Your virile patience that no toil can crush, 
 
 The more we muse upon we prize the more, 
 
 O Liliput Angelo, whose wizard brush 
 Could paint a battle upon a louis d’or! 
 
 Edgar Fawcett. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt ; 
 Nothing ’s so hard but search will find it out. 
 
 Herrick. 
 
44 
 
 foments tort!) 3trt. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN ON THE ROOF OF MILAN 
 CATHEDRAL. 
 
 “ A mount of marble, a hundred spires.” 
 
 The long, long night of utter loneliness, 
 
 Of conflict, pain, defeat, and sore distress, 
 
 Hath vanished ; and I stand as one whose life 
 Wages with death a scarcely winning strife, 
 Here, on this mount of marble. Like a sea 
 Waveless and blue, the sky’s transparency 
 Bathes spire and statue. Was it man or God 
 Who built these domes, whereon the feet have 
 trod 
 
 Of eve and night and morn with rose and gold 
 And silver and strange symbols manifold 
 Of shadow ? Fabric not of stone but mist 
 Or pearl or cloud beneath heaven s amethyst 
 Glitters the marvel : cloud congealed to shine 
 Through centuries with lustre crystalline; 
 
 Pearl spiked and fretted like an Orient shell ; 
 Mist on the frozen fern-wreaths of a well. 
 
 Not God’s but man’s work this : God’s yonder 
 fane, 
 
 Reared on the distant limit of the plain, 
 
 From azure into azure, to blue sky 
 Shooting from vapors blue that folded lie 
 Round valley-basements, robed in royal snow, 
 Wherefrom life-giving waters leaping flow, 
 Aerial Monte Rosa ! — God and man 
 Confront each other, with this narrow span 
 
foments toitfc &rt. 
 
 45 
 
 Of plain to part them, try what each can do 
 To make applauding Seraphs from the blue 
 Lean marvel-smitten, or alight with song 
 Upon the glittering peaks, or clustering throng 
 The spacious pathways. God on man’s work 
 here 
 
 Hath set His signature and symbol clear ; 
 
 Man’s soul that thinks and feels, to God’s work 
 there 
 
 Gives life, which else were cold and dumb and 
 bare. 
 
 God is man’s soul ; man’s soul a spark of God : 
 By God in man the dull, terrestrial clod 
 Becomes a thing of beauty; thinking man 
 Through God made manifest, outrival can 
 His handiwork of nature. Do we dream 
 Mingling reality with things that seem ? 
 
 Or is it true that God and man appear 
 One soul in sentient art self-conscious here, 
 
 One soul o’er senseless nature stair by stair 
 Raised to create by comprehending there ? 
 
 J. Addington Symonds. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Artists are of three classes : those who per- 
 ceive and pursue the good, and leave the evil ; 
 those who perceive and pursue the good and 
 evil together, the whole thing as it verily is ; 
 and those who perceive and pursue the evil and 
 leave the good. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
4 6 
 
 foments tott& &rt 
 
 XL IV. 
 
 THE MADONNA. 
 
 Down from her shrine the dear Madonna gazed, 
 Her baby lying warm against her breast, 
 
 “ What does she see ? ” he whispered ; “ can she 
 guess 
 
 The cruel thorns to those soft temples 
 pressed? ” 
 
 “ Ah, no !” she said, “she shuts him safe from 
 harms, 
 
 Within the love-locked harbor of her arms. 
 
 No fear of coming fate could make me sad 
 
 If so, to-night, I held my little lad.” 
 
 Emily Huntington Miller. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 AFTER TENIERS. 
 
 A quiet curve of sombre brown water, 
 
 Flecked with duck-weed and dotted with 
 leaves ; 
 
 A low brick cottage, where shadows nestle 
 ’Neath velvet edges of well-thatched eaves. 
 
 In front a space, with its gaudy dahlias, 
 
 And solid shade of the branching lime, 
 Where, soberly gay, two boors are drinking 
 In the deep’ning gloom of the evening time. 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell. 
 
fHoments tottl) 9trt. 
 
 47 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 ' A DUTCH PICTURE. 
 
 But when the winter rains begin, 
 
 He sits and smokes by the blazing brands, 
 And old sea-faring men come in, 
 
 Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin, 
 
 And rings upon their hands. 
 
 They sit there in the shadow and shine 
 Of the flickering fire of the winter night ; 
 Figures in color and design 
 Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, 
 
 Half darkness and half light. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 XL VI I. 
 
 ART MAXIMS. 
 
 Often ornateness 
 Goes with greatness ; 
 
 Oftener felicity 
 Comes of simplicity. 
 
 Talent that’s cheapest 
 Affects singularity. 
 
 Thoughts that dive deepest 
 Rise radiant in clarity. 
 
 No record Art keeps 
 Of her travail and throes. 
 
 There is toil on the steeps, — 
 
 On the summits, repose. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
48 
 
 ^-laments tottf) 3trt, 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 A COPY. 
 
 I walked a gallery of famous names 
 And famous fancies, framed in lines of gold,— 
 The paintings that a world has reckoned good, — 
 And saw, before a canvas that did limn 
 Some mythic story with a wondrous grace 
 (For Rubens was the painter, I recall), 
 
 An old, bent man whose long and silvered locks 
 Swept down his shoulders, and whose trembling 
 hand 
 
 Moved steadier as it grasped the brush, where- 
 with 
 
 He sketched a copy of the masterpiece ; 
 
 His easel just aside, that no offence 
 Of barring sight from those who came to gaze 
 At Rubens’ work might be imputed his. 
 Straightway the wall, with all its freight of tales 
 In colors told, grew blurred before mine eyes, 
 And lost its old allurement ; for I could 
 See nothing but the patient plodder there, 
 Whom death might overtake, and find undone 
 Full half the figures he must fitly draw 
 To all-complete the picture, let alone 
 The laying on of oils to give it life ; 
 
 And who, undaunted, calm, and happy-eyed, 
 
 Did sit and sketch, and leave the rest to God. 
 Without the hope of making earthly fame, . 
 
 Yet cheered, perchance, in knowing that his art 
 Would have eternity to ripen in, 
 
 Until he blent his soul with Rubens’ own. 
 
 Richard Burton. 
 
foments toitl) &rt. 
 
 49 
 
 XL IX. 
 
 PICTOR IGNOTUS. 
 
 (Florence, 15—.) 
 
 I could have painted pictures like that youth s 
 Ye praise so. How my soul springs up ! No 
 bar 
 
 Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while 
 it soothes ! 
 
 — Never did fate forbid me, star by star, 
 
 To outburst on your night, with all my gift 
 Of fires from God : nor would my flesh have 
 shrunk 
 
 From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift 
 
 And wide to heaven, or straight like thunder, 
 sunk 
 
 To the centre, of an instant ; or around 
 Turned calmly or inquisitive, to scan 
 The license and the limit, space and bound, 
 Allowed to truth made visible in man. 
 
 And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw, 
 
 Over the canvas could my hand have flung, 
 Each face obedient to its passion’s law, 
 
 Each passion clear proclaimed without a 
 tongue : 
 
 Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, 
 A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, 
 
 Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood 
 Pull down the nesting dove’s heart to its 
 place ; 
 
 Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, 
 
 And locked the mouth fast, like a castle 
 braved, — 
 
 4 
 
50 jlcmtente tottl) 
 
 0 human faces ! hath it split, my cup ? 
 
 What did ye give me that I have not saved ? 
 
 Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well !) 
 Of going — I, in each new picture, — forth, 
 
 As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, 
 To Pope, or Kaiser, East, West, South, or 
 North, 
 
 Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, 
 
 Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, 
 
 Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, 
 Through old streets named afresh from the 
 event, 
 
 Till it reached home, where learned age should 
 greet 
 
 My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct 
 
 Above his hair, lie learning at my feet ! — 
 
 Oh ! thus to live, I and my picture, linked 
 
 With love about, and praise, till life should 
 end, 
 
 And then not go to heaven, but linger here. 
 
 Here on my earth, earth’s every man my friend, 
 The thought grew frightful, ’twas so wildly 
 •dear ! 
 
 But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such 
 sights 
 
 Have scared me, like the revels through a 
 door 
 
 Of some strange house of idols at its rites ! 
 This world seemed not the world it was, 
 before : 
 
 Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there 
 trooped 
 
foments tottf) %LxU 
 
 5i 
 
 . . . Who summoned those cold faces that 
 begun 
 
 To press on me and judge me ? Though I 
 stooped 
 
 Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, 
 
 They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . 
 enough ! 
 
 These buy and sell our pictures, take and 
 give, 
 
 Count them for garniture and household-stuff, 
 And where they live needs must our pictures 
 live 
 
 And see their faces, listen to their prate, 
 Partakers of their daily pettiness, 
 
 Discussed of, — “ This I love, or this I hate, 
 This likes me more, and this affects me less ! ” 
 Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles 
 My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint 
 These endless cloisters and eternal aisles 
 
 With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint, 
 With the same cold calm beautiful regard, — 
 
 At least no merchant traffics in my heart ; 
 
 The sanctuary’s gloom at least shall ward 
 
 Vain tongues from where my pictures stand 
 apart : 
 
 Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine 
 While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, 
 They moulder on the damp wall’s travertine, 
 ’Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. 
 So, die my pictures ! surely, gently die ! 
 
 O youth ! men praise so, — holds their praise 
 its worth ? 
 
52 
 
 ^Moments toitf) &rt. 
 
 Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry ? 
 Tastes sweet the water with such specks of 
 
 earth ? 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 L. 
 
 ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH, BY B. R. 
 HAYDON. 
 
 Wordsworth upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud 
 Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind 
 Then break against the rock, and show behind 
 The lowland valleys floating up to crowd 
 The sense with beauty. He with forehead 
 bowed 
 
 And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined 
 Before the sovran thought of his own mind, 
 
 And very meek with inspirations proud, 
 
 Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest 
 By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer 
 To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free 
 Our Haydon’s hand has flung out from the mist : 
 No .portrait this, with Academic air ! 
 
 This is the poet and his poetry. 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 LL 
 
 The Greek in nature saw his gods half-hidden 
 lurk ; 
 
 And copying nature, wrought his gods into his 
 work. 
 
 W. W. Story. 
 
foments tottfi 
 
 S3 
 
 LIT. 
 
 THE POET EXPRESSES HIS FEELINGS RE- 
 SPECTING A PORTRAIT IN DELIA’S 
 PARLOR. 
 
 I would I were that portly gentleman, 
 
 With gold-laced hat and golden-headed cane, 
 Who hangs in Delia’s parlor ! for, whene’er 
 From book or needlework her looks arise, 
 
 On him converge the sunbeams of her eyes, 
 
 And he unblamed may gaze upon My Fair, 
 And oft My Fair his favored form surveys. 
 
 Oh, Happy Picture, still on Her to gaze ! 
 
 I envy him ; and jealous fear alarms, 
 
 Lest the strong glance of those divinest charms 
 Warm him to life, as in the ancient days, 
 When marble melted in Pygmalion’s arms. 
 
 I would I were that portly gentleman, 
 
 With gold-laced hat and golden-headed cane ! 
 
 Robert Southey. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 I say that the art is greatest which conveys 
 to the mind of the spectator, by any means, 
 whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest 
 ideas ; and I call an idea great in proportion as 
 it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, 
 and as it more fully occupies, and in occupying, 
 exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is 
 received. If this then be the definition of great 
 art, that of a great artist naturally follows.. He 
 is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the 
 sum of his works, the greatest number of the 
 greatest ideas. John Ruskin. 
 
54 
 
 foments tottl) %Lxt* 
 
 LIV. 
 
 THE ASCENDING MAGDALEN, BY RIBERA. 
 
 Forgiven woman, spirit unafraid 
 
 Borne upward by child angels to the throne, 
 Nearing the presence of thy Lord alone, 
 Humanly outcast, neither wed nor maid, 
 
 But with thy soul’s soul pure, although the 
 shade 
 
 Of anguish past is in thy eyes, the moan 
 Of sorrow stilled upon thy lips, its tone 
 Piercing the breast as ’t were grief unallayed. 
 
 Yet is thy ragged garment royal dress, 
 
 And in the Lamb’s blood is thy mantle dyed 
 From the deep heart of slain and risen Love. 
 Thy hair a halo is — each holy tress 
 
 That wiped thy Master’s feet a sign above 
 All pardoning words thou shalt in peace abide ! 
 
 Minna C. Smith. 
 
 LV. 
 
 THE OLD PICTURE-DEALER. 
 
 The second landing-place. Above, 
 Sun-pictures for a shilling each. 
 
 Below, a haunt that Teutons love, — 
 
 Beer, smoke and pretzels all in reach. 
 Between the two, a mouldy nook 
 
 Where loungers hunt for things of worth — 
 Engraving, curio, or book — 
 
 Here drifted from all over Earth. 
 
^omenta tout!) U 
 
 55 
 
 Be the day’s traffic more or less, 
 
 Old Brian seeks his Leyden chair 
 Placed in the ante-room’s recess, 
 
 Our connoisseur’s securest lair : 
 
 Here, turning full the burner’s rays, 
 
 Holds long his treasure-trove in sight, — 
 Upon a painting sets his gaze 
 Like some devoted eremite. 
 
 The book-worms rummage as they will, 
 Loud roars the wonted Broadway din, 
 Life runs its hackneyed round, — but still 
 One tireless boon can Brian win, — 
 
 Can picture in this modern time 
 
 A life no more the world shall know, 
 
 And dream of Beauty at her prime 
 In Parma, with Correggio. 
 
 Withered the dealer’s face, and old, 
 
 But wearing yet the first surprise 
 Of him whose eyes the light behold 
 Of Italy and Paradise : 
 
 Forever blest, forever young, 
 
 The rapt Madonna poises there, 
 
 Her praise by hovering cherubs sung, 
 
 Her robes by ether buoyed, not air. 
 
 See from the graybeard’s meerschaum float 
 A cloud of incense ! Day or night, 
 
 He needs must steal apart to note 
 Her grace, her consecrating light. 
 
56 
 
 foments toitf) 3tt. 
 
 With less ecstatic worship lay, 
 
 Before his marble goddess prone, 
 
 The crippled poet, that last day 
 
 When in the Louvre he made his moan. 
 
 Warm grows the radiant masterpiece, 
 
 The sweetness of Correggio ! 
 
 The visionary hues increase, 
 
 Angelic lustres come and go ; 
 
 And still, as still in Parma too, — 
 
 In Rome, Bologna, Florence, all, — 
 
 Goes on the outer world’s ado, 
 
 Life’s transitory, harsh recall. 
 
 A real Correggio ? And here ! 
 
 Yes, to the one impassioned heart, 
 Transfiguring all, the strokes appear 
 That mark the perfect master’s art. 
 
 You question of the proof ? You owe 
 More faith to fact than fancy? Hush ! 
 
 Look with expectant eyes, and know, 
 
 With him, the hand that held the brush ! 
 
 The same wild thought that warmed from stone 
 The Venus of the monkish Gest, 
 
 The image of Pygmalion, 
 
 Here finds Correggio confest. 
 
 And Art requires its votary : 
 
 The Queen of Heaven herself may pine 
 When these quaint rooms no longer see 
 The one that knew her all divine. 
 
jSoments toitl) %LxU 
 
 57 
 
 Ah me! ah me, for centuries veiled ! 
 
 (The desolate Virgin then may say,) 
 
 Once more my rainbow tints are paled 
 With that unquestioning soul away — 
 Whose faith compelled the sun, the stars, 
 
 To yield their halos for my sake, 
 
 And saw through Time’s obscuring bars 
 The Parmese master’s glory break ! 
 
 E. C. Stedman. 
 
 L VI. 
 
 TITIAN’S ASSUMPTION. 
 
 Burst is the iron gate ! 
 
 And, from the night of fate ; 
 
 Out of the darkness and the gloom abhorred ; 
 Amidst the choral hymn, 
 
 With cloud and cherubim, 
 
 The Virgin leaves the tomb, — arisen like her 
 Lord ! 
 
 Free in the heavens she soars, 
 
 While the clear radiance pours, 
 
 Like a vast glory, round her upward face ; 
 
 And higher still and higher, 
 
 With the angelic choir, 
 
 The soul by grace regained, regains the realms 
 of grace. 
 
 In mortal shape ! and yet, 
 
 Upon her brow is set, 
 
 The new celestial glory like a crown ; 
 
58 
 
 foments tottf) $tt. 
 
 Her eyes anticipate 
 The bright eternal state ; 
 
 Her arms to heaven extend ; to her the heavens 
 reach down ! 
 
 We, with the saints beneath, 
 
 Half lose our mortal breath, 
 
 With sense and soul still following where she 
 flies ; 
 
 They, rapt into the light 
 Of the miraculous sight, — 
 
 We, of the wondrous art that gives it to our 
 eyes ! 
 
 , William Allen Butler. 
 
 LVIL 
 
 O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede 
 Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 
 With forest branches and the trodden weed ; 
 
 Thou, silent form ! dost tease us out of thought 
 As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral ! 
 
 When old age shall this generation waste, 
 Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
 Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou 
 sayest, 
 
 “ Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” — that is all 
 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 
 
 Keats. 
 
 (Ode on a Grecian Urn.) 
 
foments tottJ) &tt. 
 
 59 
 
 L VIII. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO’S STUDIO. 
 
 (He is at work on the Cartoon of the Last Judgment.) 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 Why did the Pope and his ten Cardinals 
 Come here to lay this heavy task upon me? 
 
 Were not the paintings on the Sistine ceiling 
 Enough for them? They saw the Hebrew 
 leader 
 
 Waiting, and clutching his tempestuous beard, 
 But heeded not. The bones of Julius 
 Shook in their sepulchre. I heard the sound ; 
 They only heard the sound of their own voices. 
 
 In happy hours, when the imagination 
 Wakes like a wind at midnight, and the soul 
 Trembles in all its leaves, it is a joy 
 To be uplifted on its wings, and listen 
 To the prophetic voices in the air 
 That call us onward. Then the work we do 
 Is a delight, and the obedient hand 
 Never grows weary. But how different is it 
 In the disconsolate, discouraged hours, 
 
 When all the wisdom of the world appears 
 As trivial as the gossip of a nurse 
 In a sick-room, and all our work seems useless. 
 What is it guides my hand, what thoughts pos- 
 sess me, 
 
 That I have drawn her face among the angels, . 
 Where she will be hereafter ? O sweet dreams, 
 
6o 
 
 foments tottl) 
 
 That through the vacant chambers of my heart 
 Walk in the silence, as familiar phantoms 
 Frequent an ancient house, what will ye with me ? 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 THE ARTIST. 
 
 Nothing the greatest artist can conceive 
 That every marble block doth not confine 
 Within itself ; and only its design 
 The hand that follows intellect can achieve. 
 The ill I flee, the good that I believe, 
 
 In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine, 
 
 Thus hidden lie ; and so that death be mine, 
 Art, of desired success, doth me bereave. 
 Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face, 
 
 Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain, 
 
 Of my disgrace, nor chance nor destiny, 
 
 If in thy heart both death and love find place 
 At the same time, and if my humble brain, 
 Burning, can nothing draw but death from 
 •thee. 
 
 Michael Angelo. (7V. by H. W. Longfellow.) 
 LX. 
 
 Art faculty is innate : it cannot be acquired. 
 It is a moral and intellectual force which may 
 be enhanced by cultivation, but cannot by any 
 such means be created. 
 
 Seymour Haden. 
 
foments font!) 
 
 61 
 
 LXI. 
 
 THE CHRIST. 
 
 (Suggested by the Pictures of Tissot.) 
 
 Yet look we for another — who shall paint . 
 
 The Christ of wide creation’s growing claim. 
 The hope on earth for sinner and for saint, 
 Conceived of shifting ages, yet the same? 
 
 Shall art prevail till visible endure 
 
 The self-avenging God, the shepherd’s scar 
 The rod and staff that lead through death se- 
 cure, . 
 
 The faith of childhood, manhood’s drifting 
 
 spar? 
 
 Stupendous task! Unto each soul remains, 
 
 Soft halo’d as befits a spirit guest, 
 
 The Christ, whose hand struck off his captive 
 chains, 
 
 The hidden Daysman of each human breast : 
 
 The magdalen, the mother, and the nun, 
 
 The fisherman of tossing Galilee, 
 
 The Puritan, the leper, and the son 
 Of modern stress in his complexity. 
 
 One knew him walking on the waves, and one 
 Loved him the Sabbath morning ’mid the 
 corn; 
 
 Another feasting ; some when he had done 
 Strange healing — few as prophet of the 
 thorn. 
 
62 
 
 JHamcnts tottj) Strt, 
 
 Wild hearts have met him in the wilderness; 
 
 And more close by, within the city wall, 
 
 Have touched the garment that perchance may 
 bless — 
 
 No fleshly image satisfies us all. 
 
 Though quick with love the painted form may 
 be, 
 
 “ Such, Lord, was never mine,” we cry. Oh, 
 then, 
 
 Look on the face of friend or foe and see 
 God’s masterpiece, — the deathless Christ in 
 men ! 
 
 Martha Gilbert Dickinson. 
 LXll . 
 
 EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS. 
 
 (A Picture by Leighton.) 
 
 But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the 
 
 fcrow ! 
 
 Let them once more absorb me ! One look now 
 Will lap me round forever, not to pass 
 Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond : 
 Hold me but safe again within the bond 
 Of one immortal look ! All woe that was, 
 Forgotten, and all terror that may be, 
 
 Defied, — no past is mine, no future : look at 
 me ! 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
foments tottl) %LxU 
 
 63 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 SAINT CECILIA. 
 
 A woman with a charmed hand 
 
 To wake sweet music, — yea, a saint 
 
 Whose home is in the mystic land, 
 
 Where poets sing and painters paint. 
 
 She wears a soft and Old World grace, 
 
 Her eyes are large with revery ; 
 
 Her solemn organ fills the place 
 With sounds that set the spirit free. 
 
 The lily is her flower, and meek 
 Her look is, as the flower’s own; 
 
 She hath no color in her cheek; 
 
 One thinks of her as oft alone. 
 
 Rubens once wrought her, playing there, 
 
 And made her beautiful, yet missed 
 
 The holiness, the pensive air 
 
 Of one whose face high heaven has kissed. 
 
 And Carlo Dolci tried, nor failed : 
 
 Cecilia sits and plays, and seems 
 
 A saint whose soul is unassailed, 
 
 And yet the woman of our dreams ! 
 
 Richard Burton. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Genius finds its own road and carries its own 
 lamp. 
 
 Willmott. 
 
64 
 
 foments toitl) %Lxt 
 
 LXV. 
 
 UNTRAMMELLED ART. 
 
 0 Poet-Painter — Thou whose throbbing lyre 
 
 With melody is thrilled, 
 
 Ye know but half how Inspiration’s fire 
 Is quenched and chilled 
 In the dull stream Development, half mire ! 
 
 O Painter fully-primed with dreams that fleet, 
 Is thy flat Canvas not a winding-sheet 
 Placed on a Stretcher for thy vision’s 
 corse ? 
 
 A pen but cramps thee, Pegasus, my horse ; 
 And five-lined Paper frights the Ethereal Quire. 
 
 1 ’ve only known from first to last, 
 
 A single Painter I could love ; 
 
 For he had realized the Vast 
 Eternal Truth proclaimed above: 
 
 In him Conception towered sublime 
 And Inspiration blazed intense. 
 
 Oh, many, many is the time 
 He ’s told me so in confidence. 
 
 I ’ve seen him, with a trembling light 
 Of Inspiration in his hair, 
 
 Before a Canvas purely white 
 Ecstatically sit and glare : 
 
 He daubed no stultifying Paint 
 Upon the pure unsullied Sheet; 
 
 Yet when he rose (a little faint) 
 
 The noble Picture was complete ! 
 
|5toments toitf) 3Lrt. 
 
 65 
 
 His vibrant soul had breathed the scene 
 Into the cloth in perfect wise ; 
 
 No marring Brush had come between 
 To limit and to vulgarize : 
 
 All subtleties of Line and Curve, 
 
 Of Tint and Tone, stood fixt and fair, 
 Though Vulgar Minds did not observe 
 That there was any Picture there. 
 
 The Critics — pure Perception — stand 
 In speechless Rapture for a time, 
 
 Then murmurously sigh, “ How Grand ! ” 
 
 “ What perfect Handling ! ” “ Too Sublime ! 79 
 
 But no Description can convey 
 
 What Beauty in his Canvas lurks — - 
 I ’ll show you, when you come my way, 
 
 A fine Collection of his works. 
 
 James F. Sullivan. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 TO VITTORIA COLONNA. 
 
 Lady, how can it chance — yet this we see 
 In long experience — that will longer last 
 A living image carved from quarries vast 
 Than its own maker, who dies presently ? 
 
 Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be, 
 
 And even Nature is by Art surpassed ; 
 
 This know I, who to Art have given the past, 
 But see that Time is breaking faith with me. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 foments toitf) 2lrt. 
 
 Perhaps on both of us long life can I 
 Either in color or in stone bestow, 
 
 By now portraying each in look and mien ; 
 
 So that a thousand years after we die, 
 
 How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe, 
 And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 (Tr. by H. W. Longfellow.) 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its 
 technicalities, difficulties, and particular ends, 
 is nothing but a noble and expressive language, 
 invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself 
 nothing. He who has learned what is commonly 
 considered the whole art of painting, that is, the 
 art of representing any natural object faithfully, 
 has as yet only learned the language by which his 
 thoughts are to be expressed. He has done 
 just as much towards being that which we 
 ought to respect as a great painter, as a man 
 who has learned to express himself grammati- 
 cally and melodiously has towards being a great 
 poet. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 L XVI II. 
 
 A flattering painter, who made it his care 
 To draw men as they ought to be, not as they 
 are. 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
foments tottf) &vt 
 
 6 7 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE. 
 
 I. 
 
 The morn when first it thunders in March, 
 
 The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say. 
 As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch 
 Of the villa-gate this warm March day, 
 
 No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 
 In the valley beneath where, white and wide 
 And washed by the morning water-gold, 
 Florence lay out on the mountain-side. 
 
 II. 
 
 River and bridge and street and square 
 Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, 
 Through the live translucent bath of air, 
 
 As the sights in a magic crystal-ball. 
 
 And of all I saw and of all I praised, 
 
 The most to praise and the best to see 
 Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised : 
 
 But why did it more than startle me ? 
 
 HI. 
 
 Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, 
 
 Could you play me false who loved you so ? 
 Some slights if a certain heart endures 
 
 Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know 
 I’ faith, I perceive not why I should care, 
 
 To break a silence that suits them best, 
 
 But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear 
 When I find a Giotto join the rest. 
 
68 
 
 foments totti) &tt. 
 
 IV. 
 
 On the arch where olives overhead 
 Print the blue sky with twig and leaf 
 (That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed), 
 ’Twixt the aloes, I used to learn in chief, 
 
 And mark through the winter afternoons, 
 
 By a gift God grants me now and then, 
 
 In the mild decline of those suns like moons, 
 Who walked in Florence, besides her men. 
 
 v. 
 
 They might chirp and chaffer, come and go 
 For pleasure or profit, her men alive — 
 
 My business was hardly with them, I trow, 
 
 But with empty cells of the human hive ; 
 
 — With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, 
 The church’s apsis, aisle or nave, 
 
 Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch, 
 
 Its face set full for the sun to shave. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Wherever a fresco peels and drops, 
 
 Wherever an outline weakens and wanes 
 Till the latest life in the painting stops, 
 
 Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick 
 pains : 
 
 One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, 
 Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, 
 
 — A lion who dies of an ass’s kick, 
 
 The wronged great soul of an ancient Master. 
 
69 
 
 ^foments tottl) art. 
 
 VII. 
 
 For oh, this world and the wrong it does ! 
 
 They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, 
 The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz 
 Round the works of, you of .the little wit . 
 
 Do their eyes contract to the earth’s old scope, 
 Now that they see God face to face, 
 
 And have all attained to be poets, I hope? 
 
 ’T is their holiday now, in any case. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Much they reck of your praise and you ! 
 
 But the wronged great souls can they De 
 quit 
 
 Of a world where their work is all to do, . 
 
 Where you style them, you of the little wit, 
 Old Master This and Early the Other, 
 
 Not dreaming that Old and N ew are fellows : 
 A younger succeeds to an elder brother, 
 
 Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And here where your praise might yield returns, 
 And a handsome word or two give help, 
 Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns, 
 
 And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. 
 
 What, not a word for Stefano there, 
 
 Of brow once prominent and starry, 
 
 Called Nature’s Ape and the world’s despair 
 For his peerless painting ? (see Vasari.) 
 
7 o 
 
 foments toitf) &rt. 
 
 x. 
 
 There stands the Master. Study, my friends, 
 What a man’s work comes to ! So he plans it, 
 Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 
 
 For the toiling and moiling, and then, sic 
 transit ! 
 
 Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor, 
 
 With upturned eye while the hand is busy, 
 Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neigh- 
 bor ! 
 
 ’T is looking downward makes one dizzy. 
 
 XI. 
 
 “ If you knew their work you would deal your 
 dole.” 
 
 May I take upon me to instruct you ? 
 
 When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, 
 Thus much had the world to boast in fructu — 
 The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, 
 Which the actual generations garble, 
 
 Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs be- 
 token) 
 
 And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in 
 marble. 
 
 XII. 
 
 So, you saw yourself as you wished you were, 
 As you might have been, as you cannot be ; 
 Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there : 
 
 And grew content in your poor degree 
 
jHotncnts toitl) Sltt. 
 
 7 1 
 
 With your little power, by those .Blues’ god- 
 your little .cope, by their eyes' full s~y, 
 
 xiii. 
 
 V^S^^heSou^h. 
 
 V0 H „ ’ieCh?r5:: .™VoB»»-- 
 
 Apollo ? Niobe ’s the grander ! 
 
 Y0 ^;"r^.r,r R «S«e.,| r w: 
 
 Y You di e _ there ’s the dying Alexander. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 q 0 testing your weakness by their strength, 
 
 Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty, 
 
 4 A.. iu y- .rflmi's“S5: 
 
 You learned— to submit is a mortal duty 
 
 When I say “you,” ’tis the commonsoul, 
 
 The collective, I mean : the race o 
 That receives life in parts to live in ’ 
 
 And grow here according to God s clea p 
 
 XV. 
 
 Growth came when, looking your last on them 
 Yot turned your eyes inwardly one fine day 
 
7 2 
 
 JHoments tottf) &rt. 
 
 And cried with a start — What if we so small 
 Be greater and grander the while than they? 
 Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ? 
 
 In both, of such lower types are we 
 Precisely because of our wider nature ; 
 
 F or time, theirs — ours, for eternity. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 To-day’s brief passion limits their range ; 
 
 It seethes with the morrow for us and more. 
 They are perfect — how else ? they shall never 
 change : 
 
 We are faulty — why not? we have time in 
 store. 
 
 The Artificer’s hand is not arrested 
 With us ; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished. 
 They stand for our copy, and, once invested 
 With all they can teach, we shall see them 
 abolished. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ’T is a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — 
 The better! What’s come to perfection 
 perishes. 
 
 Things learned on earth, we shall practise in 
 heaven : 
 
 Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. 
 Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto 1 
 Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, 
 Done at a stroke, was just (was it not ?) “ O ” 
 Thy great Campanile is still to finish. 
 
foments toitf) 3tt 
 
 73 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Is it true that we are now, and shall be here- 
 after, 
 
 But what and where depend on life’s minute ? 
 Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter 
 Our first step out of the gulf or in itffr 
 Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, 
 Man’s face, have no more play and action 
 Than joy which is crystallized forever, 
 
 Or grief, an eternal petrifaction? 
 
 XIX. 
 
 On which I conclude, that the early painters, 
 
 To cries of “ Greek Art and what more wish 
 you ? ” — 
 
 Replied, “ To become now self-acquainters, 
 
 And paint man, man, whatever the issue ! 
 Make new hopes shine through the flesh they 
 fray, 
 
 New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters : 
 To bring the invisible full into play, 
 
 Let the visible go to the dogs — what matters ? ” 
 
 xx. 
 
 Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and 
 glory 
 
 For daring so much, before they well did it. 
 The first of the new, in our race’s story, 
 
 Beats the last of the old; J t is no idle quiddit. 
 
74 
 
 foments tottl) Qvt 
 
 The worthies began a revolution, 
 
 Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge, 
 Why, honor them now ! (ends my allocution) 
 Nor confer your degree when the folks leave 
 college. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 There ’s a fancy some lean to and others hate — 
 That, when this life is ended, begins 
 New work for the soul in another state, 
 
 Where it strives and gets weary, loses and 
 wins : 
 
 Where the strong and the weak, this world’s 
 congeries, 
 
 Repeat in large what they practised in small, 
 Through life after life in unlimited series ; 
 
 Only the scale ’s to be changed, that ’s all. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen 
 By the means of Evil that Good is best, 
 
 And, through earth and its noise, what is 
 heaven’s serene, — 
 
 When our faith in the same has stood the 
 test — 
 
 Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, 
 The uses of labor are surely done ; 
 
 There remaineth a rest for the people of God : 
 And I have had troubles enough, for one. 
 
foments to it!) art. 
 
 75 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 But at any rate I have loved the season 
 Of Art’s spring-birth so dim and dewy; 
 
 My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, 
 
 My painter — who but Cimabue ? 
 
 Nor even was man of them all indeed, 
 
 From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, 
 Could say that he missed my critic-meed. 
 
 So, now to my special grievance — heigh-ho ! 
 
 xxiv. 
 
 Their ghosts still stand, as I said before, 
 Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, 
 Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o’er : 
 — No getting again what the Church has 
 grasped ! 
 
 The works on the wall must take their chance ; 
 “ Works never conceded to England’s thick 
 clime ! ” 
 
 (I hope they prefer their inheritance 
 Of a bucketful of Italian quicklime.) 
 
 XXV. 
 
 When they go at length, with such a shaking 
 Of heads o’er the old delusion, sadly 
 Each master his way through the black streets 
 taking, 
 
 Where many a lost work breathes though 
 badly — 
 
76 
 
 foments toitb &rt. 
 
 Why don’t they bethink them of who has 
 merited ? 
 
 Why not reveal, while their pictures dree 
 Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted? 
 Why is it they never remember me ? 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Not that I expect the great Bigordi, 
 
 Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose ; 
 Nor the wronged Lippino ; and not a word I 
 Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico’s:. 
 
 But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 
 
 To grant me a taste of your intonaco, 
 
 Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad 
 eye ? 
 
 Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco? 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Could not the ghost with the close red cap, 
 
 My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman, 
 
 Save me a sample, give me the hap 
 
 Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughts- 
 man ? 
 
 No Virgin by him the somewhat petty, 
 
 Of finical touch and tempera crumbly — 
 Could not Alesso Baldovinetti 
 
 Contribute so much, I ask him humbly ? 
 
foments tottj) %LxU 
 
 77 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Margheritone of Arezzo, 
 
 With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling 
 barret 
 
 (Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so, 
 
 You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot ?) 
 
 Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, 
 
 Where in the foreground kneels the donor ? 
 
 If such remain, as is my conviction, 
 
 The hoarding it does you but little honor. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 They pass ; for them the panels may thrill, 
 
 The tempera grow alive and tinglish : 
 
 Their pictures are left to the mercies still 
 
 Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English, 
 
 Who, seeing mere money’s worth in their prize, 
 Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno 
 
 At naked High Art, and in ecstasies 
 Before some clay-cold vile Carlino ! 
 
 XXX. 
 
 No matter for these ! But, Giotto, you, 
 
 Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble 
 it — 
 
 Oh, never ! it shall not be counted true — 
 
 That a certain precious little tablet 
 
 Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover, 
 
 Was buried so long in oblivion’s womb 
 
 And, left for another than I to discover, 
 
 Turns up at last ! and to whom ? — to whom ? 
 
7 8 
 
 foments toitfc 3lrt. 
 
 , XXXI. 
 
 I, that have haunted the dim San Spirito, 
 
 (Or was it rather the Ognissanti ? ) 
 
 Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe ! 
 
 Nay, I shall have it yet ! Detur amanti ! 
 My Koh-i-noor — or (if that ’s a platitude) 
 Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian Sofi’s eye; 
 So, in anticipative gratitude, 
 
 What if I take up my hope and prophesy ? 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotard 
 Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing, 
 
 To the worst side of the Mont St. Gothard, 
 
 We shall begin by way of rejoicing ; 
 
 None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge), 
 Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer, 
 Hunting Radetzky’s soul like a partridge 
 Over Morello with squib and cracker. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 This time we ’ll shoot better game and bag ’em 
 hot : 
 
 No mere display at the stone of Dante, 
 
 But a kind of sober Witanagemot 
 
 (Ex : “ Casa Guidi,” quod videas ante) 
 
 Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence, 
 How Art may return that departed with her. 
 Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine’s, 
 And bring us the days of Orgagna hither ! 
 
foments toitl) 3lrt. 
 
 79 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 How we shall prologuize, how we shall perorate, 
 Utter fit things upon art and history, 
 
 Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero 
 rate, 
 
 Make of the want of the age no mystery ; 
 Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras, 
 
 Show — monarchy ever its uncouth cub licks 
 Out of the bear’s shape into Chimaera’s, 
 
 While Pure Art’s birth is still the republic’s ! 
 
 xxxv. 
 
 Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tus- 
 can, 
 
 Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an “ issz- 
 mo ”), 
 
 To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, 
 And turn the bell-tower’s alt to altissimo ; 
 And, fine as the beak of a young beccaccia, 
 
 The Campanile, the Duomo’s fit ally, 
 
 Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia, 
 Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy. 
 
 xxxvi. 
 
 Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold 
 Is broken away, and the long-pent fire, 
 
 Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffied 
 Springs from its sleep, and up goes the 
 spire, 
 
8o 
 
 foments 9trt, 
 
 While, “God and the People” plain for its 
 motto, 
 
 Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky ? 
 
 At least to foresee that glory of Giotto 
 
 And Florence together, the first am I ! 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 AFTER RUYSDAEL. 
 
 Through briery ways, from underneath 
 The far-off sadness of the gold 
 
 That fades above the sun, the waves 
 Swift to our very feet are rolled. 
 
 Above, beyond, to either side, 
 
 The sombre woods bend overhead; 
 
 And underneath, the wild brown waves 
 Leap joyously, with lightsome tread, 
 
 From rock to rock, and laugh and sing, 
 
 Like lonely maids in woods at play ; 
 
 Till in the cold, still pool below, 
 
 A-sudden checked, they stand at bay, 
 
 Like girls who, in their mood of joy, 
 
 To this more solemn woodland glide, 
 
 And with some brief, sweet terror touched, 
 Stand wistful, trembling, tender-eyed. 
 
 What half-felt sense of something gone, 
 
 What sadness in the moveless woods ; 
 
 What sorrow haunts yon amber sky, 
 
 That over all so darkly broods ! 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell. 
 
JHomente hrit!) Strt 
 
 81 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 STUDENTS’ DAY IN THE NATIONAL 
 GALLERY. 
 
 Out of all the hundred fair Madonnas 
 Seen in many a rich and distant city — 
 
 Sweet Madonnas, with the mother’s bosoms; 
 Sad Madonnas, with the eyes of anguish; 
 
 Rapt Madonnas, caught in clouds to heaven 
 (Clouds of golden, glad, adoring Angels) — 
 
 She of Florence, in the chair, — so perfect! 
 
 She that was the “ Grand Duke’s ” wealth and ’ 
 glory, 
 
 She that makes the picture “of the Goldfinch,” 
 Ghirlandajo’s, with the cloak and jewels ; 
 
 Guido’s Queen, whom men and angels worship, 
 Della Robbia’s best ; and that sweet “ Perla ” — 
 Seville’s bright boast — Mary of Murillo 
 (Painted — so they vow — “with milk and 
 roses ”), 
 
 Guido Reni’s Quadro at Bologna, 
 
 Munich’s masterpiece, grim Diirer’s Goddess; 
 Yes ! and thy brave work — Beltraffio mio ! — 
 Many as the lessons are I owe them, 
 
 Thanks and wonder; worship; grateful mem- 
 ories, 
 
 Oftenest I shall think of Perugino’s. 
 
 Do you know it ? Either side a triptych 
 Stands an armed Archangel — as to guard her — 
 Glorious — with great wings, and shining armor : 
 In the middle panel, pure and tender, 
 
 Clasping close her hands, with adoration 
 6 
 
82 
 
 foments toitf) $rt. 
 
 (All the Mother’s love — the Mortal’s worship 
 In their yearning, in their reverence, painted), 
 Gazes Mary on the Child. A seraph 
 Holds Him, smiling, at her knees; and, smiling, 
 Looks she down, with spirit humbly-happy, 
 
 Full — to heart’s brim — of the Peace of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Reverence mingles with the Mother’s passion, 
 But no touch of sadness, or of doubting. 
 
 Far away a river runneth seaward 
 (Little now -like Truth — like Truth, to 
 widen), 
 
 Leads the light across a blue dim country, 
 
 Under peaks — by forests to the ocean . 
 
 Soft and warm, a pearly sky broods over 
 Where three Winged-Ones, at the Father’s foot- 
 stool, 
 
 Sing the “ peace and good-will ” song to mortals. 
 
 If you ask me why that Perugino 
 Of the rest can never be forgotten, 
 
 • Let this serve : I learned a lesson by it, 
 Watching one whose light and faithful fingers — 
 Following touch by touch her lovely labor — . 
 Caught the Master’s trick, and made him 
 modern. 
 
 While she bent above her new Madonna, 
 
 Laid the splendid smalts, and touched the crim- 
 sons, 
 
 Swept the shadows under the gilt tresses, 
 Smoothed the sinless brows, and drooped the 
 eyelids, — 
 
ptmtnta tott^ &rt. 
 
 83 
 
 What the Master did, so also doing, — 
 
 I bethought me, “ True and good the toil is ! 
 Noble thus to double gifts of beauty ! 
 
 Yet, alas ! this 4 peace and good-will ’ anthem, — 
 If the dear Madonna knew what ages — 
 
 Slowly following ages — would creep o’er us, 
 And those words be still as wind that passes, 
 Breathing fragrance from a land we know not, ■— 
 Sighing music to a tune we catch not, 
 
 Stirring hearts, as leaves, i’ the night, a little 
 Shake, and sleep again, and wait for sunlight 
 (Sweet, glad sunlight ! oh, so long a-coming !), 
 Would she smile so ? I had painted rather 
 
 (While she listened to those singing Angels) 
 
 Mary, with a sword-blade in her bosom 
 (Sword that was to pierce her heart, of all 
 hearts !) ; 
 
 I had shown her with deep eyes of trouble, 
 
 Half afraid to credit that Evangel ; 
 
 I had limned her 4 pondering all those sayings,’ 
 All our later agonies foreseeing, 
 
 After all our years have 4 heard the tidings.’ ” 
 
 But the Artist, painting bold and largely, 
 Washing soft and clear the broadening colors ; 
 With a liberal brush, at skilful working, 
 
 Linking lights and shadows on the visage, 
 Dropped by hazard there , one drop of water f 
 “Lo, a tear!” I thought; 44 that teaches Pie- 
 tro ! 
 
 That is wiser than the Master’s wisdom ! 
 
 Now the picture’s meaning will be perfect ! 
 
84 
 
 foments tottl) Slrt. 
 
 For she could not be so calm Christ s 
 
 Mother — 
 Could she ? even 
 
 though Archangels kept 
 
 her! . . 
 
 Could she ? even though those sang m Heaven . 
 Knowing how her world would roll beyond 
 
 Ulciii, 
 
 Twenty centuries past this sacred momen , 
 
 Out of sound of this angelic singing , . 
 
 Loaded with the wrongs Christ’s justice rights 
 
 Reddened with the blood Christ’s teachings 
 stanch not, 
 
 Reeking with the tears Christ’s pity stays not : 
 Let the tear shine there ! it suits the story . 
 Tear and smile go wondrous well together . 
 Seeing that this song was sung by Angels; 
 Seeing that the foolish world gainsays it. 
 
 That one lustrous drop completes the picture . 
 You forgot it ! Peter of Perugia ! ” 
 
 Ah ! I did not know an Artist’s wisdom ! 
 
 I had still to learn my deepest lesson : _ 
 
 She I watched, with better thought inspired, 
 
 Took some tender color in her penci 
 
 (Faint dawn-color,— blush of rose, — I marked 
 
 Touched”* the tear, and melted it to brightness, 
 Spread it in a heavenly smile all over, 
 Magically made it turn to service ; 
 
 Till that tear, charged with its rosy tintings, 
 
jj Moments tottf) 3tot« 
 
 85 
 
 Deepened the first sweet smile, and left it love- 
 lier, — 
 
 Like the Master’s work, complete, sufficient ! 
 
 Then I thought : 4 4 Pietro’s wise Madonna 
 Was too wise to weep at little sorrows ! 
 
 Christ, and She, and Heaven, and all the angels 
 Last ; — ’t is sin, and grief, alone which passes ! 
 Roses grow of dew, and smiles from weeping ! 
 .Sweetest sr^ile is made of saddest tear-drop ! 
 She hath not forgotten we shall suffer ! 
 
 In her heart that sword — to the heft — is 
 planted, 
 
 But beyond the years, she sees Time over ; 
 
 Past the Calvary she counts 4 the mansions.’ 
 Dear Madonna ! — wise to be so happy ! 
 
 Should you weep, because we have not listened? 
 We shall listen ! and His Mother knows it ! ” 
 
 This is why — of many rare Madonnas — 
 Most of all I think on Perugino’s ; 
 
 I who know so many more and love them! 
 
 This is why I thank my gentle artist, 
 
 She who taught me that, a student’s wisdom ! 
 
 Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 Genius is always a surprise, but it is born 
 with great advantages when the stock from 
 which it springs has been long under cultiva- 
 tion. 
 
 O. W. Holmes. 
 
86 
 
 foments toit& art. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 A MADONNA OF DAGNAN-BOUVERET. 
 
 I. 
 
 Oh, brooding thought of dread ! 
 
 Oh, calm of coming grief ! 
 
 Oh, mist of tears unshed 
 Above that shining head. 
 
 That for an hour too brief 
 Lies on thy nurturing knee ! 
 
 How shall we pity thee, 
 
 Mother of sorrows — sorrows yet to be ! 
 
 ii. 
 
 That babyhood unknown, 
 
 With all of bright or fair 
 That lingers in our own, 
 
 By every hearth has shone. 
 
 Each year that light we share 
 As Bethlehem saw it shine. 
 
 Be ours the comfort thine, ^ 
 
 Mother of consolations all divine ! 
 
 Robert Underwood Johnson. 
 
 {By permission from “ The Winter Hour , and Other 
 Poems,” N. Y., The Century Co.) 
 
 L XXI V. 
 
 But who can paint 
 
 Like Nature ? Can imagination boast, 
 
 Amid its gay creations, hues like hers ? 
 
 James Thomson. 
 
foments to it!) Strt. 
 
 8 7 
 
 y. ■'yee. <*,' ,, , 
 
 IN AN ARTIST’S STUDIO. ‘ ' 
 
 One face looks out from all his canvases, 
 
 One self-same figure sits or walks or leans ; 
 
 We found her hidden just behind those 
 screens, 
 
 That mirror gave back all her loveliness. 
 
 A queen in opal or in ruby dress, 
 
 A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, 
 
 A saint, an angel — every canvas means 
 The same one meaning, neither more nor less. 
 
 He feeds upon her face by day and night, 
 
 And she with true, kind eyes looks back on 
 him, 
 
 Fair as the moon and joyful as the light : 
 
 Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim ; 
 Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; 
 Not as she is, but as she fills his dream. 
 
 Christina Rossetti. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 All men, completely harmonized and justly 
 tempered, enjoy color; it is meant for the per- 
 petual comfort and delight of the human heart ; 
 it is richly bestowed on the highest works of 
 creation, and the eminent sign and seal of per- 
 fection in them; being associated with life in 
 the human body, with light in the sky, with 
 purity and hardness in the earth, — death, night, 
 and pollution of all kinds being colorless. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
88 
 
 Jftomentg toitf) U 
 
 LX XVI I. 
 
 FOUR PICTURES BY BURNE-JONES. 
 
 Fortune. 
 
 Captains and kings are fastened to her wheel, 
 
 Which turns and turns : while she, close-veiled 
 and blind, 
 
 Thrusts her lean arm athwart them : head ’neath 
 lieel, 
 
 And heel on head, they gasp and groan, 
 entwined, 
 
 A wreath of woe no mercy may unbind : 
 
 For God who all things made, to Fortune gives 
 
 Power to subdue the mightiest man that lives. 
 
 Fame. 
 
 Fame stands and blows a trumpet. Chest and 
 thigh, 
 
 Strained with the blast, like knotted cordage 
 quiver. 
 
 Whence hath he flown ? From what empyrean 
 sky 
 
 Have those wings borne him, fiery-bright, that 
 shiver 
 
 Like burning towers reflected in a river ? 
 
 Behold ! Behind him Fortune and her wheel 
 
 Lie prone and shattered ’neath a naked heel. 
 
 Oblivion. 
 
 Thou too art strong and eagle-winged : but, oh ! 
 
 How pale as death is yon broad bosom, bent 
 
 Over the restless scythe, that to and fro 
 
foments tottl) 3lrt 
 
 89 
 
 Sweeps, while the mower, on his task intent, 
 Looks not to left or right Mangled and rent 
 Are Fame’s fair wings; like Fortune’s wheel, 
 his horn 
 
 Was but a plaything for Oblivion’s scorn. 
 
 Love. 
 
 Ah, Love! And thou hast slain him? With 
 what charm, 
 
 Scattering rose-leaves on that stubborn scythe, 
 Hast thou avenged the world of so much harm? 
 Oblivion ’neath thy smile hath ceased to 
 writhe. 
 
 How wert thou bold, oh, tender-limbed and 
 lithe — 
 
 Mere rosy-pinioned stripling — to assail 
 Him before whom Fame, Fortune’s lord, must 
 quail ? 
 
 John Addington Symonds. 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 All great art is delicate art, and all coarse 
 art is bad art. Nay, even to a certain extent, 
 all bold art is bad art ; for boldness is not the 
 proper word to apply to the courage and swift- 
 ness of a great master, based on knowledge, and 
 coupled with fear and love. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Nothing right can be accomplished in art 
 without enthusiasm. 
 
 Schumann. 
 
90 
 
 foments tottl) 3trt. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 AFTER WATTEAU. 
 
 Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythere. 
 
 Th. de Banville. 
 
 “ Embarquons-nous ! ” I seem to go 
 
 Against my will. ’Neath alleys low 
 I bend, and hear across the air — 
 
 Across the stream — faint music rare, — 
 
 Whose “ cornemuse ,” whose “ chalumeau ” f 
 
 El ark ! was not that a laugh I know ? 
 
 Who was it, hurrying, turned to show 
 The galley swinging by the stair? — 
 
 “ Embarquons-nous ! ” 
 
 The silk sail flaps, fresh breezes blow ; 
 
 Frail laces flutter, satins flow ; — 
 
 You, with the love-knot in your hair, 
 u A lions, embarquons jbour Cythere !” 
 
 You will not? . . * Press her, then, Pierrot! — 
 “ Embarquons-nous ! ” 
 
 Austin Dobson. 
 
 LX XXI. 
 
 It is the treating of the common-place with 
 
 the feeling of the sublime that gives to art its 
 
 true power. , _ „ 
 
 r J. F. Millet. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 Painting is silent poetry, and poetry speak- 
 ing painting. 
 
 & r Simonides. 
 
foments tottf) Slrt. 
 
 9i 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 THE ROSE AND THE STATUE. U 
 
 The Rose said to the Statue : Thou art cold 
 And passionless, though beautiful and grand. 
 I all my life exhale, while thou dost stand 
 Unmoved, unmindful of the sweets I hold. 
 
 The Statue answered to the Rose : Thou poor, 
 Frail creature, toy and wanton of a day, 
 
 I scarce can stoop to note thy swift decay ; 
 
 Lo ! thou art fading now , but I endure. 
 
 Thus each reproached the other : neither thought 
 What various means lead to an end the same; 
 How manifold is beauty, and what claim 
 To the world’s gratitude the other brought. 
 
 O Statue ! shine in majesty, replete 
 
 With high suggestions of eternal things. 
 
 O Rose ! yield up thy breath and die ; the 
 wings 
 
 Of love receive it, for thy breath is sweet. 
 
 One must be cold and suffer, — ’tis earth’s 
 blight ; 
 
 One must be warm and suffer. Thus the 
 poles 
 
 Touch in a law unchanging; but the souls 
 Of Statue and of Rose can ne’er unite. 
 
 Owen Innsly. 
 
 ( Lucy W. Jennison.') 
 
92 
 
 foments toitj) 9trt. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 THE CRADLE TOMB IN WESTMINSTER 
 ABBEY . 1 
 
 A little, rudely sculptured bed, 
 
 With shadowing folds of marble lace, 
 
 And quilt of marble, primly spread 
 And folded round a baby’s face. 
 
 Smoothly the mimic coverlet, 
 
 With royal blazonries bedight, 
 
 Hangs, as by tender fingers set 
 
 And straightened for the last good-night. 
 
 And traced upon the pillowing stone 
 A dent is seen, as if to bless 
 
 The quiet sleep some grieving one 
 Had leaned, and left a soft impress. 
 
 It seems no more than yesterday 
 Since the sad mother down the stair 
 
 And down the long aisle stole away, 
 
 And left her darling sleeping there. 
 
 And dust upon the cradle lies, 
 
 And those who prized the baby so, 
 
 And laid her down to rest with sighs, 
 
 Were turned to dust long years ago. 
 
 Above the peaceful pillowed head 
 
 Three centuries brood, and strangers peep 
 
 1 A copy of this poem was made by Dean Stanley, and 
 hangs in a frame close by the “ Cradle tomb.” 
 
foments tottl) &rt* 
 
 93 
 
 And wonder at the carven bed,— 
 
 But not unwept the baby’s sleep, 
 
 For wistful mother-eyes are blurred 
 With sudden mists, as lingerers stay, 
 
 And the old dusts are roused and stirred 
 By the warm tear-drops of to-day. 
 
 Soft, furtive hands caress the stone, 
 
 And hearts, o’erleaping place and age, 
 
 Melt into memories, and own 
 A thrill of common parentage. 
 
 Men die, but sorrow never dies ; 
 
 The crowding years divide in vain, 
 
 And the wide world is knit with ties 
 Of common brotherhood in pain; 
 
 Of common share in grief and loss, 
 
 And heritage in the immortal bloom 
 Of Love, which, flowering round its cross, 
 Made beautiful a baby’s tomb. 
 
 Susan Coolidge. 
 
 ( Copyright , 1880, by Roberts Brothers .) 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Angelico is perpetual peace. Not seclusion 
 from the world. No shutting out of the world 
 is needful for him. ... In Angelico you have 
 the entirely spiritual mind, wholly versed in the 
 heavenly world, and incapable of conceiving any 
 wickedness or vileness whatsoever. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
94 
 
 Jftaments tottl) 3rt. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 IN AN ATELIER. 
 
 I pray you do not turn your head ; 
 
 And let your hands lie folded, so. 
 
 It was a dress like this, wine-red, 
 
 That Dante liked so, years ago. 
 
 You don’t know Dante ? Never mind. 
 He loved a lady wondrous fair — 
 
 His model? Something of the kind. 
 
 I wonder if she had your hair ! 
 
 I wonder if she looked so meek, 
 
 And was not meek at all (my dear, 
 
 I want that side light on your cheek). 
 He loved her, it is very clear, 
 
 And painted her, as I paint you, 
 
 But rather better, on the whole 
 (Depress your chin ; yes, that will do) : 
 He was a painter of the soul ! 
 
 (And painted portraits, too, I think, 
 
 In the Inferno — devilish good ! 
 
 I ’d make some certain critics blink 
 If I ’d his method and his mood.) 
 
 Her name was (Fanny, let your glance 
 Rest there, by that majolica tray) — 
 Was Beatrice ; they met by chance — 
 They met by chance, the usual way. 
 
 (As you and I met, months ago. 
 
 Do you remember ? How your feet 
 Went crinkle-crinkle on the snow 
 Along the bleak gas-lighted street ! 
 
Jflo moita toitl) art. 
 
 95 
 
 An instant in the drug-store’s glare 
 You stood as in a golden frame, 
 
 And then I swore it, then and there, 
 
 To hand your sweetness down to fame.) 
 
 They met, and loved, and never wed 
 (All this was long before our time), 
 
 And though they died, they are not dead — 
 
 Such endless youth gives mortal rhyme ! 
 
 Still walks the earth, with haughty mien, 
 
 Great Dante, in his soul’s distress ; 
 
 And still the lovely Florentine 
 Goes lovely in her wine-red dress. 
 
 You do not understand at all ? 
 
 He was a poet; on his page 
 
 He drew her ; and, though kingdoms fall, 
 
 This lady lives from age to age : 
 
 A poet — that means painter too, 
 
 For words are colors, rightly laid ; 
 
 And they outlast our brightest hue, 
 
 For varnish cracks and crimsons fade. 
 
 The poets — they are lucky ones ! 
 
 When we are thrust upon the shelves, 
 
 Our works turn into skeletons 
 Almost as quickly as ourselves ; 
 
 For our poor canvas peels at length, 
 
 At length is prized — when all is bare : 
 
 “ What grace ! ” the critics cry, “ what 
 strength ! ” 
 
 When neither strength nor grace is there. 
 
96 
 
 fUmcntz toitl) 
 
 Ah, Fanny, I am sick at heart, 
 
 It is so little one can do ; 
 
 We talk our jargon — live for Art ! 
 
 I ’d much prefer to live for you. 
 
 How dull and lifeless, colors are ! 
 
 You smile, and all my picture lies : 
 
 I wish that I could crush a star, 
 
 To make a pigment for your eyes. 
 
 Yes, child, I know I ’m out of tune; 
 
 The light is bad ; the sky is gray : 
 
 I paint no more this afternoon, 
 
 So lay your royal gear away. 
 
 Besides, you’re moody — chin on hand — 
 
 I know not what — not in the vein — 
 
 Not like Anne Bullen, sweet and bland : 
 
 You sit there smiling in disdain. 
 
 Not like Bluff Harry’s radiant Queen, 
 Unconscious of the coming woe, 
 
 But rather as she might have been, 
 
 Preparing for the headsman’s blow. 
 
 I see ! I ’ve put you in a miff — 
 
 Sitting bolt-upright, wrist on wrist. 
 
 How should you look? Why, dear, as if — 
 Somehow — as if you ’d just been kissed ! 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 
 LX XXVII. 
 
 Genius counts all its miracles poor and short. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
foments tottl) Sir U 
 
 97 
 
 L XXXVI I I. 
 
 There is nothing that a real artist cares less 
 for than what you call success. It is generally 
 a misfortune if he gets it early, and if it comes 
 to him late he is indifferent to it. . . . Neglect 
 and indifference mean freedom from tempta- 
 tion, long quiet days in one’s studio, hard work, 
 sound sleep, and healthy growth. It was a 
 great piece of luck for Corot that the world was 
 so long in finding him ; that it left him so many 
 years in peace to do his work and let his soul 
 out. His contempt for popularity was well ex- 
 pressed in the phrase, “ Men are like flies ; if 
 one alights on a dish, others will follow.” 
 
 H. W. Mabie. 
 
 l xx xix. 
 
 Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, 
 He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
 
 His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
 His manners were gentle, complying, and bland: 
 Still born to improve us in every part, 
 
 His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 
 
 To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 
 When they judg’d without skill, he was still 
 hard of hearing: 
 
 When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, 
 and stuff, 
 
 He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff . 1 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 1 Sir Joshua was so remarkably deaf as to be under the 
 necessity of using an ear-trumpet in company. 
 
 7 
 
9 8 
 
 foments tout!) 
 
 xc. 
 
 VITTORIA. 
 
 Wise was the word the wise man spake who 
 said : 
 
 “ Angelo was the only man to whom God gave 
 Four souls 99 : — the soul of sculpture and of song, 
 Of architecture and of art ; these all. 
 
 For so God loved him as if he were 
 His only child, and grouped about his brows 
 Ideals of himself, — not angels mild 
 As those that flit and beckon other lives, 
 
 But cherubim and seraphim ; tall, strong, 
 Unsleeping, terrible ; with wings across 
 Their mighty feet, and eyes — if we would look 
 Upon their blazing eyes, these two are hid — 
 Some angels are all wings ! Oh, shine and fly l 
 Were ye not angels, ye would strike us blind. 
 
 And yet they did not, could not dazzle her — 
 That one sweet, silent woman unto whom 
 He bent as pliant as the marble turned 
 To life immortal in his own great hand. 
 Steadfast Vittoria looked on Angelo. 
 
 She lifted lonely eyes. The years stepped slow. 
 Fourfold the reverence which he gave to her. 
 Fourfold the awful tenderness, the trust, 
 
 The loyalty, the loss. And oh, fourfold 
 The comfort, beyond all power of comforting, 
 Whereby a lesser man may heal the hurt 
 Of widowhood. 
 
 Pescara had one soul — 
 
 A little one ; and it was stained. And he — 
 
foments to it!) &rt. 
 
 99 
 
 It too, perhaps (God knows !) — was dead. 
 
 The dead are God’s. 
 
 Vittoria had one heart. 
 The woman gave it, and the woman gives 
 Once. Angelo was too late. And one who 
 dared 
 
 To shed a tear for him has dropped it here. 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. 
 
 XCI. 
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 
 
 (By Leonardo da Vinci in the Refectory of the Convent 
 of Maria della Grazia, Milan.) 
 
 Though searching damps and many an envious 
 flaw 
 
 Have marred this work ; the calm, ethereal 
 grace, 
 
 The love deep-seated in the Saviour’s face, 
 
 The mercy, goodness, have not failed to awe 
 The Elements ; as they do melt and thaw 
 The heart of the beholder, — and erase 
 (At least for one rapt moment) every trace 
 Of disobedience to the primal law. 
 
 The annunciation of the dreadful truth 
 Made to the Twelve, survives : lip, forehead, 
 cheek, 
 
 And hand reposing on the board in ruth 
 Of what it utters, while the unguilty seek 
 Unquestionable meanings, still bespeak 
 A labor worthy of eternal youth ! 
 
 William Wordsworth. 
 
100 
 
 ^laments tottl) %LxU 
 
 XCII. 
 
 MILLET AND ZOLA. 
 
 (“ L’Ang61us ” and “ La Terre.”) 
 
 Against the sunset glow they stand, 
 
 Two humblest toilers of the land, 
 
 Rugged of speech and rough of hand, 
 Bowed down by tillage ; 
 
 No grace of garb or circumstance 
 Invests them with a high romance, 
 
 Ten thousand such through fruitful France, 
 In field and village. 
 
 The day’s slow path from dawn to west 
 Has left them, soil-bestained, distrest, 
 
 No thought beyond the nightly rest, — 
 New toil to-morrow; 
 
 Till solemnly the “ Ave ” bell 
 Rings out the sun’s departing knell, 
 
 Borne by the breezes’ rhythmic swell 
 O’er swathe and furrow. 
 
 O lowly pair ! you dream it not, 
 
 Yet on your hard, unlovely lot 
 That evening gleam of light has shot 
 A glorious presage ; 
 
 For prophets oft have yearned and kings, 
 Have yearned in vain to know the things 
 Which to your simple spirits brings 
 That curfew message. 
 
foments tottl) 
 
 ioi 
 
 Turn to the written page and read 
 In other strain the peasant’s creed, 
 
 With satyr love and vampire greed 
 
 How hearts are tainted ; 
 
 Read to the end unmoved who can, 
 
 Read how the primal curse on man 
 May shape a fouler Caliban 
 
 Than poet painted ! 
 
 And this is Nature ! Be it so : 
 
 It needs a master’s hand to show 
 How through the man the brute may grow 
 By Hell’s own leaven ; 
 
 We blame you not : enough for us 
 Those two lone figures bending thus, 
 
 For whom that far-off Angelas 
 
 Speaks Hope and Heaven. 
 Robert, Lord Houghton. 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 All Arts are one, howe’er distributed they 
 stand; 
 
 Verse, tone, shape, color, form, are fingers on 
 one hand. 
 
 W. W. Story. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 Painting does not proceed so much by intelli- 
 gence as by sight and feeling and invention. 
 
 Hamerton. 
 
102 
 
 ^amenta tott|) $LxU 
 
 xcv. 
 
 FRA ANGELICO. 
 
 No, Buonarroti, thou shalt not subdue 
 My mind with thy Thor-hammer ! All that play 
 Of ponderous science with Titanic thew 
 And spastic tendon — marvellous, ’tis true — 
 Says nothing to my soul. Thy 44 terrible way ” 
 Has led enow of worshipers astray ; 
 
 I will not walk therein ! Nor yet shalt thou, 
 Majestic Raphael — though before thee bow 
 The nations, with their tribute of renown — 
 Lead my heart captive. Great thou art, I own — 
 Great, but a Pagan still. But here — breathe 
 low, 
 
 The place is hallowed — here, Angelico ! 
 
 Heart, mind, and soul, with reverent love confess 
 The Christian Painter, sent to purify and bless. 
 
 Sir Joseph Noel Paton. 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 ON DURER’S MELENCOLIA. 
 
 What holds her fixed far eyes nor lets them 
 range ? 
 
 Not the strange sea, strange earth, or heav’n 
 more strange ; 
 
 But her own phantom dwarfing these great 
 three, 
 
 More strange than all, more old than heav’n, 
 earth, sea. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
Jftomente tottl) &rt. 
 
 103 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY, BY MICHELANGELO. 
 
 (In the National Gallery.*) 
 
 Turn not the prophet’s page, O Son! He 
 knew 
 
 All that thou hast to suffer, and hath writ. 
 
 Not yet thine hour of knowledge. Infinite 
 The sorrows that thy manhood’s lot must rue 
 And dire acquaintance of thy grief. That clue 
 The spirits of thy mournful ministerings 
 Seek through yon scroll in silence. For 
 these things 
 
 The angels have desired to look into. 
 
 Still before Eden waves the fiery sword, — 
 
 Her Tree of Life unransomed: whose sad 
 Tree 
 
 Of Knowledge yet to growth of Calvary 
 Must yield its Tempter, — Hell the earliest 
 dead 
 
 Of Earth resign, — and yet, O Son and Lord, 
 The seed o’ the woman bruise the serpent’s 
 head. 
 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
 XCVIII. 
 
 Work for immortality if you will : then wait 
 
 for lt ' J. G. Holland. 
 
 x i n this picture the Virgin Mother is seen withholding from 
 the Child Saviour the prophetic writings in which his sufferings 
 are foretold. Angelic figures beside them examine a scroll. 
 
104 
 
 Jlnmenta toitf) 3trt. 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 LEPAGE’S JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 Once, it may be, the soft gray skies were dear, 
 The clouds above in crowds, like sheep below, 
 The bending of each kindly wrinkled tree; 
 
 Or blossoms at the birth-time of the year. 
 
 Or lambs unweaned, or water in still flow, 
 
 In whose brown glass a girl her face might 
 see. 
 
 Such days are gone, and strange things come 
 instead ; 
 
 For she has looked on other faces white, 
 
 Pale bloom of fear, before war’s whirlwind 
 blown ; 
 
 Has stooped, ah, Heaven! in some low shelter- 
 ing shed 
 
 To tend dark wounds, the leaping arrow’s bite, 
 While the cold death that hovered seemed 
 her own. 
 
 And in her hurt heart, o’er some grizzled head, 
 The mother that shall never be has yearned ; 
 And love’s fine voice, she else shall never 
 hear, 
 
 Came to her as the call of saints long dead ; 
 And straightway all the passion in her burned, 
 One altar-flame that hourly waxes clear. 
 
 Hence goes she ever in a glimmering dream, 
 And very oft will sudden stand at gaze, 
 
 With blue, dim eyes that still not 'seem to 
 see : 
 
foments tottl) 9lrt. 
 
 ios 
 
 For now the well-known ways with visions teem ; 
 Unfelt is toil, and summer one green daze, 
 Till that the king be crowned, and France 
 
 be free ! 
 
 Helen Gray Cone. 
 
 C. 
 
 AFTER ALBERT CUYP. 
 
 A sunset silence holds the patient land ; 
 Against the sun the stolid cattle stand ; 
 Framed hazy, in the gold that slips 
 Between the sails of lazy ships, 
 
 And floods with level, yellow light 
 The broad, green meadow grasses bright. 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell. 
 
 C7. 
 
 ... If it take 
 
 ^Eons to form a diamond, grain on grain, 
 
 JEons to crystallize its fire and dew — 
 
 By what slow processes must Nature make 
 Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels ? Great 
 the gain 
 
 If she spoil thousands making one or two. 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 ( Rarity of Genius .) 
 
 CII. 
 
 True painting can only be learned in one 
 school, and that is kept by Nature. 
 
 Hogarth. 
 
io 6 
 
 Momenta tott!) &rt. 
 
 CI II. 
 
 LINES TO A STUPID PICTURE. 
 
 Five geese, — a landscape damp and wild, — 
 A stunted, not too pretty, child, 
 
 Beneath a battered gingham ; 
 
 Such things, to say the least, require 
 A Muse of more-than-average Fire 
 To adequately sing ’em. 
 
 And yet — Why should they ? Souls of mark 
 Have sprung from such ; — e’en Joan of Arc 
 Had scarce a grander duty ; 
 
 Not always (’t is a maxim trite) 
 
 From righteous causes comes the right, — 
 From beautiful the beauty. 
 
 Who shall decide where seed is sown ? 
 Maybe some priceless germ was blown 
 To this unwholesome marish ; 
 
 (And what must grow will still increase 
 Though cackled round by half the geese 
 And ganders in the parish.) 
 
 Maybe this homely face may hide 
 A Stael before whose mannish pride 
 Our frailer sex may tremble ; 
 
 Perchance this audience anserine 
 May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine !) — 
 May hiss — a future Kemble ! 
 
foments tottl) art. 
 
 107 
 
 Or say the gingham shadows o’er 
 An undeveloped Hannah More ! — 
 
 A latent Mrs. Trimmer ! 
 
 Who shall affirm it? — who deny? — 
 
 Since of the truth nor you nor I 
 Discern the faintest glimmer ? 
 
 So then — Caps off, my Masters all : 
 Reserve your final words, — recall 
 Your all-too-hasty strictures ; 
 
 Caps off, I say, for Wisdom sees 
 Potential possibilities 
 
 In most unhopeful pictures. 
 
 Austin Dobson. 
 
 CIV. 
 
 If a picture is daubed with many glaring 
 colors, the vulgar eye admires it; whereas he 
 judges very contemptuously of some admirable 
 design sketched out only with a black pencil, 
 though by the hand of Raphael. 
 
 Isaac Watts. 
 
 CV. 
 
 As when a painter, poring on a face, 
 
 Divinely through all hindrance finds the man 
 Behind it, and so paints him that his face, 
 
 The shape and colour of a mind and life, 
 
 Lives for his children, ever at its best 
 And fullest. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
io8 JJtomenta tott!) %lxX* 
 
 CVI. 
 
 THE PARTHENON BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 This is an island of the golden Past, 
 
 Uplifted in the tranquil sea of night. 
 
 This is true Athens ! How the heart beats fast 
 When climbs the pilgrim to this gleaming 
 height : 
 
 The crown and glory of consummate form ; 
 
 The jewel of all the world, most nobly set ; 
 High Beauty’s shrine, outwearing every storm ; 
 Shattered, but not undone ; thrice lovely yet. 
 
 Ah, Heaven, what tragic waste ! Is Time so 
 lavish 
 
 Of dear perfection, thus to see it spilled ? 
 ’Twas worth an empire ; now behold the ravish 
 That laid it low. The soaring plain is filled 
 With the wide-scattered letters of one word 
 Of loveliness that nevermore was spoken ; 
 Nor ever shall its like again be heard : 
 
 Not dead is Art — but that high charm is 
 broken. 
 
 Now moonlight builds with swift and mystic art 
 And makes the ruin whole — and yet not 
 whole, 
 
 But exquisite, though crushed and torn apart. 
 
 Back to the temple steals its living soul : 
 
 In the star-silent night it comes all pale — 
 
 A spirit breathing beauty and delight, 
 
 And yet how stricken ! Hark ! I hear it wail, 
 Self-sorrowful, while every wound breathes 
 white. 
 
foments tottl) &rt. 
 
 109 
 
 And though more sad than is the nightingale 
 That mourns in Lycabettus’ fragrant pine, . 
 That soul to mine brings solace ; nor shall fail 
 To heal the heart of man while still doth 
 shine 
 
 Yon planet, doubly bright in this deep blue ; 
 
 Yon moon that brims with fire these violet 
 hiUs : 
 
 For Beauty is of God, and God is true, 
 
 And with His strength the soul of mortal fills. 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder. 
 
 CVII. 
 
 My friend, all speech and humor is short- 
 lived, foolish, untrue. Genuine work alone, 
 what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal. 
 
 Take courage, then — raise the arm — strike 
 home and that right lustily — the citadel of 
 Hope must yield to noble desire, thus seconded 
 by noble efforts. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 CVIII. 
 
 Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a 
 deep, steadfast earnestness ; and on this account 
 it unites so readily with religion. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 CIX. 
 
 Painting is the intermediate between af 
 thought and a thing. 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
no 
 
 ^Staments tottf) 
 
 ex. 
 
 RUSKIN. 
 
 Painter in words, on whose resplendent page, 
 Caught from the palette of the seven-hued 
 bow, 
 
 The colors of our English Turner glow, — 
 Silver of silent stars, the storm’s red rage, 
 
 Thq spray of mountain streams, rocks gray with 
 age, 
 
 Gold of Athena, white of Alpine snow, 
 
 Cool green of forests, blue of lakes below, 
 And sunset-crimsoned skies, — O seer and 
 sage, 
 
 Crowned with wild olive, fine of sense and sight, 
 In thy prophetic voice, through work, trade, 
 strife, 
 
 The stones cry out: “ By truth the nations 
 live, 
 
 And by injustice die. Be thy weights right, 
 Thy measures true. These be the lamps that 
 give 
 
 The way of beauty and the path of life.” 
 
 R. R. Bowker. 
 
 CXI. 
 
 ANY SCULPTOR TO ANY MODEL. 
 
 I know not anything more fair than thou. — 
 
 God give me strength to feel thee, power to speak 
 
 Through this dumb clay and marble all the 
 thoughts 
 
 That rise within my spirit while I gaze ! — 
 
JHomente tottf) &rt 
 
 hi 
 
 What saith the Scripture ? In His image God 
 Shaped man, and breathed into his nostrils 
 breath 
 
 Of life. — Here then, as nowhere else, shines 
 God ; 
 
 The Thought made flesh, the world’s soul 
 breathing soft 
 
 And strong, not merely through those lips and 
 eyes, 
 
 But in each flawless limb, each mighty curve, 
 Each sinew moulded on the moving form. 
 
 Until thou earnest, the world and all it held 
 Was even as Memnon ere he felt the sun; 
 
 Then Man stepped forth, the Spirit sprang to 
 light, 
 
 Earth found her voice, and heaven with music 
 thrilled. 
 
 Nought is there therefore in thee but is pure, 
 Perfect, compact of correspondences, 
 
 Whereby the poems of the soul are read 
 In symbols fashioned from the plastic form. 
 Yea, it is mine by Art, the hierophant 
 Of myriads when these moving lips are dumb, 
 To find thy meaning, and to speak it forth 
 Through marble and through bronze that shall 
 not fade ; 
 
 Making thy moulded shape — not face alone, 
 But hands, breast, lifted arms, firm limbs, that 
 tell 
 
 Of service, strength, will, conquest, energy — 
 One message for the minds of those that know. 
 
 John Addington Symonds. 
 
foments toitf) &rt 
 
 1 12 
 
 CXII. 
 
 MADONNA AND CHILD. 
 
 Little Son, little Son, climb up to my breast, 
 And lie amid its warmth at rest. 
 
 But shut those stranger eyes from me, 
 
 My Rose, my Sorrow, my Peace divine, 
 
 And call me “ Mother,” and not “ Mary,” 
 Although thou art not mine. 
 
 0 weep not if I hold thee tight, 
 
 For ’mid unheeding kine at night 
 
 1 dream thee weak and needing me, 
 
 Forget thy royalty, croon and coo, 
 
 Pretend thee little, and handle thee 
 As other mothers do. 
 
 Thine eyes are closed, but He who keeps 
 Watch over Israel never sleeps ! 
 
 And when I sleepless lie by thee 
 Thy little hands mine eyes do blind 
 And move across them soothingly, 
 
 And feel so large and kind. 
 
 It is I would climb to thy little breast. 
 
 O hold me there and let me rest ! 
 
 It is I am weak and weary and small, 
 And thy soft arms can carry me. 
 
 So put them under me, God, my All, 
 And let me quiet be. 
 
 Alice Archer James. 
 
|0omcnts tottlE) Set. 
 
 ii3 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE, BY GIOTTO. 
 
 Can this be thou who, lean and pale, 
 
 With such immitigable eye 
 Didst look upon those writhing souls in bale, 
 And note each vengeance, and pass by 
 Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance 
 Cast backward one forbidden glance, 
 
 And saw Francesca, with child’s glee, 
 
 Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee 
 And with proud hands control its fiery prance ? 
 
 With half-drooped lids, and smooth, round brow, 
 And eye remote, that inly sees 
 Fair Beatrice’s spirit wandering now 
 In some sea-lulled Hesperides, 
 
 Thou movest through the jarring street, 
 Secluded from the noise of feet 
 By her gift-blossom in thy hand, 
 
 Thy branch of palm from Holy Land; — 
 
 No trace is here of ruin’s fiery sleet. 
 
 Yet there is something round thy lips 
 That prophesies the coming doom, 
 
 The soft, gray herald-shadow ere the eclipse 
 Notches the perfect disk with gloom; 
 
 A something that would banish thee, 
 
 And thine untamed pursuer be, 
 
 From men and their unworthy fates, 
 
 Though Florence had not shut her gates, 
 
 And Grief had loosed her clutch and let thee 
 free. 
 
 8 
 
foments tettl) 3trt. 
 
 114 
 
 Ah ! he who follows fearlessly 
 The beckonings of a poet-heart 
 Shall wander, and without the world’s decree, 
 
 A banished man in field and mart ; 
 
 Harder than Florence’ walls the bar 
 Which with deaf sternness holds him far 
 From home and friends, till death’s release, 
 And makes his only prayer for peace, 
 
 Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong war ! 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 CXIV. 
 
 ANTINOUS OF THE VATICAN. 
 
 Antinous, upon thy brow of snow 
 It seems as if the gathered sunshine lay 
 Of ages, and about thy sweet lips play 
 The same glad smiles that wreathed them long 
 ago. 
 
 Thy curls’ luxuriant clusters seem to glow 
 With the old life ; we almost hear thee say 
 The word thou usedst to murmur in that day 
 When love’s kiss burned on thy mouth’s per- 
 fect bow. 
 
 O sweetest youth that ever human eyes 
 Have gazed upon, thou mak’st the heart grow 
 warm 
 
 Of him who lifts his glance to thee above. 
 
 And thine, besides the charm of face and form, 
 His higher fame of whom the poet cries : 
 
 “ How noble is his end who dies for love ! ” 1 
 
 Owen Innsly. ( Lucy W. Jennison.) 
 
 1 Che bel fin fa chi ben amando more ! 
 
 Petrarch. 
 
foments tottf) &rt 
 
 115 
 
 cxv. 
 
 IN THE COURT OF THE LIONS : BY MOON- 
 LIGHT. 
 
 These lions were sculptured centuries ago 
 In that fair court a Sultan made for her 
 Who was his heart’s delight. Her worshiper 
 
 Was he whom all men worshiped; proving so 
 
 His love and homage that the ages know 
 How fair she was, and how at softest stir 
 Of her soft robes — as these proud courts 
 aver — 
 
 His kingly heart with kingly love did glow ; 
 
 Till he bade crafty workmen come and make 
 
 A palace, lovely for her lovely sake, 
 
 Thick-set with gems, with many a sculptured 
 space 
 
 Wrought cunningly out of the creamy stone 
 To frame the dusky beauty of her face, — 
 
 Still on those courts the white moon shines, but 
 they are gone ! 
 
 Louise Chandler Moulton. 
 
 ( Copyright , 1889, by Roberts Brothers .) 
 
 CXVI. 
 
 VENUS OF MILO. 
 
 Grace, majesty, and the calm bliss of life : 
 
 No conscious war ’twixt human will and duty ; 
 
 Here breathes, forever free from pain and strife, 
 The old, untroubled pagan world of beauty. 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder. 
 
n6 
 
 foments tottf) %LxU 
 
 CXVII. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 Michael Angelo ( standing before a model 
 of St. Peter's .) 
 
 Better than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi, 
 
 And less than thou I will not ! If the thought 
 Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous stones 
 And swing them to their places ; if a breath 
 Could blow this rounded dome into the air, 
 
 As if it were a bubble, and these statues 
 Spring at a signal to their sacred stations, 
 
 As sentinels mount guard upon a wall, 
 
 Then were my task completed. Now, alas ! 
 Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding 
 Upon his hand the model of a church, 
 
 As German artists paint him ; and what years, 
 What weary years, must drag themselves along, 
 Ere this be turned to stone ! What hindrances 
 Must block the way ; what idle interferences 
 Of Cardinals and Canons of St. Peter’s, 
 
 Who nothing know of art beyond the color 
 Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any building 
 Save that of their own fortunes! And what 
 then ? 
 
 I have no friends and want none. My own 
 thoughts 
 
 Are now my sole companions, — thoughts of 
 her, 
 
 That like a benediction from the skies 
 
foments toitj) &vt. 11 7 
 
 Come to me in my solitude and soothe me. 
 
 . . . My work is here, 
 
 And only here, the building of St. Peter’s. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 C XVI II. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ART. 
 
 “ Mine be a cot,” for the hours of play, 
 
 Of the kind that is built by Miss Greenaway; 
 Where the walls are low, and the roofs are red, 
 And the birds are gay in the blue o’erhead ; 
 
 And the dear little figures, in frocks and frills, 
 Go roaming about at their own sweet wills, 
 
 And play with the pups, and reprove the calves, 
 And do naught in the world (but Work) by halves, 
 From “ Hunt the Slipper ” and “ Riddle-me-ree ” 
 To watching the cat in the apple-tree. 
 
 O Art of the Household ! Men may prate 
 Of their ways “ intense ” and Italianate, — 
 They may soar on their wings of sense, and 
 float 
 
 To the au dela and the dim remote, — 
 
 Till the last sun sink in the last-lit West, 
 
 ’Tis the Art at the Door that will please the 
 best ; 
 
 To the end of Time ’t will be still the same, 
 
 For the Earth first laughed when the children 
 came ! 
 
 Austin Dobson. 
 
1 1 8 
 
 JHoraente tottj) Strt. 
 
 CXIX. 
 
 UNDER RAPHAEL’S MAGDALENE. 
 
 Be merciful. God’s gracious hand 
 
 Has hedged you round. From scarlet brand 
 
 Of sin as sore His care has kept, 
 
 Or like her you, too, might have wept ; 
 
 How dare you judge? But for the chance 
 Of birth, blood, friends, and circumstance, 
 Clay of the self-same mould you are, 
 
 And tempted, might have fallen as far. 
 
 Bow, haughty head ! Your conscious worth 
 Pales in the sight of heaven and earth, 
 
 Beside repentant grief and shame. 
 
 Not ours to prate of praise or blame, 
 
 When she who seems most lost may stand 
 Nearer some day to God’s right hand 
 Than you or I. We do not know. 
 
 Be merciful. Her Christ was so. 
 
 C. Morton Sciple. 
 
 cxx. 
 
 With hue like that when some great painter 
 dips 
 
 His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and 
 eclipse. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 CXXI. 
 
 In morals, as in art, saying is nothing, doing 
 is all. 
 
 Renan. 
 
foments tottl) &rt* 
 
 119 
 
 CXXII. 
 
 AN ENGRAVING, AFTER MURILLO. 
 
 A daughter of the centuries of art 
 Offered for sale in a shop window lay. 
 
 When southern nature lent each precious part 
 To form that woman, in his genial way 
 The Spanish painter made his glowing heart 
 Look warmly from her eyes, — a summer’s day 
 Hide all its fragrant secrets in her breast : 
 
 Made lovely lovelier, with love expressed. 
 
 Long, long ago she lived ; long, long ago 
 
 That happy painter wrought who saw her 
 face — 
 
 Painting, with blood and milk, the tropic glow 
 That lit her cheeks for his dearest solace. 
 
 But yesterday with patient hand and slow, 
 Another artist did her beauties trace ; 
 
 With soft gray graven lines, and taste refined, 
 Chilled native fervor with the touch of mind. 
 
 Still modestly the picture seemed to live, 
 
 And in itself contain the work of all 
 Who ever lived for art : yea, and to give 
 Some trait of each, and tenderly recall 
 Thought-mellowing hours, hours contemplative. 
 
 ... In a shop window, an engraving small, 
 Faint image from Murillo’s ardent heart, 
 
 Gray daughter of the centuries of art. 
 
 Marrion Wilcox. 
 
120 
 
 Momenta tottl) %LxU 
 
 CXXIII. 
 
 A VERY WOFUL BALLADE OF THE ART 
 CRITIC. 
 
 (To E. A. Abbey.) 
 
 A Spirit came to my sad bed, 
 
 And weary sad that night was I, 
 
 Who ’d tottered, since the dawn was red, 
 Through miles of Grosvenor Gallery, 
 
 Yea, leagues of long Academy 
 Awaited me when morn grew white, 
 ’Twas then the Spirit whispered nigh, 
 
 “ Take up the pen, my friend, and write ! 
 
 “ Of many a portrait gray as lead, 
 
 Of many a mustard-colored sky, 
 
 Say much, where little should be said, 
 
 Lay on thy censure dexterously, 
 
 With microscopic glances pry 
 At textures, Tadema’s delight, 
 
 Praise foreign swells they always sky, 
 Take up the pen, my friend, and write ! ” 
 
 I answered, “ ’T is for daily bread, 
 
 A sorry crust, I ween, and dry, 
 
 That still, with aching feet and head, 
 
 I push this lawful industry, 
 
 ’Mid pictures hung or low, or high, 
 
 But, touching that which I indite, 
 
 Do artists hold me lovingly ? 
 
 Take up the pen, my friend, and write ! v 
 
^omenta toitl) %LvU 
 
 121 
 
 The Spirit writeth in form of Envoy. 
 
 “ They fain would black thy dexter eye, 
 They hate thee with a bitter spite ; 
 
 But scribble since thou must, or die, 
 
 Take up the pen, my friend, and write ! ” 
 
 Andrew Lang. 
 
 CXXIV. 
 
 FEMME INCONNUE OF THE LOUVRE. 
 
 She lived in Florence centuries ago, 
 
 That lady smiling there. 
 
 What was her name or rank I do not know, — 
 
 I know that she was fair. 
 
 For some great man — his name, like hers, forgot 
 And faded from men’s sight — 
 
 Loved her — he must have loved her — and has 
 wrought 
 
 This bust for our delight. 
 
 Whether he gained her love or had her scorn, 
 Full happy was his fate. 
 
 He saw her, heard her speak ; he was not born 
 Four hundred years too late! 
 
 The palace throngs in every room but this ; 
 Here I am left alone. 
 
 Love — there is none to see — I press a kiss 
 Upon thy lips of stone. 
 
 Kenyon Cox. 
 
122 
 
 J5toments tottl) &rt 
 
 cxxv. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 Ah, to build, to build ! 
 
 That is the noblest art of all the arts. 
 
 Painting and sculpture are but images, 
 
 Are merely shadows cast by outward things 
 On stone or canvas, having in themselves 
 No separate existence. Architecture, 
 
 Existing in itself, and not in seeming 
 
 A something it is not, surpasses them 
 
 As substance shadow. Long, long years ago, 
 
 Standing one morning near the Baths of Titus, 
 
 I saw the statue of Laocoon 
 
 Rise from its grave of centuries, like a ghost 
 
 Writhing in pain ; and as it tore away 
 
 The knotted serpents from its limbs, I heard, 
 
 Or seemed to hear, the cry of agony 
 
 From its white, parted lips. And still I marvel 
 
 At the three Rhodian artists, by whose hands 
 
 This miracle was wrought. Yet he beholds 
 
 Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins 
 
 Of temples in the Forum here in Rome. 
 
 If God should give me power in my old age 
 To build for Him a temple half as grand 
 As those were in their glory, I should count 
 My age more excellent than youth itself, 
 
 And all that I have hitherto accomplished 
 As only vanity. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
foments toitl) &rt 
 
 123 
 
 CXXVI. 
 
 NEAR AMSTERDAM 
 (After Albert Cuyp.) 
 
 Sober gray skies and ponderous clouds, 
 With gaps between of pallid blues ; 
 Bluff breezes stirring the brown canal ; 
 
 A broad, flat meadow’s myriad hues 
 
 Of soft and changeful breadths of green, 
 Barred with the silvery grass that bows 
 By straight canals, and dotted o’er 
 
 With black and white of basking cows; 
 
 And distant sails of hidden ships 
 
 The ceaseless windmills show or hide, 
 Through languid willows white they gleam, 
 And over red-tiled houses glide. 
 
 Two sturdy lads with wooden shoes 
 
 Go clumping down the reed-fringed dyke, 
 And tow a broad-bowed boat, where dreams 
 The quaint, sweet virgin of Van Eyck. 
 
 And slipt from out the revel high, 
 
 Where gay Franz Hals has bid him sit, 
 Above the bridge, his lazy pipe 
 Smokes placidly the stout De Witt. 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell. 
 
124 
 
 Jftomente tott!) &xt 
 
 CXXVII. 
 
 PORTRAIT D’UNE DAME ESPAGNOLE. 
 (Fortuny.) 
 
 The hand that drew thee lies in Roman soil, 
 Whilst on the canvas thou hast deathless 
 grown, 
 
 Endued by him who deemed it meaner toil 
 To give the world a portrait save thine own. 
 
 Yet had he found thy peer, and Rome forborne 
 Such envy of his conquest over Time, 
 
 Beauty had waked, and Art another morn 
 
 Had gained, and ceased to sorrow for her 
 prime. 
 
 What spirit was it — where the masters are — 
 Brooding the gloom and glory that were 
 Spain, 
 
 Through centuries waited in its orb afar, 
 
 Until our age Fortuny’s brush should gain ? 
 
 What stroke but his who pictured in their state 
 Queen, beggar, noble, Philip’s princely 
 brood, 
 
 Could thus the boast of Seville recreate, 
 
 Even when one like thee before him stood ? 
 
 Like thee, own child of Spain, whose beauteous 
 pride, 
 
 Desire, disdain, all sins thy mien express, 
 Should need no absolution — hadst thou died 
 Unhouselled, in their imaged loveliness. 
 
foments tottf) &rt 
 
 125 
 
 All this had Fate decreed, — the antique skill, 
 The halt, the poise, the long auspicious day, — 
 Yielding this once, thy triumph to fulfil, 
 Velasquez’s sceptre to Fortuny’s sway. 
 
 Shine from thy cloud of night, fair star, nor fear 
 Oblivion, though men thy dust inurn, 
 
 F or who may bid thy counterpart appear 
 Until the hand that drew thee shall return ! 
 
 E. C. Stedman. 
 
 CXXVIII. 
 
 THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 
 
 (Suggested by the Picture of Holman Hunt.) 
 
 Thou wayfaring Jesus, a pilgrim and stranger. 
 Exiled from heaven by love at Thy birth, 
 Exiled again from Thy rest in the manger, 
 
 A fugitive child ’mid the perils of earth — 
 Cheer with Thy fellowship all who are weary, 
 Wandering far from the land that they love ; 
 Guide every heart that is homeless and dreary 
 Safe to its home in Thy presence above. 
 
 Henry Van Dyke. 
 
 CXXIX 
 
 Art, properly so called, is no recreation ; it 
 cannot be learned at spare moments, nor pur- 
 sued when we have nothing better to do. It is no 
 handiwork for drawing-room tables, no relief of 
 the ennui of boudoirs ; it must be understood 
 and undertaken seriously, or not at all. To 
 advance it, men’s lives must be given, and to 
 receive it their hearts. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
126 
 
 foments tottj) Strt. 
 
 CX. XX. 
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO. 
 
 (Called “The Faultless Painter.”) 
 
 But do not let us quarrel any more, 
 
 No, my Lucrezia ; bear with me for once : 
 
 Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 
 
 You turn your face, but does it bring your 
 heart ? 
 
 I ’ll work then for your friend’s friend, never fear, 
 Treat his own subject after his own way, 
 
 Fix his own time, accept to his own price, 
 
 And shut the money into this small hand 
 When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly ? 
 Oh, I ’ll content him, — but to-morrow, Love ! 
 
 I often am much wearier than you think, 
 
 This evening more than usual, and it seems 
 As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 
 Here by the window with your hand in mine 
 And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, 
 
 Both of one mind, as married people use, 
 Quietly, quietly the evening through, 
 
 I might get up to-morrow to my work 
 Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 
 To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this ! 
 Your soft hand is a woman of itself, 
 
 And mine the man’s bared breast she curls 
 inside. 
 
 Don’t count the time lost, neither ; you must 
 serve. 
 
 For each of the five pictures we require : 
 
 It saves a model. So ! keep looking so — 
 
foment* toitf) art. 
 
 127 
 
 My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds ! 
 
 — How could you ever prick those perfect ears, 
 Even to put the pearl there ! 0I1, so sweet — 
 
 My face, my moon, my everybody’s moon, 
 Which everybody looks on and calls his, 
 
 And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, 
 
 While she looks — no one’s : very dear, no less. 
 You smile ? why, there ’s my picture ready made, 
 There ’s what we painters call our harmony ! 
 
 A common grayness silvers everything, — 
 
 All in a twilight, you and I alike 
 
 — You, at the point of your first pride in me 
 (That ’s gone, you know),— but I, at every point ; 
 My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 
 To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 
 
 There ’s the bell clinking from the chapel-top; 
 That length of convent-wall across the way 
 Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside ; 
 
 The last monk leaves the garden ; days decrease, 
 And autumn grows, autumn in everything. 
 
 Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape, 
 
 As if I saw alike my work and self 
 And all that I was born to be and do, 
 
 A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God’s hand. 
 How strange now, looks the life He makes us 
 lead ; 
 
 So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! 
 
 I feel He laid the fetter : let it lie ! 
 
 This chamber, for example — turn your head — 
 All that ’s behind us ! You don’t understand 
 Nor care to understand about my art, 
 
 But you can hear at least when people speak: 
 
128 
 
 ^omenta toitl) &rt< 
 
 And that cartoon, the second from the door 
 
 — It is the thing, Love ! so such things should 
 
 be : 
 
 Behold Madonna ! — I am bold to say. 
 
 I can do with my pencil what I know, 
 
 What I see, what at bottom of my heart 
 I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 
 
 Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 
 
 I do not boast, perhaps : yourself are judge, 
 Who listened to the Legate’s talk last week, 
 
 And just as much they used to say in France. 
 At any rate ’t is easy, all of it ! 
 
 No sketches first, no studies, that ’s long past: 
 
 I do what many dream of, all their lives, 
 
 — Dream ? strive to do, and agonize to do, 
 
 And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 
 On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, 
 Who strive — you don’t know how the others 
 
 strive 
 
 To paint a little thing like that you smeared 
 Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — 
 Yet do much less, so much less, Some one says, 
 (I know his name, no matter) — so much less ! 
 Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. 
 There burns a truer light of God in them, 
 
 In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up 
 brain, 
 
 Heart, or whate’er else, than goes on to prompt 
 This low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand of 
 mine. 
 
 Their works drop groundward, but themselves, 
 I know, 
 
ffElcmtents tottl) Strt. 
 
 129 
 
 Reach many a time a heaven that ’s shut to me, 
 Enter and take their place there sure enough, 
 Though they come back and cannot tell the 
 world. 
 
 My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 
 
 The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — 
 Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 
 I, painting from myself and to myself, 
 
 Know what I do, am unmoved by men’s blame 
 Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 
 Morello’s outline there is wrongly traced, 
 
 His hue mistaken ; what of that? or else, 
 Rightly traced and well ordered ; what of that? 
 Speak as they please, what does the mountain 
 care ? 
 
 Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, 
 Or what ’s a heaven for ? All is silver-gray, 
 Placid and perfect with my art : the worse! 
 
 I know both what I want and what might gain ; 
 And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 
 “ PI ad I been two, another and myself, 
 
 Our head would have o’er-looked the world!” 
 No doubt. 
 
 Yonder ’s a work now, of that famous youth 
 The Urbinate who died five years ago. 
 
 (’T is copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 
 
 Well, I can fancy how he did it all, 
 
 Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, 
 Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, 
 Above and through his art — for it gives way ; 
 That arm is wrongly put — and there again — 
 
 A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines, 
 
130 
 
 foments tottl) &tL 
 
 Its body, so to speak : its soul is right, 
 
 He means right — that, a child may understand. 
 Still, what an arm ! and I could alter it : 
 
 But all the play, the insight and the stretch — 
 Out of me, out of me ! And wherefore out ? 
 Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, 
 We might have risen to Rafael, I and you. 
 
 Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 
 More than I merit, yes, by many times. 
 
 But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow, 
 And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 
 And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 
 The fowler’s pipe, and follows to the snare — 
 Had you, with these the same, but brought a 
 mind ! 
 
 Some women do so. Had the mouth there 
 urged 
 
 “ God and the glory ! never care for gain. 
 
 The present by the future, what is that? 
 
 Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo ! 
 
 Rafael is waiting : up to God, all three ! ” 
 
 I might have done it for you. So it seems : 
 Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. 
 
 Beside, incentives come from the soul’s self; 
 The rest avail not. Why do I need you ? 
 
 What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? 
 
 In this world, who can do a thing, will not; 
 
 And who would do it, cannot, I perceive : 
 
 Yet the will’s somewhat — somewhat, too, the 
 power — 
 
 And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 
 God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 
 
foments tottf) &rt. 
 
 131 
 
 J T is safer for me, if the award be strict, 
 
 That I am something underrated here, 
 
 Poor this long while, despised, to speak the 
 truth. 
 
 I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, 
 For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 
 
 The best is when they pass and look aside ; 
 
 But they speak sometimes : I must bear it all. 
 Well may they speak ! That Francis, that first 
 time, 
 
 And that long festal year at Fontainebleau ! 
 
 I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, 
 Put on the glory, Rafael’s daily wear, 
 
 In that humane great monarch’s golden look, — 
 One finger in his beard or twisted curl 
 Over his mouth’s good mark that made the 
 smile, 
 
 One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, 
 The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 
 
 I painting proudly with his breath on me, 
 
 All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, 
 Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 
 Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 
 And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, 
 
 This in the background, waiting on my work, 
 To crown the issue with a last reward ! 
 
 A good time, was it not, my kingly days ? 
 
 And had you not grown restless . . . but I 
 know — 
 
 ’T is done and past ; ’t was right, my instinct said ; 
 Too live the life grew, golden and not gray: 
 And I ’m the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 
 
132 
 
 foments tout!) &tt. 
 
 Out of the grange whose four walls make his 
 world. 
 
 How could it end in any other way ? 
 
 You called me, and I came home to your heart. 
 The triumph was, to have ended there; then, if 
 I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost ? 
 
 Let my hands frame your face in your hair s 
 
 gold ’ . , . , 
 
 You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine ! 
 
 “Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; 
 
 The Roman’s is the better when you pray, 
 
 But still the other’s Virgin was his wife ” — 
 
 Men will excuse me. 1 am glad to judge 
 
 Both pictures in your presence ; clearer grows 
 
 My better fortune, I resolve to think. 
 
 For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives, 
 
 Said one day Agnolo, his very self,. 
 
 To Rafael ... I have known it all these 
 
 years ... 
 
 (When the young man was flaming out his 
 thoughts 
 
 Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, 
 
 Too lifted up in heart because of it) 
 
 “ Friend, there ’s a certain sorry little scrub 
 Goes up and down our Florence, none cares 
 how, 
 
 Who, were he set to plan and execute 
 
 As you are, pricked on by your popes and 
 
 kings, „ 
 
 Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours . 
 To Rafael’s ! — And indeed the arm is wrong. 
 I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, 
 
foments toitf) &rt. 
 
 133 
 
 Give the chalk here— quick, thus the line 
 should go ! 
 
 Av, but the soul ! he ’s Rafael ! rub it out ! 
 
 Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 
 
 (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo? 
 
 Do you forget already words like those ?) 
 
 If really there was such a chance so lost, — 
 
 Is, whether you’re — not grateful — but more 
 pleased. 
 
 Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed ! 
 This hour has been an hour ! Another smile ? 
 
 If you would sit thus by me every night 
 I should work better, do you comprehend ? 
 
 I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 
 See, it is settled dusk now; there ’s a star; 
 Morello ’s gone, the watch-lights show the wall, 
 The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 
 Come from the window, love, — come in, at last, 
 Inside the melancholy little house 
 We built to be so gay with. God is just. 
 
 King Francis may forgive me : oft at nights 
 When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, 
 The walls become illumined, brick from brick 
 Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, 
 That gold of his I did cement them with ! 
 
 Let us but love each other. Must you go ? 
 That cousin here again? he waits outside? 
 
 Must see you — you, and not with me ? Those 
 loans ? 
 
 More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that ? 
 Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to 
 spend ? 
 
134 
 
 JHoinenta toitf) 3rt. 
 
 While hand and eye and something of a heart 
 Are left me, work’s my ware, and what’s it 
 worth ? 
 
 I ’ll pay my fancy. Only let me sit 
 The gray remainder of the evening out, 
 
 Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 
 How I could paint, were I but back in France, 
 One picture, just one more — the Virgin’s face, 
 Not yours this time ! I want you at my side 
 To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo — 
 
 Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. 
 
 Will you? To-morrow satisfy your friend. 
 
 I take the subjects for his corridor, 
 
 Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there, 
 And throw him in another thing or two 
 If he demurs : the whole should prove enough 
 To pay for this same cousin’s freak. Beside, 
 What ’s better and what ’s all I care about, 
 
 Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff ! 
 
 Love, does that please you ? Ah, but what does 
 he, 
 
 The cousin ! what does he to please you more? 
 
 I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
 
 I regret little, I would change still less, 
 
 Since there my past life lies, why alter it? 
 
 The very wrong to Francis ! — it is true 
 I took his coin, was tempted and complied, 
 
 And built this house and sinned, and all is 
 said. 
 
 My father and my mother died of want. 
 
 Well, had I riches of my own? you see 
 
fKaments tottj) SrL 
 
 135 
 
 How one gets rich ! Let each one bear his lot. 
 They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they 
 died : 
 
 And I have labored somewhat in my time 
 And not been paid profusely. Some good son 
 Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try ! 
 No doubt, there ’s something strikes a balance. 
 Yes, 
 
 You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. 
 This must suffice me here. What would one 
 have ? 
 
 In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more 
 chance — 
 
 Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 
 
 Meted on each side by the angel’s reed, 
 
 For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me. 
 
 To cover — the three first without a wife, 
 
 While I have mine ! So — still they overcome 
 Because there’s still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 
 
 Again the cousin’s whistle ! Go, my love. 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 CXXXI. 
 
 MICHELANGELO’S MOSES. 
 
 The captain’s might, and mystery of the seer 
 Remoteness of Jehovah’s colloquist, 
 
 Nearness of man’s heaven-advocate — are here : 
 Alone Mount Nebo’s harsh foreshadow is 
 miss’d. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
JHotttttits iuitf) Set. 
 
 136 
 
 CX XXI I, 
 
 K' the NEW COLOSSUS . 1 
 
 Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, 
 
 With conquering limbs astride from land to 
 land ; 
 
 Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand 
 A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame 
 Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name 
 Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand 
 Glows world-wide welcome ; her mild eyes com- 
 mand 
 
 The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 
 
 “ Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp ! ” cries 
 she 
 
 With silent lips. “ Give me your tired, your poor, 
 Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
 The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
 Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 
 
 I lift my lamp beside the golden door ! ” 
 
 Emma Lazarus. 
 
 CXXXIII. 
 
 But I still insist on my democratic liberty of 
 choice, and I go for the man with the gallery 
 of family portraits against the one with the 
 twenty-five-cent daguerrotype, unless I find out 
 that the last is the better of the two. 
 
 O. W. Holmes. 
 
 1 Written in aid of Bartholdi Pedestal Fund, 1883. 
 
foments toitl) &rt. 
 
 i37 
 
 c XX XIV. 
 
 BEFORE TITIAN’S PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF 
 AT NINETY. 
 
 (In the Gallery of the Prado at Madrid.) 
 
 O gentle fiery soul, what can thy fame 
 Receive of homage that has not been brought ? 
 Master of masters ! may the secret caught 
 By thee from whispering Death forever shame 
 The faltering toiler, may its power be flame 
 To wither doubt and fear that set at nought 
 Divinest summons ! May thy portrait wrought 
 By thee in age inspire renewed high aim ! 
 
 Lo ! by thine art triumphant martyrs kneel, 
 
 Or saints and kings the Holy Child adore; 
 
 On yonder wall the Emperor Carlos rides, 
 
 Yet here thy soul more dauntlessly abides. 
 
 Thy powers in waning mightily reveal 
 Beauty and nobleness unguessed before ! 
 
 Minna Caroline Smith. 
 
 CXXX V. 
 
 O ’er the Rembrandt there — the Caracci here 
 Flutter warmly the ruddy and wavering hues ; 
 And Saint Anthony over his book has a leer 
 At the little French beauty by Greuze. 
 
 Owen Meredith. 
 
 CXXXVI. 
 
 Genius does what it must, and talent does 
 what it can. 
 
 Owen Meredith. 
 
138 
 
 ^laments tot tf) &rt 
 
 CXXXVII. 
 
 V THE WINGED VICTORY. 
 
 On the dim borders of an ancient world 
 For one breath’s space, there stood a heavenly 
 form ; 
 
 Perfectly fair, perfectly beautiful. 
 
 Born of men’s best and of men’s worst desires 
 Born of best hope and half-conceived success, 
 Paeans of all worlds ringing out her birth, 
 
 The swift-hushed strife of nations in her ears, 
 Hot kisses shaken from a thousand lips 
 Rained on the sand her foot spurned ; eyes wine- 
 bleared 
 
 Looked up, and from hoarse throats half drunk 
 with blood 
 
 Hosannas broke. “ Oh greeting, greeting — 
 Hail ! ” 
 
 The hands of kings, fine ringed ; the statesman’s 
 hand, 
 
 Mighty, thick-fingered, full of pride and power; 
 The mailed glove of war, — the sages’ hands, 
 The yellow, miser, gold-absorbing hand, 
 
 The poet’s, and the hand with brush and pen, 
 Rose like a laurel yielding wood of trees 
 Acclaimed, besought, “ oh greeting, greeting 
 Hail ! ” 
 
 Under the breeze-swift accent of her foot 
 A strange bark pressed its curved prow to sea. 
 (Oh gods, what from her face and body’s shrine 
 Of perfect beauty have ye yet withheld 
 That an immortal still may equal her 
 
foments tasit!) 2ttt. 
 
 139 
 
 If not excel ?) 
 
 Slow rising from the seas, 
 
 And morning lands of lilies, and cold hills 
 Stirred wandering mists, and creeping came to 
 her 
 
 Encircled, and clung close. 
 
 From head to foot, 
 
 Across her loins, up to her swelling breast 
 Took curve, and line and fold, and half-way fell 
 From the round, lovely, gently swelling sphere. 
 Then the four winds of heaven met and took 
 form. 
 
 With the cold brusqueness of the virgin North, — 
 And strong eternal sweeping of the East, — 
 And vague voluptuous languor of the South, 
 And fresh wide-reaching fortune of the West, — 
 Melted, and kissed and knit themselves to wings. 
 Thus mist clad, and wind winged, she moved to 
 life. 
 
 Under her foot the galley put to sea 
 She winged it, bore it, sped it ; turning not 
 For all the glad sea islands of the dawn; 
 
 For all the sapphire havens of the night; 
 
 For all the gala portals of the world; 
 
 The fluttering brilliant banners, the acclaims 
 The martial, fame-compelling festivals 
 Broke not her dream, and but one zephyr stirred 
 The vapors of her clinging draperies. 
 
 To one bright island in the Aegean Sea, 
 
 To Greece, to blue-bound smiling Samothrace 
 She sped, and high upon the shelving shore 
 
140 foments tuttft &rt* 
 
 The galley ran its prow not to be stirred 
 For twice a thousand years : 
 
 And thus she came 
 
 To the heart summonings of half a race. 
 
 Into the golden age of Greece and Song 
 An Inspiration, Poem, Form, a Dream 
 Genius conceived, love born, art perfected. 
 
 And to that island only, (bright sea bound 
 That mirage, that rose garden where love was) 
 The winged Victory came, 
 
 With those who loved, 
 Who died warm-hearted, glowing lip on lip 
 Part of the art and glory of the time, 
 
 She laid her down in golden dust to sleep 
 Ages and ages. 
 
 And it is to those 
 
 Who love and sleep as if the Victory 
 Ever beside them, mingles dust with dust 
 Beauty with ashes. 
 
 In whatever dawn 
 
 Their eyes shall see, they look to see her face, 
 To wake in her embrace, as one with her, 
 Winged, Victorious. 
 
 Marie van Vorst. 
 
 CXXXVIIL 
 
 Noble art is nothing less than the expression 
 of a great soul ; and great souls are not common 
 things. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
foments tottf) 
 
 141 
 
 CXXXIX. 
 
 ON BEETHOVEN COMPOSING “THE MOON- 
 LIGHT SONATA.” 
 
 (To the Picture-Sketch by Benjamin Constant.) 
 
 Deep shadows fall upon the simple room 
 That genius fills with heavenly peace brought 
 near 
 
 In melody to touch all those who hear — 
 
 Which there intoned will echo till Earth’s doom. 
 ’T is born of midnight dark, from out the womb 
 Of pain, the misery of deafness drear ; 
 
 Yet when it sounds dull grief doth disappear 
 And gladness dawns displacing worldly gloom. 
 For see ! how bathed in dream of mystic light 
 He sat, the moonbeams on his massive brow 
 And front, as inspiration to endow 
 His soul that hour with music’s rarest might,. 
 Which trembled urgent from the quaint clavier 
 In accents so divinely pure and clear. 
 
 J. Murray Templeton. 
 
 CXL. 
 
 A MADONNA OF FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 No Heavenly maid we here behold, 
 
 Though round her brow a ring of gold ; 
 
 This baby, solemn-eyed and sweet, 
 
 Is human all from head to feet. 
 
 Together close her palms are prest 
 In worship of that godly guest: 
 
 But glad her heart and unafraid 
 While on her neck his hand is laid. 
 
142 
 
 foments toitt) art. 
 
 Two children, happy, laughing, gay, 
 
 Uphold the little child in play; 
 
 Not flying angels these, what though 
 Four wings from their four shoulders grow. 
 
 Fra Lippo, we have learned from thee 
 A lesson of humanity ; 
 
 To every mother’s heart forlorn, 
 
 In every house the Christ is born. 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder. 
 
 CXLI. 
 
 ON RAPHAEL’S ARCHANGEL MICHAEL. 
 
 From out the depths of crocus-colored morn 
 With rush of wings the strong Archangel 
 came 
 
 And glistening spear ; and leapt as leaps a 
 flame 
 
 On Satan unprepared and earthward borne ; 
 And rolled the sunless Rebel, bruised and torn, 
 Upon the earth’s bare plain, in dust and 
 shame, 
 
 Holding awhile his spear’s suspended aim 
 Above his humbled head in radiant scorn. 
 
 So leaps within the soul on Wrong or Lust 
 The warrior Angel whom we deem not near, 
 And rolls the rebel impulse in the dust, 
 
 Scathing its neck with his triumphal tread, 
 And holding high his bright coercing spear 
 Above its inexterminable head. 
 
 E. Lee Hamilton. 
 
ft laments toitj) 3tr t. 
 
 143 
 
 CXLII. 
 
 ROMNEY’S REMORSE. 
 
 1 read Hayley’s “Life of Romney ” the other day — 
 Romney wanted but education and reading to make him 
 a very fine painter : but his ideal was not high nor fixed. 
 How touching is the close of his life ! He married a * m ^ e ' 
 teen, and because Sir Joshua and others had said that 
 ‘marriage spoilt an artist,’ almost immediately left his 
 wife in the North and scarce saw her till the end of his 
 life; when old, nearly mad, and quite desolate, he went 
 back to her and she received him and nursed him till he 
 died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney’s pic- 
 tures ! even as a matter of Art, I am sure. Letters and 
 Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald , Vol. I. 
 
 ‘ Beat, little heart — I give you this and this.’ 
 Who are you? What! the Lady Hamilton? 
 Good, I am never weary painting you. 
 
 To sit once more? Cassandra, Hebe, Joan, 
 
 Or spinning at your wheel beside the vine — 
 Bacchante, what you will ; and if I fail 
 To conjure and concentrate into form 
 And color all you are, the fault is less 
 In me than Art. What Artist ever yet 
 Could make pure light live on the canvas ? Art ! 
 Why should I so disrelish that short word? 
 
 Where am I ? snow on all the hills ! so hot, 
 So fever’d ! never colt would more delight 
 To roll himself in meadow grass than I 
 To wallow in that winter of the hills. 
 
 Nurse, were you hired ? or came of your own 
 will 
 
 To wait on one so broken, so forlorn ? 
 
 Have I not met you somewhere long ago ? 
 
144 
 
 JHomeats toitl) 9Crt. 
 
 I am all but sure I have — in Kendal church — 
 O, yes ! I hired you for a season there, 
 
 And then we parted ; but you look so kind 
 That you will not deny my sultry throat 
 One draught of icy water. There — you spill 
 The drops upon my forehead. Your hand 
 shakes. 
 
 I am ashamed. I am a trouble to you, 
 
 Could kneel for your forgiveness. Are they 
 tears ? 
 
 F or me — they do me too much grace — for me ? 
 O Mary, Mary! 
 
 V exing you with words ! 
 Words only, born of fever, or the fumes 
 Of that dark opiate dose you gave me, — 
 words, 
 
 Wild babble. I have stumbled back again 
 Into the common day, the sounder self. 
 
 God stay me there, if only for your sake, 
 
 The truest, kindliest, noblest-hearted wife 
 That ever wore a Christian marriage-ring. 
 
 My curse upon the Master’s apothegm, 
 
 That wife and children drag an artist down ! 
 This seem’d my lodestar in the heaven of Art, 
 And lured me from the household fire on 
 earth. 
 
 To you my days have been a lifelong lie, 
 Grafted on half a truth ; and tho’ you say, 
 ‘Take comfort, you have won the Painter’s 
 fame,’ 
 
 The best in me that sees the worst in me, 
 
 And groans to see it, finds no comfort there. 
 
145 
 
 foments toitj) 3lrt* 
 
 What fame ? I am not Raphael, Titian — no 
 Nor even a Sir Joshua, some will cry. 
 
 Wrong there ! The painter’s fame ? but mine, 
 that grew 
 
 Blown into glittering by the popular breath, 
 
 May float awhile beneath the sun, may roll 
 The rainbow hues of heaven about it — 
 
 There ! 
 
 The color’d bubble bursts above the abyss 
 Of Darkness, utter Lethe. 
 
 Is it so ? 
 
 Her sad eyes plead for my own fame with me 
 To make it dearer. 
 
 Look, the sun has riseil 
 To flame along another dreary day. 
 
 Your hand. How bright you keep your mar- 
 riage ring ! 
 
 Raise me. I thank you. 
 
 Has your opiate then 
 Bred this black mood ? or am I conscious, more 
 Than other Masters, of the chasm between 
 Work and Ideal? Or does the gloom of Age 
 And suffering cloud the height I stand upon 
 Even from myself ? stand ? stood — no more. 
 
 And yet 
 
 The world would lose, if such a wife as you 
 Should vanish unrecorded. Might I crave 
 One favor ? Iam bankrupt of all claim 
 On your obedience, and my strongest wish 
 Falls flat before your least unwillingness. 
 
 Still would you — if it please you — sit to 
 me? 
 
 IO 
 
146 
 
 foments tottl) t 
 
 . . . There, there, there ! a child 
 Had shamed me at it — Down, you idle tools, 
 Stampt into dust — tremulous, all awry, 
 
 Blurr’d like a landskip in a ruffled pool, — 
 
 Not one stroke firm. This Art, that harlot-like 
 Seduced me from you, leaves me harlot-like, 
 Who love her still, and whimper, impotent 
 To win her back before I die — and then — 
 Then, in the loud world’s bastard judgment-day, 
 One truth will damn me with the mindless mob, 
 Who feel no touch of my temptation, more 
 Than all the myriad lies, that blacken round 
 The corpse of every man that gains a name ; 
 ‘This model husband, this fine Artist ! ’ Fool, 
 What matters ? Six foot deep of burial mould 
 Will dull their comments ! Ay, but when the 
 shout 
 
 Of His descending peals from heaven, and 
 throbs 
 
 Thro’ earth and all her graves, if He should 
 ask 
 
 « Why left you wife and children ? for my sake, 
 According to my word ? ’ and I replied 
 ‘ Nay, Lord, for 'Art , 9 why, that would sound so 
 mean 
 
 That all the dead, who wait the doom of hell 
 For bolder sins than mine, adulteries, 
 Wife-murders, — nay, the ruthless Mussulman 
 Who flings his bowstrung harem in the sea, 
 Would turn, and glare at me, and point and 
 jeer, 
 
 And gibber at the worm who, living, made 
 
foments tottf) 2lrt 
 
 147 
 
 The wife of wives a widow-bride, and lost 
 Salvation for a sketch. 
 
 I am wild again ! 
 
 The coals of fire you heap upon my head 
 Have crazed me. . . . 
 
 0 let me lean my head upon your breast. 
 
 ‘ Beat, little heart ’ on this fool brain of mine. 
 
 1 once had friends — and many — none like you. 
 I love you more than when we married. Hope ! 
 O yes, I hope, or fancy that, perhaps, 
 
 Human forgiveness touches heaven, and 
 
 thence — 
 
 For you forgive me, you are sure of that — 
 Reflected, sends a light on the forgiven. 
 
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 
 
 CXL III. 
 
 The habitual choice of sacred subjects, such 
 as the Nativity, Transfiguration, Crucifixion (if 
 the choice be sincere), implies that the painter 
 has a natural disposition to dwell on the highest 
 thoughts of which humanity is capable ; it con- 
 stitutes him, so far forth, a painter of the highest 
 order, as, for instance, Leonardo, in his painting 
 of the Last Supper : he who delights in repre- 
 senting the acts or meditations of great men, as, 
 for instance, Raphael painting the School of 
 Athens, is, so far forth, a painter of the second 
 order: he who represents the passions and 
 events of ordinary life, of the third. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
148 
 
 foments toitl) art. 
 
 CXLIV. 
 
 FOR “THE WINE OF CIRCE,” BY SIR 
 EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 
 
 Dusk-haired and gold-robed o ’er the golden 
 wine 
 
 She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and 
 shame, 
 
 Sink the black drops ; while lit with fragrant 
 flame, 
 
 Round her spread board the golden sunflowers 
 shine. 
 
 Doth Helios here with Hecate combine 
 (O Circe, thou their votaress !) to proclaim 
 For these thy guests all rapture in love’s 
 name, 
 
 Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign? 
 
 Lords of their hour, they come. And by her 
 knee 
 
 Those cowering beasts, their equals hereto- 
 fore, 
 
 Wait ; who with them in new equality 
 
 To-night shall echo back the unchanging roar 
 Which sounds forever from the tide-strown 
 shore 
 
 Where the dishevelled seaweed hates the sea. 
 
 D. G. Rossetti. 
 
 CXLV. 
 
 Sculpture is the art of discarding super- 
 
 fluities. 
 
 A. Canova. 
 
foments tott!) 
 
 149 
 
 CXLVI. 
 
 EASTER IN FLORENCE. 
 
 The echoes of a bygone strife 
 
 Seemed surging round the dark Bargello; 
 
 Marble and bronze sprang fresh to life 
 Beneath the wand of Donatello ; 
 
 “ Night ” seemed to sleep, and “ Dawn ” to wake 
 Behind the walls of old St. Lawrence, — 
 
 There hung a spell we would not break 
 About our Eastertide at Florence. 
 
 Past canvases, by years undimmed, 
 
 From Antwerp, Nuremberg, and Cadiz, 
 
 To mark how nobly Titian limned 
 Gray senators and high-born ladies. 
 
 From grave Mantegna’s glowing reds 
 To soft Correggio’s milder graces ; 
 
 From Botticelli’s down-cast heads, 
 
 To bright Andrea’s smiling faces ; 
 
 And that good Friar, to whom alone 
 Of mortal men was spirit given 
 
 To pierce the veil that shrouds the Throne, 
 And paint the golden courts of Heaven. 
 
 Silent we stood, in deepest awe, 
 
 Where Raphael’s hand has set forever 
 The whirlwind Israel’s prophet saw 
 In vision by the captives’ river : 
 
jlomente tottl) &rt* 
 
 150 
 
 Silent, where sits in loveliest guise 
 The wistful Virgin Mother, leaning 
 To watch her wondrous Infant’s eyes, 
 Enkindled with divinest meaning. 
 
 Time mows away at memory’s flowers, 
 
 He holds their perfume in abhorrence : 
 Freely we ’ll yield him most of ours, 
 
 But not that Eastertide in Florence ! 
 
 Robert, Lord Houghton. 
 
 C XL VII. 
 
 BEFORE THE PICTURE OF THE BAPTIST, 
 BY RAPHAEL, IN THE GALLERY AT 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 The Baptist might have been ordained to cry 
 Forth from the towers of that huge Pile, wherein 
 His father served Jehovah ; but how win 
 Due audience, how for aught but scorn defy 
 The obstinate pride and wanton revelry 
 Of the Jerusalem below, her sin 
 And folly, if they with united din 
 Drown not at once mandate and prophecy? 
 Therefore the Voice spake from the Desert, 
 thence 
 
 To her, as to her opposite in peace, 
 
 Silence, and holiness, and innocence, 
 
 To her and to all lands its warning sent, 
 
 Crying with earnestness that might not cease, 
 
 “ Make straight a highway for the Lord, — 
 repent ! ” 
 
 William Wordsworth. 
 
foments toit!) Urt. 
 
 151 
 
 C XL VIII. 
 
 MILAN. 
 
 (Da Vinci’s Christ.) 
 
 All day long, year after year, 
 
 Maid and man and priest and lay 
 
 Wander in from crowded streets, 
 
 And through the long, cool gallery stray. 
 
 And with them, in the fading light, 
 
 We loiter past the pictured wall, 
 
 Till lo ! a face before us comes, 
 
 And something wistful seems to fall 
 
 From two strange eyes that speak to all; 
 For here a priest, and there a maid, 
 
 Two lads, a soldier, and a bonne, 
 
 Before the rail their steps have stayed. 
 
 What message bore this awful face, 
 Through all the waning centuries fled ? 
 
 What says it to the gazer now ? 
 
 What said it to the myriad dead 
 
 Who came and went like us to-day, 
 
 And, pausing here in silence, all 
 
 In silence laid their weight of sins 
 Before this still confessional ? 
 
 A face more sad man never dreamed, 
 
 A face more sweet man never wrought ; 
 
 So solemn-sad, so solemn-sweet, 
 
 Serenely set in quiet thought. 
 
fUmtnts tottfc 3trt* 
 
 152 
 
 The silent sunlight slips away, 
 
 The soldiers pass, the bonne goes by ; 
 
 The painter drapes his copy in, 
 
 And stops his work and heaves a sigh. 
 
 And followed by those eyes, that have 
 The patience of eternity, 
 
 We carry to the bustling street 
 Their loving Benedicite . 
 
 S. Weir Mitchell. 
 
 CXLIX. 
 
 UNPAID WORK. 
 
 He hit the world’s taste, and for what he gave 
 It more than paid him — fame and fortune 
 squander’d. 
 
 He overdid its taste — became its slave; 
 
 It bought him, and he pander’d. 
 
 ’T is well to be repaid for what you give : 
 
 To work unpaid, for love of work, is better — 
 Bestowing all for nothing while you live — 
 
 And leave the world your debtor. 
 
 Robert Leighton. 
 
 CL. 
 
 He that seeks popularity in art closes the 
 door on his own genius ; as he must needs 
 paint for other minds, and not for his own. 
 
 Washington Allston. 
 
foments tottb &tt. 
 
 153 
 
 CLI. 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 \\ 
 
 There is not anything the soul more craves 
 Than Beauty. It exalts the merest line 
 That through our every-day experience waves 
 Seeks blindly the Divine. 
 
 For what in very truth is this we crave, 
 
 Which neither loads the board nor fills ti 
 
 purs6j - 
 
 Yet, wanting which, the earth were but a grave, 
 And life itself a curse? 
 
 The visual presence of the living God, 
 
 That permeates creation, comes and goes 
 In substance and in shadow, greens the sod, 
 
 And paints and scents the rose : 
 
 And flows through man into his works of art — 
 The picture’s glow, the statues breathing 
 
 gleam 7 ■ .11 
 
 For not a touch of Beauty stirs the heart 
 
 But comes of the Supreme ! 
 
 Robert Leighton. 
 
 CLU. 
 
 In some sense a person who has never seen 
 the rose-color of the rays of dawn crossing a 
 blue mountain twelve or fifteen miles away, can 
 hardly be said to know what tenderness in color 
 means at all ; bright tenderness he may, indeed, 
 see in the sky or in a flower, but this grave ten- 
 derness of the far-away hill-purples he cannot 
 conceive. *° HN RusKIN< 
 
154 
 
 foments tottl) art. 
 
 CLIII. 
 
 FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 I AM poor brother Lippo, by your leave 
 You need not clap your torches to my face. 
 Zooks ! what ’s to blame ? you think you see a 
 monk ! 
 
 What, ’t is past midnight, and you go the rounds, 
 And here you catch me at an alley’s end 
 Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? 
 The Carmine ’s my cloister: hunt it up, 
 
 Do, — harry out, if you must show your zeal 
 Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole’ 
 And nip each softiing of a wee white mouse’ 
 eke weke, that ’s crept to keep him company ! 
 Aha. you know your betters? Then, vou’ll 
 take J 
 
 Your hand away that ’s fiddling on my throat, 
 nd please to know me likewise. Who am I? 
 Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 
 Three streets off — he’s a certain . . . how d’ve 
 call ? J 
 
 Master — a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, 
 
 I the house that caps the corner. Boh ! you 
 were best ! J 
 
 Remember and tell me the day you ’re hano-ed 
 How you affected such a gullet’s-gripe ! & ’ 
 
 But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves 
 Tick up a manner, nor discredit you : 
 
 Zooks ! are we pilchards, that they sweep the 
 streets 
 
 And count fair prize what comes into their net? 
 
foments toitt) art. 
 
 155 
 
 He ’s Judas to a tittle, that man is ! 
 
 Just such a face ! Why, sir, you make amends. 
 Lord, I ’m not angry ! Bid your hang-dogs go 
 Drink out this quarter-florin to the health 
 Of the munificent House that harbors me 
 (And many more beside, lads ! more beside !) . 
 And all ’s come square again. I ’d like his 
 face — 
 
 His, elbowing on his comrade in the door 
 With the pike and lantern, — for the slave that 
 holds 
 
 John Baptist’s head a-dangle by the hair 
 With one hand (“Look you, now,” as who 
 should say) 
 
 And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped ! 
 
 It’s not your chance to have a bit of chalk, 
 
 A wood-coal or the like ? or you should see ! 
 Yes, I ’m the painter, since you style me so. 
 What, brother Lippo’s doings, up and down, 
 You know them, and they take you ? like enough ! 
 I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 
 
 ’Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. 
 
 Let’s sit and set things straight now, hip to 
 haunch. 
 
 Here’s spring come, and the nights one makes 
 up bands 
 
 To roam the town and sing out carnival, 
 
 And I ’ve been three weeks shut within my mew, 
 A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 
 And saints again. I could not paint all night 
 Ouf ! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 
 There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 
 
156 
 
 JHomenta toitj) &rt. 
 
 A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whiffs of 
 song, — 
 
 Flower o' the broom , 
 
 Take away love , and our earth is a tomb / 
 Flower o' the quince, 
 
 I let Lisa go, and what good hi life since f 
 Flower o' the thyme — and so on. Round they 
 went. 
 
 Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter 
 Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, — 
 three slim shapes, 
 
 And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh 
 and blood 
 
 That ’s all I ’m made of ! Into shreds it went, 
 Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, 
 
 All the bed furniture — a dozen knots, 
 
 There was a ladder ! Down I let myself, 
 
 Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so 
 dropped, 
 
 And after them. I came up with the fun 
 Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met, — 
 Flower o' the rose, 
 
 If I've been merry, what matter who knows? 
 And so, as I was stealing back again, 
 
 To get to bed and have a bit of sleep 
 Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work 
 On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast 
 With his great round stone to subdue the 
 flesh, 
 
 You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see ! 
 
 Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your 
 head — 
 
foments tottf) art. 
 
 157 
 
 Mine ’s shaved — a monk, you say — the sting ’s 
 in that ! 
 
 If Master Cosimo announced himself, 
 
 Mum ’s the word naturally ; but a monk ! 
 
 Come, what am I a beast for ? tell us, now ! 
 
 I was a baby when my mother died 
 And father died and left me in the street. 
 
 I starved there, God knows how, a year or two 
 On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, 
 Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, 
 
 My stomach being empty as your hat, 
 
 The wind doubled me up and down I went. 
 
 Old aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand 
 (Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew), 
 
 And so along the wall, over the bridge, 
 
 By the straight cut to the convent. Six words 
 there, 
 
 While I stood munching my first bread that 
 month : 
 
 “ So, boy, you ’re minded,” quoth the 'good fat 
 father 
 
 Wiping his own mouth, ’t was refection-time, — 
 “ To quit this very miserable world ? 
 
 Will you renounce” . . . “the mouthful of 
 bread ? ” thought I ; 
 
 By no means ! Brief, they made a monk of me; 
 I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, 
 Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking house, 
 Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 
 Have given their hearts to — all at eight years 
 old. 
 
 Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 
 
iHoramts toitf) Strt. 
 
 158 
 
 ? T was not for nothing — the good bellyful, 
 
 The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, 
 And day-long blessed idleness beside ! 
 
 “ Let ’s see what the urchin ’s fit for ” — that 
 came next. 
 
 Not overmuch their way, I must confess. 
 
 Such a to-do ! They tried me with their books : 
 Lord, they ’d have taught me Latin in pure 
 waste ! 
 
 Flower o ’ the clove. 
 
 All the Latin I construe is, “ Amo ” I love / 
 But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 
 Eight years together as my fortune was, 
 Watching folk’s faces to know who will fling 
 The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, 
 And who will curse or kick him for his pains, — 
 Which gentleman processional and fine, 
 Holding a candle to the Sacrament, 
 
 Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch 
 The droppings of the wax to sell again, 
 
 Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, — 
 How say I ? — nay, which dog bites, which lets 
 drop 
 
 His bone from the heap of offal in the street, — 
 Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, 
 He learns the look of things, and none the less 
 For admonition from the hunger-pinch. 
 
 I had a store of such remarks, be sure, • 
 
 Which, after I found leisure, turned to use: 
 
 I drew men’s faces on my copy-books, 
 
 Scrawled them within the antiphonary’s marge, 
 Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, 
 
Momenta tottl) 
 
 159 
 
 Found eyes and nose and chin for A’s and B’s, 
 And made a string of pictures of the world 
 Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun, 
 
 On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks 
 looked black. 
 
 “Nay,” quoth the Prior, “turn him out, d’ye 
 say ? 
 
 In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. 
 
 What if at last we get our man of parts, 
 
 We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese 
 
 And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine 
 
 And put the front on it that ought to be ! ” 
 
 And hereupon he bade me daub away. 
 
 Thank you ! my head being crammed, the 
 walls a blank, 
 
 Never was such prompt disemburdening. 
 
 First every sort of monk, the black and white, 
 
 I drew them, fat and lean : then, folks at church, 
 From good old gossips waiting to confess 
 Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, — 
 To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, 
 
 Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 
 With the little children round him in a row 
 Of admiration, half for his beard, and half 
 For that white anger of his victim's son 
 Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 
 Signing himself with the other because of Christ 
 (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 
 After the passion of a thousand years), 
 
 Till some poor girl, her apron o’er her head 
 (Which the intense eyes looked through), came 
 at eve 
 
i6o 
 
 Momenta fcott& 
 
 On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 
 
 Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers 
 (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was 
 gone. 
 
 I painted all, then cried, “’T is ask and have ; 
 Choose, for more ’s ready ! ” — laid the ladder 
 flat, 
 
 And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. 
 
 The monks closed in a circle and praised loud 
 Till checked, taught what to see and not to 
 see, 
 
 Being simple bodies, — “ That ’s the very man ! 
 Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog ! 
 That woman ’s like the Prior’s niece who comes 
 To care about his asthma; it ’s the life ! ” 
 
 But there my triumph’s straw-fire flared and 
 funked ; 
 
 Their betters took their turn to see and say : 
 The Prior and the learned pulled a face 
 And stopped all that in no time. “ How ? 
 what ’s here ? 
 
 Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all ! 
 Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true 
 As much as pea and pea ! it ’s devil’s game ! 
 Your business is not to catch men with show, 
 With homage to the perishable clay, 
 
 But lift them over it, ignore it all, 
 
 Make them forget there ’s such a thing as flesh. 
 Your business is to paint the souls of men — 
 Man’s soul, and it ’s a fire, smoke . . . no, it ’s 
 not . . . 
 
 It’s vapor done up like a new-born babe — 
 
jHonxentEi toitb 3ttt. 
 
 161 
 
 (In that shape when you die it leaves your 
 mouth), 
 
 It’s . . . well, what matters talking, it’s the 
 soul ! 
 
 Give us no more of body than shows soul ! 
 Here’s Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, 
 That sets us praising, — why not stop with him? 
 Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head 
 With wonder at lines, colors, and what not ? 
 Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms ! 
 Rub all out, try at it a second time ! 
 
 Oh ! that white smallish female with the breasts, 
 She’s just my niece . . . Herodias, I would 
 say,— 
 
 Who went and danced, and got men’s heads cut 
 off ! 
 
 Have it all out ! ” Now, is this sense, I ask ? 
 
 A fine way to paint soul, by painting body 
 So ill, the eye can’t stop there, must go farther 
 And can’t fare worse ! Thus, yellow does for 
 white 
 
 When what you put for yellow ’s simply black, 
 And any sort of meaning looks intense 
 When all beside itself means and looks naught. 
 Why can’t a painter lift each foot in turn, 
 
 Left foot and right foot, go a double step, 
 
 Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, 
 Both in their order? Take the prettiest face, 
 The Prior’s niece . . . patron saint — is it so 
 pretty 
 
 You can’t discover if it means hope, fear, 
 Sorrow or joy ? won’t beauty go with these ? 
 
 ii 
 
162 
 
 jlaments tottl) 
 
 Suppose I ’ve made her eyes all right and blue, 
 Can’t I take breath and try to add life’s flash, 
 And then add soul and heighten them threefold? 
 Or say there ’s beauty with no soul at all — 
 
 (I never saw it — put the case the same — ) 
 
 If you get simple beauty and naught else, 
 
 You get about the best thing God invents : 
 That’s somewhat: and you’ll find the soul you 
 have missed, 
 
 Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 
 
 « Rub all out ! ” Well, well, there ’s my life, in 
 short, 
 
 And so the thing has gone on ever since. 
 
 I ’m grown a man, no doubt, I ’ve broken bounds . 
 You should not take a fellow eight years old 
 And make him swear to never kiss the girls, 
 
 I ’m my own master, paint now as I please 
 Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! 
 Lord, it ’s fast holding by the rings in front — 
 Those great rings serve more purposes than 
 just 
 
 To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse ! 
 
 And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave 
 
 eyes 
 
 Are peeping o’er my shoulder as I work, . 
 
 The heads shake still, — “ It ’s art’s decline, my 
 
 son! . , ,, 
 
 You ’re not of the true painters, great and old ; 
 Brother Angelico’s the man, .you ’ll find; 
 Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer: 
 
 Fag on at flesh, you’ll never make the third . 
 
 Flower o' the pine , 
 
foments tottl) 8rt. 
 
 163 
 
 You keep your mistr . . . manners, and I'll 
 stick to mine! 
 
 I’m not the third, then: bless us, they must 
 know ! 
 
 Don’t you think they’re the likeliest to know, 
 They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, 
 Clinch my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint 
 To please them — sometimes do, and sometimes 
 don’t; 
 
 For, doing most, there’s pretty sure to come 
 A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints — 
 A laugh, a cry, the business of the world — 
 (Flower o' the peach , 
 
 Death for us all , and his own life for each /) 
 And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, 
 The world and life’s too big to pass for a 
 dream, 
 
 And I do these wild things in sheer despite, 
 And play the fooleries you catch me at 
 In pure rage ! The old mill-horse, out at grass 
 After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, 
 Although the miller does not preach to him 
 The only good of grass is to make chaff. 
 
 What would men have? Do they like grass 
 or no — 
 
 May they or mayn’t they? all I want’s the 
 thing 
 
 Settled forever one way. As it is, 
 
 You tell too many lies and hurt yourself : 
 
 You don’t like what you only like too much, 
 You do like what, if given you at your word, 
 You find abundantly detestable. 
 
164 
 
 fUmtnt* tottl) art. 
 
 For me, I think I speak as I was taught. 
 
 I always see the garden, and God there 
 A-making man’s wife: and, my lesson learned, 
 The value and significance of flesh, 
 
 I can’t unlearn ten minutes afterwards. 
 
 You understand me : I ’m a beast, I know. 
 
 But see, now — why, I see as certainly 
 As that the morning-star ’s about to shine, 
 
 What will hap some day. We’ve a youngster 
 here 
 
 Comes to our convent, studies what I do, 
 Slouches and stares and let ’s no atom drop : 
 
 His name is Guidi — he ’ll not mind the monks - 
 They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk 
 He picks my practice up — he ’ll paint apace, 
 
 I hope so — though I never live so long, 
 
 I know what’s sure to follow. You be judge! 
 You speak no Latin more than I, belike; 
 However, you ’re my man, you’ve seen the world 
 
 — The beauty and the wonder and the power, 
 The shapes of things, their colors, lights, and 
 
 shades, 
 
 Changes, surprises, — and God made it all . 
 
 — For what ? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, 
 For this fair town’s face, yonder river’s line, 
 The mountain round it and the sky above, 
 
 Much more the figures of man, woman, child, 
 These are the frame to ? What ’s it all about ? 
 To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt upon, 
 Wondered at? oh, this last of course! you 
 
 say. . 
 
 But why not do as well as say, — paint these 
 
JHaments tottf) &rt. 
 
 165 
 
 Just as they are, careless what comes of it ? 
 
 God’s works — paint any one, and count it 
 crime 
 
 To let a truth slip. Don’t object, “ His works 
 Are here already ; nature is complete : 
 
 Suppose you reproduce her — (which you can t) 
 There ’s no advantage ! you must beat her, 
 then.” 
 
 For, don’t you mark ? we ’re made so that we 
 love 
 
 First when we see them painted, things we have 
 passed 
 
 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ; 
 
 And so they are better, painted — better to us, 
 Which is the same thing. Art was given for 
 that ; 
 
 God uses us to help each other so, 
 
 Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, 
 Your cullion’s hanging face ? A bit of chalk, 
 And trust me but you should, though! How 
 much more 
 
 If I drew higher things with the same truth ! 
 That were to take the Prior’s pulpit-place, 
 Interpret God to all of you ! Oh, oh 
 It makes me mad to see what men shall do 
 And we in our graves ! This world ’s no blot 
 for us 
 
 Nor blank ; it means intensely, and means good ; 
 To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 
 
 “ Ay, but you don’t so instigate to prayer ! ” 
 Strikes in the Prior : “ when your meaning ’s 
 plain 
 
^omenta toitl) art. 
 
 1 66 
 
 It does not say to folks — remember matins, 
 
 Or, mind you fast next Friday!” Why, for 
 this 
 
 What need of art at all? A skull and bones, ^ 
 Two bits of stick nailed cross-wise, or, what ’s 
 best, 
 
 A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. 
 
 I painted a Saint Lawrence six months since 
 At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style : 
 
 “ How looks my painting, now the scaffold ’s 
 down ? ” 
 
 I asked a brother : “ Hugely,” he returns — 
 u Already not one phiz of your three slaves 
 Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, 
 
 But ’s scratched and prodded to our heart’s con- 
 tent, 
 
 The pious people have so eased their own 
 With coming to say prayers there in a rage : 
 
 We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 
 Expect another job this time next year, 
 
 For pity and religion grow i’ the crowd 
 Your painting serves its purpose ! ” Hang the 
 fools ! 
 
 That is — you ’ll not mistake an idle word 
 
 Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, Got wot 
 Tasting the air this spicy night which turns 
 The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! 
 
 Oh, the church knows ! don’t misreport me, 
 now 
 
 It ’s natural a poor monk out of bounds 
 Should have his apt word to excuse himself:. 
 
^aments toit& art. 
 
 l67 
 
 And hearken how I plot to make amends. 
 
 I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece 
 
 There ’s for you ! Give me six months, 
 then go, see 
 
 Something in Sant’ Ambrogio’s ! Bless the 
 nuns ! 
 
 They want a cast o’ my office. I shall paint 
 God in the midst, Madonna and her babe, 
 Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood, 
 
 Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 
 As puff on puff of grated orris-root 
 When ladies crowd to church at midsummer. 
 And then i’ the front, of course a saint or two — 
 Saint John, because he saves the Florentines, 
 Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and 
 white 
 
 The convent’s friends and gives them a long 
 
 day, . 
 
 And Job, I must have him there past mistake, 
 The man of Uz (and Us without the 2, 
 
 Painters who need his patience). Well, all 
 these 
 
 Secured at their devotion, up shall come 
 Out of a corner when you least expect, 
 
 As one by a dark stair into a great light, 
 
 Music and talking, who but Lippo ! I ! — 
 Mazed, motionless, and moon-struck I’m the 
 man ! 
 
 Back I shrink — what is this I see and hear? 
 
 I, caught up with my monk’s things by mistake, 
 My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, 
 I, in this presence, this pure company l 
 
foments tottb &rt. 
 
 1 68 
 
 Where ’s a hole, where ’s a corner for escape? 
 Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 
 Forward, puts out a soft palm — “ Not so fast ! ” 
 — Addresses the celestial presence, “ nay — 
 
 He made you and devised you, after all, 
 
 Though he ’s none of you ! Could Saint John 
 there, draw — 
 
 His camel-hair made up a painting-brush ? 
 
 We come to brother Lippo for all that, 
 
 Iste perfecit opus ! ” So, all smile — 
 
 I shuffle sideways with my blushing face 
 Under the cover of a hundred wings 
 Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you ’re gay 
 And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut 
 Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops 
 The hot-head husband ! Thus I scuttle off 
 To some safe bench behind, not letting go 
 The palm of her, the little lily thing 
 That spoke the good word for me in the nick, 
 Like the Prior’s niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would 
 say. 
 
 And so all ’s saved for me, and for the church 
 A pretty picture gained. Go, six months 
 hence ! 
 
 Your hand, sir, and good-by: no lights, no 
 lights ! 
 
 The street ’s hushed, and I know my own way 
 back. 
 
 Don't fear me ! There ’s the gray beginning. 
 Zooks ! 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
JJtomente tottl) &rt. 
 
 169 
 
 CLIV. 
 
 EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES ON A PORTRAIT 
 OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, 
 PAINTED BY KNELLER. 
 
 The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth, 
 That happy air of majesty and truth, 
 
 So would I draw : but oh ! ’t is vain to try; 
 
 My narrow genius does the power deny. 
 
 The equal lustre of the heavenly mind, . 
 
 Where every grace with every virtue ’s joined; 
 Learning not vain, and wisdom not severe, 
 
 With greatness easy, and with wit sincere 5 
 With just description show the soul divine, 
 
 And the whole princess in my work should 
 shine. 
 
 Alexander Pope. 
 
 CL V. 
 
 ART. 
 
 The thousand painful steps at last are trod, 
 
 At last the temple’s difficult door we win ; 
 
 But perfect on his pedestal, the god 
 Freezes us hopeless when we enter in. 
 
 William Watson. 
 
 CL VI. 
 
 In framing artists, 
 
 Art hath thus decreed 
 
 To make some good, but others to exceed. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
170 
 
 foments toitf) art. 
 
 CL VII. 
 
 TURNER’S OLD T^M^RAIRE. 
 
 (Under a Figure symbolizing the Church.) 
 
 Thou wast the fairest of all man-made things; 
 The breath of heaven bore up thy cloudy wings, 
 And, patient in their triple rank, 
 
 The thunders crouched about thy flank, 
 
 Their black lips silent with the doom of kings. 
 
 The storm-wind loved to rock him in thy pines, 
 And swell thy vans with breath of great designs ; 
 Long-wildered pilgrims of the main 
 By thee relaid their course again, 
 
 Whose prow was guided by celestial signs. 
 
 How didst thou trample on tumultuous seas, 
 
 Or, like some basking sea-beast stretched at 
 ease, 
 
 Let the bull-fronted surges glide 
 Caressingly along thy side, 
 
 Like glad hounds leaping by the huntsman’s 
 knees ! 
 
 Heroic feet with fire of genius shod, 
 
 In battle’s ecstasy thy deck have trod, 
 
 While from their touch a fu Igor ran 
 Through plank and spar ; from man to man, 
 Welding thee to a thunderbolt of God. 
 
 Now a black demon, belching fire and steam, 
 Drags thee away, a pale, dismantled dream, 
 And all thy desecrated bulk 
 Must landlocked lie, a helpless hulk, 
 
 To gather weeds in the regardless stream. 
 
foments tDttft U 
 
 171 
 
 Woe ’s me, from Ocean’s sky-horizoned air 
 To this ! Better, the flame-cross still aflare, 
 Shot-shattered to have met thy doom 
 Where thy last lightnings cheered the gloom, 
 Than here be safe in dangerless despair. 
 
 Thy drooping symbol to the flagstaff clings, 
 Thy rudder soothes the tide to lazy rings, 
 
 Thy thunders now but birthdays, greet, 
 
 Thy planks forget the martyr’s feet, 
 
 Thy masts what challenges the sea-wind brings. 
 
 Thou a mere hospital, where human wrecks, 
 Like winter-flies, crawl those renowned decks, 
 Ne’er trodden save by captive foes, 
 
 And wonted sternly to impose 
 
 God’s will and thine on bowed imperial necks ! 
 
 Shall nevermore, engendered of thy fame, 
 
 A new sea-eagle heir thy conqueror name, 
 
 And with commissioned talons wrench 
 From thy supplanter’s grimy clench 
 His sheath of steel, his wings of smoke and 
 flame ? 
 
 This shall the pleased eyes of our children see ; 
 For this the stars of God long even as we ; 
 Earth listens for his wings ; the Fates 
 Expectant lean ; Faith cross-propt waits, 
 
 And the tired waves of Thought’s insurgent sea. 
 
 James Russell Lowell, 
 
1/2 
 
 fEUmtnts tottf) 
 
 CL VIII. 
 
 OUR LADY OF THE ROCKS. 
 
 (By Leonardo da Vinci.) 
 
 Mother, is this the darkness of the end, 
 
 The Shadow of Death ? and is that outer sea 
 Infinite imminent Eternity? 
 
 And does the death-pang by man’s seed sustain’d 
 In Time’s each instant cause thy face to bend 
 Its silent prayer upon the Son, while he 
 Blesses the dead with his hand silently 
 To his long day which hours no more offend ? 
 
 Mother of grace, the pass is difficult, 
 
 Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls 
 Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering 
 through. 
 
 Thy name, O Lord, each spirit’s voice extols, 
 Whose peace abides in the dark avenue 
 Amid the bitterness of things occult. 
 
 D. G. Rossetti. 
 
 CLIX. 
 
 A great architect must be a great sculptor 
 or painter. This is a universal law. No per- 
 son who is not a great sculptor or painter can 
 be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or 
 painter, he can only be a builder. The three 
 greatest architects hitherto known in the world 
 were Phidias, Giotto, and Michael Angelo ; with 
 all of whom, architecture was only their play, 
 sculpture and painting their work. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
foments tottf) 9trt. 
 
 173 
 
 CLX. 
 
 SONNET ON BRITON RIVIERE’S PAINTING : 
 DANIEL’S ANSWER TO THE KING. 
 
 u a.h, if ’t were true, how greater far than song 
 The fact itself ! An Hebrew prophet-seer 
 Alone, unharmed, where falchioned Death flames 
 clear 
 
 From yellow eye-balls burning in a throng 
 Of lions ; and, through instants roars prolong, 
 Pants with a blood- thirst, trembles at a tear 
 Just fallen from the prophet’s Israel dear; . 
 
 Then crouches, snarling like a vanquished 
 wrong.” 
 
 ’Tis true. What boots it, critic, thou dost 
 doubt ? 
 
 Open a soul’s den. Ask Love’s angel bound: 
 
 “ Art safe ? ” Lo, crowned Evil from above 
 Listens, through compromise, to hear Death’s 
 shout, 
 
 While sharp-clawed passions wander silent 
 round, 
 
 Dazed, cowed, and conquered by transfigured 
 love. 
 
 Frank W. Gunsaulus. 
 
 CLXI. 
 
 Beauty alone endures from age to age, 
 
 From age to age endures, handmaid of God. 
 
 T. B. Aldrich. 
 
174 
 
 foments tottl) 
 
 CLXII. 
 
 A MAGDALEN OF THE DRESDEN GALLERY. 
 
 I. 
 
 Gerhard Dow — Lys — Correggio. 
 
 Not she, whose fruitless tears avow a youth 
 Less yielded to warm love than basely sold ; 
 Angry with shame, who clutches still her gold, 
 Drooped in satiety, not bound with ruth, — 
 
 Nor she, who mars with penances uncouth 
 Her fatal beauty, that no eyes behold 
 Save a skull’s hollow orbs, yet overbold 
 Deems heaven’s grace a debt to grief, forsooth — 
 Nor that dust-kissing face, whence sorrow’s 
 tooth 
 
 Has gnawed all passion, leaving it as cold 
 As her own emptied vase ; whose hands enfold 
 The Book from which remorse has taught her 
 truth — 
 
 Though still so fair in ruin, she might win 
 The world to doubt if sentence waits on sin. 
 
 II. 
 
 Zurbaran — Guido. 
 
 Alone, not lingering to adore or mourn, 
 
 First seen, first sent, from that transfigured 
 grave, 
 
 With “ go in peace ” — to seek no desert-cave. 
 But loving, erring lives to lift and warm: 
 
 With prophet tears for sisters yet unborn, 
 
jHoments; toit!) &rt* 
 
 175 
 
 She, first forgiven, only blessed, will crave 
 Their heritage in all her dear Lord gave; 
 
 Grace for crushed hearts, killed by the harsh 
 world's scorn — 
 
 Or rapt in vision, lifting eyes above 
 Softened through sorrow to ecstatic love, 
 
 Will hail the promise of the golden years 
 When balm shall be distilled from bitterest tears, 
 God’s law rule man’s, and all who, following her, 
 Love, to be lost, not unredeemed shall err. 
 
 A. R. Macdonough. 
 
 CL XIII. 
 
 THE PORTRAIT. 
 
 O Lord of all compassionate control, 
 
 O Love ! let this my lady’s picture glow 
 Under my hand to praise her name, and show 
 
 Even of her inner self the perfect whole : 
 
 That he who seeks her beauty’s furthest goal, 
 Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw 
 And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may 
 know 
 
 The very sky and sea-line of her soul. 
 
 Lo ! it is done. Above the enthroning throat 
 The mouth’s mould testifies of voice and kiss, 
 The shadowed eyes remember and foresee. 
 
 Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note 
 That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this!) 
 They that would look on her must come to 
 me. 
 
 D. G. Rossetti. 
 
176 
 
 Jftoments tott!) &rt 
 
 CLX ’IV. 
 
 HIRAM POWERS’ GREEK SLAVE. 
 
 They say Ideal beauty cannot enter 
 
 The house of anguish. On the threshold stands 
 
 An alien Image with enshackled hands, 
 
 Called the Greek Slave ! as if the artist meant 
 her 
 
 (That passionless perfection which he lent her, 
 Shadowed not darkened where the sill expands) 
 To so confront man’s crimes in different lands 
 With man’s ideal sense. Pierce to the centre, 
 Art’s fiery finger ! and break up ere long 
 The serfdom of this world ! appeal, fair stone, 
 From God’s pure heights of beauty against 
 man’s wrong ! 
 
 Catch up in thy divine face, not alone 
 East griefs but west, and strike and shame the 
 strong, 
 
 By thunders of white silence, overthrown. 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 CLXV. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO’S SLAVE. 
 
 Of life, of death, the mystery and woe 
 
 Witness in this mute, carven stone the whole. 
 That suffering smile were never fashioned so 
 Before the world had wakened to a soul. 
 
 R. W. Gilder. 
 
foments tottj) %Lxt. 177 
 
 CLXVI. 
 
 CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN. 
 
 (Suggested by the Picture of Rembrandt in the National 
 Gallery.) 
 
 Master, well done ! thy sombre colors stoop. 
 
 As what they paint did, to the root of things 1 
 
 Thy Christ hath eyes, whose weary glances 
 droop, 
 
 Marred with much love, and all the ache it 
 brings : 
 
 Thy children — soft, albeit, their Syrian grace — 
 
 Clasp sunburnt breasts, and drink of milk 
 that cost 
 
 Sweat to provide it ; from each mother’s face 
 
 Is gone the bridal beauty ; lapsed and lost 
 
 Bliss from these bondsmen ; yet, how the 
 Divine 
 
 Breaks through the clay ! how Truth’s gold 
 gilds the story ! 
 
 How longing for heaven’s light makes earth’s 
 gloom shine ! 
 
 How lovely, at its lowest, is love’s glory ! 
 
 We see Him as He sate in Palestine. 
 
 Lord Christ ! these are the little ones that come ! 
 
 Thou spakest, “ Suffer them ; ” yea, Thou 
 didst say, 
 
 “ Forbid them not, for in my kingdom some 
 
 Are like to such ! ” O Lord ! do Angels lay 
 
 Small aching heads on sorrow-laden bosoms ? 
 
 Do Thy young angels toil, and starve and 
 weep ? 
 
 12 
 
i 7 8 
 
 foments toitl) 3tri. 
 
 Hardly for these will ope life’s morning bios- 
 SOmS 
 
 Before their days bring griefs, their nightly 
 sleep 
 
 Dreams of the Roman whip. Ah, Master Mud . 
 Be some great secret of Thy kingdom said 
 
 To keep some grown man glad as this male 
 child, 
 
 The woman pure as is that tender maid ! 
 
 They “ see Thy F ather’s face ! ” Then, how 
 beguiled ? 
 
 Little sweet sister, standing at His knee ! 
 
 Small peasant sister ! sucking at thy thumb. 
 
 Touched to thy tiny heart with the mystery, 
 
 Glad to be brought, but far too shy to come ; 
 
 Ah ! tremble, but steal closer ; let it cover 
 All of thy head, that potent, piteous hand ; . 
 
 And, mothers ! reach your round-eyed babies 
 over 
 
 To take their turn, nought though they under- 
 stand. 
 
 For these thereby are safe, being so kissed 
 By that Love’s lips which kisses out of 
 heaven ; 
 
 And we, with little children, but no Christ, 
 
 Press near ; perchance the blessing may be 
 given 
 
 From theirs to ours, though we His face have 
 missed. 
 
 Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
jfftoments toitf) 
 
 179 
 
 CL XVI I. 
 
 THE PATHOS OF ART. 
 
 Oft seeing the old painters’ art, 
 
 We find the tear unbidden start, 
 
 And feel our full hearts closer grow 
 To the far days of long ago. 
 
 Not burning faith, or godlike pain, 
 
 Can thus our careless thought enchain ; 
 The heavenward gaze of souls sublime, 
 At once transcends, and conquers time. 
 
 Nor pictured form of seer or saint, 
 Which hands inspired delight to paint ; 
 Art’s highest aims of hand or tongue, 
 Age not, but are forever young. 
 
 But some imperfect, trivial scene, 
 
 Of homely life that once has been, 
 
 Of youth, so soon to pass away, 
 
 Of happy childhood’s briefer day; 
 
 Or humble daily tasks portrayed, — 
 The thrifty mistress with her maid ; 
 The flowers upon the casement set, 
 Which in our Aprils blossom yet; 
 
 The long processions never done ; 
 
 The time-worn palace, scarce begun; 
 The gondolier, who plies his oar 
 For stately sirs or dames of yore ; 
 
i8o 
 
 foments totti) &rt. 
 
 The girl with fair hair morning-stirred, 
 
 Who swings her casement for her bird ; 
 
 The hunt, the feast, the simple mirth 
 Which marks the marriage or the birth 
 
 The burly forms, from side to side, 
 
 Swift rolling on the frozen tide ; 
 
 The long-haired knights ; the ladies prim ; 
 The chanted madrigal, or hymn ; 
 
 The opera, with its stately throng ; 
 
 The twilight church aisles stretching long ; 
 The spires upon the wooded wold; 
 
 The dead pathetic life of old ; — 
 
 These all the musing mind can fill — 
 
 So dead, so past, so living still : 
 
 Oh, dear dead lives ! oh, hands long gone ! 
 Whose life, whose Art still lingers on. 
 
 Sir Lewis Morris. 
 
 CLXVIII. 
 
 In youth the artist voweth lover’s vows 
 To Art, in manhood maketh her his spouse. 
 Well if. her charms yet hold for him such joy 
 As when he craved some boon and she was coy ! 
 
 William Watson. 
 
 CL XIX. 
 
 Thank God, I, too, am a painter. 
 
 Correggio. 
 
^omenta toitl) 
 
 1 8 1 
 
 CLXX. 
 
 AN HOUR IN A STUDIO (F. L.) 
 
 Each picture was a painted memory 
 Of the fair plains he loved, and of their life 
 Weird, mystical, dark, inarticulate, — 
 
 And cities hidden high against the blue, 
 
 Whose sky-hung steps one Indian could guard. 
 The enchanted Mesa there its fated wall 
 Lifted, and all its story lived again, — 
 
 How, in the happy planting time, the strong 
 Went down to push the seeds into the sand, 
 Leaving the old and sick. Then reeled the 
 world 
 
 And toppled to the plain the perilous path. 
 Death climbed another way to them who stayed. 
 He showed us pictured thirst, a dreadful sight ; 
 And many tales he told that might have come, — 
 Brought by some planet-wanderer, — fresh from 
 Mars, 
 
 Or from the silver deserts of the moon. 
 
 But I remember better than all else 
 One night he told of in that land of fright, — 
 The love-songs swarthy men sang to their herds 
 On the high plains to keep the beasts in heart; 
 Piercing the silence one keen tenor voice 
 Singing, 44 Ai nostri monte ” clear and high 
 Instead of snakes and fences round about 
 They circled them with music in the night. 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder. 
 
182 
 
 JHoments tott?) &rt 
 
 CLXXI. 
 
 ART. 
 
 She stood, a vision vestureless and fair, 
 
 Glowing the canvas with her orient grace : 
 
 A goddess grave she stood, with such a face 
 As in Elysium the immortals wear. 
 
 But some, unworthy, as they pondered there, 
 Cold to the marvel of her look divine,* 
 
 Saw but a form undraped, in Beauty’s shrine. 
 
 Then she, it seemed, rebuked them : “ Old and 
 young 
 
 Have worshiped at the temple where I breathe, 
 And deathless laurels, for my sake, enwreathe 
 The brows of him from whose pure thought I 
 sprung : 
 
 Lips consecrate as yours his praise have sung, 
 Who neither sued for praise nor courted ease, 
 But reverently wrought, as from his knees. 
 
 “ No raiment can the base or mean reclaim, 
 And that which sacred is must sacred be, 
 Clothed but in rags or robed in modesty. 
 
 In the endeavor still is felt the aim : 
 
 The workman may by skill exalt his name, 
 
 But, toiling fault and failure to redeem, 
 
 Cannot create what ’s loftier than his dream. 
 
 “ For chaste must be the soul that chastely sees, 
 The thought enlightened, and the insight sure 
 That separates the pure from the impure ; 
 
jHoments toitl) 9Crt- 
 
 183 
 
 And who Earth’s humblest faith from error frees, 
 Awakening ideal sympathies, 
 
 Uplifts the savage from his kindred sod ; 
 
 Who shows him beauty speaks to him of God.” 
 Florence Earle Coates. 
 
 CL XXI I. 
 
 ARS SERVATRIX. 
 
 (On Reading Wm. Morris’ “ Hopes and Fears for Art.”) 
 
 We grow less worthy as the years roll by; 
 
 Our common life is an incarnate wrong. 
 
 We fight where victory is to the strong, 
 
 111 is our good, and low alone is high. 
 
 Gold is our god, and whoso hath can buy 
 The land, the lives, the honor of the throng ; 
 No ancient pride doth to our age belong ; 
 Aimless we live, and therefore hopeless die. 
 
 Come, rich-robed Mistress, hid so long a while ! 
 We look for thee stern-vis aged, as is meet, 
 For well we know thy service will be pain 
 Till we have much renounced. Then thou wilt 
 
 smile, 
 
 And in thy smile a stately life and sweet 
 Will rise, and Labor bringing Beauty in 
 its train. 
 
 Henry Norman. 
 
 CL XXI I I 
 
 I have no secret but hard work. 
 
 J. W. M. Turner. 
 
jHomrats toitlj &tt. 
 
 184 
 
 CL XXIV. 
 
 MILLAIS’ “ HUGUENOTS.” 
 
 (To H., playing one of Mendelssohn’s “ Songs without 
 Words.”) 
 
 Your fav’rite picture rises up before me, 
 Whene’er you play that tune ; 
 
 I see two figures standing in a garden, 
 
 In the still August noon. 
 
 One is a girl’s, with pleading face turned up- 
 wards, 
 
 Wild with great alarm ; 
 
 Trembling with haste, she binds her broidered 
 kerchief 
 
 About the other’s arm, 
 
 Whose gaze is bent on her in tender pity, 
 
 Whose eyes look into hers 
 With a deep meaning, though she cannot read it, 
 Hers are so dim with tears. 
 
 What are they saying in the sunny garden, 
 
 With summer flowers ablow ? 
 
 What gives the woman’s voice its passionate 
 pleading ? 
 
 What makes the man’s so low ? 
 
 “ See, love ! ” she murmurs ; “ you shall wear 
 my kerchief, 
 
 It is the badge, I know ; 
 
 And it will bear you safely through the conflict, 
 If — if, indeed, you go ! 
 
Jlomaxts tottl) Strt. 
 
 18S 
 
 “ You will not wear it ? Will not wear my 
 kerchief ? 
 
 Nay ! Do not tell me why, 
 
 I will not listen ! If you go without it, 
 
 You will go hence to die. 
 
 « Hush ! Do not answer ! It is death, I tell 
 you ! 
 
 Indeed, I speak the truth. 
 
 You standing there, so warm with life and vigor, 
 
 So bright with health and youth; 
 
 u You would go hence out of the glowing sun- 
 shine, 
 
 Out of the garden’s bloom, 
 
 Out of the living, thinking, feeling present 
 
 Into the unknown gloom ! ” 
 
 Then he makes answer, “ Hush ! O hush, my 
 darling ! 
 
 Life is so sweet to me, 
 
 So full of hope, you need not bid me guard it, 
 
 If such a- thing might be ! 
 
 “ If such a thing might be ! — but not through 
 falsehood, 
 
 I could not come to you ; 
 
 I dare not stand here in your pure, sweet 
 presence, 
 
 Knowing myself untrue.” 
 
foments tottl) 3trt* 
 
 1 86 
 
 “ Child ! child ! I little dreamt in that bright 
 summer, 
 
 When first your love I sought, 
 
 Of all the future store of love and anguish 
 Which I, unknowing, wrought. 
 
 “ But you ’ll forgive me ? Yes, you will forgive 
 me, 
 
 I know, when I am dead ! 
 
 I would have loved you, — but words have scant 
 meaning; 
 
 God loved you more instead ! ” 
 
 Then there in silence in the sunny garden, 
 
 Until, with faltering tone, 
 
 She sobs, the while still clinging closer to him, 
 
 “ F orgive me — go — my own ! ” 
 
 So human love, and death by faith unshaken, 
 Mingle their glorious psalm, 
 
 Albeit low, until the passionate pleading 
 Is hushed in deepest calm. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 CLXXV. 
 
 The true work of art is but a shadow of the 
 Divine perfection. 
 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 CLXXVI. 
 
 Nature is God's, Art is man’s instrument. 
 
 Sir T. Overbury. 
 
foments iaitf) 3trt. 
 
 187 
 
 CL XXV I I. 
 
 OLD AND NEW ART. 
 
 (Saint Luke the Painter.) 
 
 Give honor unto Luke Evangelist; 
 
 For he it was (the ancient legends say) 
 
 Who first taught Art to fold her hands and 
 pray. 
 
 Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist 
 Of devious symbols : but soon having wist 
 How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day 
 Are symbols also in some deeper way ; 
 
 She looked through these to God and was God’s 
 priest. 
 
 And if, past noon, her toil began to irk, 
 
 And she sought talismans, and turned in vain 
 To soulless self-reflections of man’s skill, — 
 Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still 
 Kneel in the latter grass to pray again, 
 
 Ere the night cometh and she may not work. 
 
 D. G. Rossetti. 
 
 CLXXVIII . 
 
 Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravish- 
 ing combination of tender curves and spheric 
 softness that ever stood for woman ; yet if the 
 lip have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, 
 if the brow be insincere, if in the minutest par- 
 ticular the physical beauty suggest a moral ugli- 
 ness, that sculptor — unless he be portraying 
 a moral ugliness for a moral purpose — may 
 
1 88 
 
 foments tot tt) %LxU 
 
 as well give over his marble for paving stones. 
 Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, 
 will not accept his work. For, indeed we may 
 say that he who has not yet perceived how 
 artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent 
 lines, which run back into a common ideal origin, 
 and who therefore is not afire with moral beauty 
 just as with artistic beauty, — that he, in short, 
 who has not come to that stage of quiet and 
 eternal frenzy in which the beauty of holiness 
 and the holiness of beauty mean one thing, 
 burn as one fire, shine as one light within him ; 
 he is not yet the great artist. 
 
 Sidney Lanier. 
 
 ( From u Poems of Lanier Copyright , 1884, 1891, by 
 Mary D . Lanier , and published by Charles Scribner’s 
 Sons.) 
 
 CLXXIX. 
 
 EPITAPH ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 
 
 (In Westminster Abbey, 1723.) 
 
 Kneller, by Heaven, and not a master, taught, 
 Whose art was nature, and whose pictures 
 thought ; 
 
 •Now for two ages having snatched from fate 
 Whate’er was beauteous, or whate’er was great, 
 Lies crowned with princes’ honors, poets’ lays, 
 Due to his merit and brave thirst of praise. . 
 
 Living, great Nature fear’d he might outvie 
 Her works ; and, dying, fears herself may die. 
 
 Alexander Pope. 
 
foments tout?) 3Lrt* 
 
 189 
 
 CL XXX. 
 
 PICTURES. 
 
 A lurid sunset, red as blood, 
 
 Firing a sombre, haunted wood ; 
 
 And from the shadows, dark and fell, 
 
 One hurrying with the face of Hell. 
 
 Two at a banquet board alone, 
 
 In dalliance, the feast being done. 
 
 And one behind the arras stands, 
 
 Grasping an axe with quivering hands. 
 
 A high cliff-meadow lush with Spring; 
 
 Gay butterflies upon the wing ; 
 
 Beneath, beyond, unbounded, free, 
 
 The foam-flecked, blue, pervading sea. 
 
 A clustering hill-town, climbing white 
 From the gray olives up the height, 
 
 And on the inland summits high 
 Thin waters split as from the sky. 
 
 A rain-swept moor at shut of day, 
 
 And by the dead unhappy way 
 A lonely child untended lies: 
 
 Against the West a wretch who flies. 
 
 Cold dawn, which flouts the abandoned hall 
 And one worn face, which loathes it all ; 
 
 In his ringed hand a vial, while 
 The gray lips wear a ghastly smile. 
 
190 
 
 foments tottf) art* 
 
 Corinthian pillars fine, which stand 
 In moonlight on a desert sand ; 
 
 Others overthrown, in whose dark shade 
 Some fire-eyed brute its lair has made. 
 
 Mountainous clouds embattled high 
 Around a dark blue lake of sky ; 
 
 And from its clear depths, shining far, 
 
 The calm eye of the evening star. 
 
 A moonlight checkered avenue ; 
 
 Above, a starlit glimpse of blue : 
 
 Amid the shadows spread between, 
 
 The gray ghost of a woman seen. 
 
 Sir Lewis Morris. 
 
 CLXXXI. 
 
 WOMAN AND ARTIST. 
 
 I thought to win me a name 
 
 Should ring in the ear of the world ! — 
 
 How can I work with small pink fists 
 About my fingers curled ? 
 
 Then adieu to name and fame ! 
 
 They scarce are worth at the best 
 One touch of this wet little, warm little mouth 
 With its lips against my breast. 
 
 Alice Williams Brotherton. 
 
 CLXXXII. 
 
 Painting is thought conveyed to canvas. 
 
 Apelles. 
 
foments tottf) $rt. 
 
 191 
 
 CLXXXIII. 
 
 THE LION OF LUCERNE. 
 
 When those brave Swiss in fine obedience fell, 
 Heroically heedful of their trust, 
 
 Art pondered by what new great means to tell 
 Her reverence for their consecrated dust, 
 Until at last, bewildered and dismayed, 
 
 To mightier Nature she appealed for aid ! 
 
 Then these two blended powers, together grown 
 One glorious mourner, eloquent though stern, 
 Created from the mountain’s living stone, 
 
 This grand memorial, Lion of Lucerne, 
 Where Art and Nature, towering side by side, 
 For once are monumentally allied ! 
 
 Edgar Fawcett. 
 
 CL XXXIV. 
 
 Fine Art is that in which the hand, the head, 
 and the heart of man go together. Recollect 
 this triple group ; it will help you to solve many 
 difficult problems. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 CLXXXV. 
 
 There is no great genius free from some 
 tincture of madness. 
 
 Seneca. 
 
foments tottf) Strt 
 
 192 
 
 CL XXX VI. 
 
 A PORTRAIT BY BURNE-JONES. 
 
 The shadows fold her ’round 
 And sink profound 
 
 Into intense blackness of background, 
 Against which, lily white, 
 
 Pure as a sun’s ray, she springs to light. 
 
 And she sits there, still, so still 
 
 That I can hear the far-off call of thrushes 
 
 On summer mornings from the hawthorn bushes 
 
 Or orchards full of mellow sound. 
 
 Thus I fill 
 
 Another canvas with tall trees abloom, 
 
 And the chaste blue of English skies 
 Over an English home. 
 
 As clear streams, 
 
 Untroubled to their sweet depths, are her eyes. 
 What warm surprise 
 Will make her red who pale 
 Now reads life to a limit, and there stops ? 
 
 One shall part the veil ; 
 
 And open vistas of fair years to be, 
 
 And little forms that cling about the knee 
 Shall steal, dear guests, unlooked for, silently 
 Into the virgin spirit of her dreams. 
 
 Marie van Vorst. 
 
Jftnments tottl) t 
 
 193 
 
 CL XXX VII. 
 
 “ANGELO, THOU ART THE MASTER.” 
 
 I. 
 
 Angelo, thou art the master ; for thou in thy art 
 
 Compassed the body, the soul ; the form and the 
 heart. 
 
 Knew where the roots of the spirit are buried 
 and twined, 
 
 The springs and the rocks that shall suckle, — 
 and torture and bind. 
 
 Large was thy soul like the soul of a god that 
 creates — 
 
 Converse it held with the stars and the imminent 
 Fates. 
 
 Knewest thou — Art is but Beauty perceived 
 and expressed, 
 
 And the pang of that Beauty had entered and 
 melted thy breast. 
 
 Here by thy Slave, again, after long years do I 
 bow, — 
 
 Angelo, thou art the master, yea, thou, and but 
 thou. 
 
 Here is the crown of all beauty that lives in the 
 world ; 
 
 Spirit and flesh breathing forth from these lips 
 that are curled 
 
 With sweetness and sorrow as never, oh, never 
 before, 
 
 And from eyes that are heavy with light, and 
 shall weep nevermore ; 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 Jilomcuts tott!) &rt. 
 
 And lo, at the base of the statue, that monster 
 of shape — 
 
 Thorn of the blossom of life, mocking face of 
 the ape. 
 
 So cometh morn from the shadow and murk of 
 the night ; 
 
 From pain springeth joy, and from flame the 
 keen beauty of light. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Beauty, — oh, well for the hearts that bow down 
 and adore her : 
 
 Heart of mine, hold thou in all the world nothing 
 before her. 
 
 All the fair universe now to her feet that is 
 clinging 
 
 Out of the womb of her leaped with the dawn, 
 and the singing 
 
 Of stars. O thou Beautiful ! — thee do I wor- 
 ship and praise 
 
 In the dark where thy lamps are ; again in thy 
 glory of days, 
 
 Whose end and beginning thou blessest with 
 piercing delight 
 
 Of splendors outspread on the edge of the robe 
 of the night. 
 
 Ah, that sweetness is sent not to him whose dull 
 spirit would rest 
 
 In the bliss of it; no, not the goal, but the 
 passion and quest ; 
 
foments toitl) 3trt. 
 
 195 
 
 Not the vale, but the desert. Oh, never soft 
 airs shall awaken 
 
 Thy soul to the soul of all Beauty, all heaven, 
 and all wonder ; 
 
 The summons that comes to thee, mortal, thy 
 spirit to waken, 
 
 Shall be the loud clarion’s call and the voices of 
 thunder. 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder. 
 
 CL XXX VIII. 
 
 MADONNA. 
 
 How well we know them — I and you — 
 This pair so fond, so blest ; 
 
 The Mother, in her gown of blue, 
 
 The child upon her breast ! 
 
 Close to her heart she holds Him there 
 (Our mothers held us so), 
 
 This woman in her carved chair, 
 
 And will not let Him go. 
 
 We stagger on through the year’s din, 
 
 From green leaf unto sear ; 
 
 But when the Christmas bells begin 
 To clang their ancient cheer, 
 
 No more we think of cares and harms, 
 
 Our Christ a man of woe ; 
 
 We put Him in His mother’s arms. 
 
 And will not let Him go ! 
 
 Lizette Woodworth Reese. 
 
196 
 
 foments tottl) Sr U 
 
 CL XXXIX, 
 
 ON A SURF-ROLLED TORSO OF VENUS. 
 (Found at Tripoli Vecchio, and now in the Louvre.) 
 
 One day in the world’s youth, long, long ago, 
 Before the golden hair of Time grew gray, 
 The bright warm sea, scarce stirred by the 
 dolphin’s play, 
 
 Was swept by sudden music soft and low; 
 
 And rippling, as ’neath kisses, parted slow, 
 
 And gave a snowy, dripping goddess birth, 
 Fairer than fairest daughters of the earth ; 
 Who brought fresh life to all men here below. 
 
 And, lo, that self-same sea has now upthrown 
 A mutilated Venus, rolled and rolled 
 For ages by the surf, and that has grown 
 
 More soft, more chaste, more lovely than of 
 old, 
 
 With every line toned down, so that the stone 
 Seems seen as through a veil which ages hold. 
 
 E. Lee Hamilton. 
 
 CXC. 
 
 PORTIA’S PICTURE. 
 
 Fair Portia’s counterfeit ? What demigod 
 Hath come so near creation ? Move these eyes ? 
 Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, 
 
 Seem they in motion ? Here are severed lips, 
 Parted with sugar breath ; so sweet a bar 
 
foments tott!) 9Crt. 
 
 197 
 
 Should sunder such sweet friends : Here in her 
 hairs 
 
 The painter plays the spider ; and hath woven 
 A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men, 
 Faster than gnats in cobwebs : But her eyes, — 
 How could he see to do them? having made 
 one, 
 
 Methinks it should have power to steal both 
 his, 
 
 And leave itself unfurnished. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 CXCI. 
 
 THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS. 
 
 (A Picture by Rembrandt.) 
 
 Wise Rembrandt ! thou couldst paint, and thou 
 alone, 
 
 Eyes that had seen what never human eyes 
 Before had looked on ; him that late had passed 
 Onward and back through gates of Death and 
 Life. 
 
 O human face where the celestial gleam 
 Lingers ! Oh, still to thee the eyes of men . 
 Turn with deep, questioning worship; seeing 
 there, 
 
 As in a mirror, the Eternal Light 
 Caught from the shining of the central Soul 
 Whence came all worlds and whither shall 
 return. 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder. 
 
198 
 
 foments tott& Strt, 
 
 CXCII. 
 
 ART AND LOVE. 
 
 He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken 
 Pierces the crust of this existence through) 
 And smiled beyond on that his genius knew 
 Ere mated with his being. Conscious then 
 Of his high theme alone, he smiled again 
 Straight back upon himself in many a hue, 
 And tint, and light, and shade, which slowly 
 grew 
 
 Enfeatured of a fair girl’s face, as when 
 
 First time she smiles for love’s sake with no 
 fear. 
 
 So wrought he, witless that behind him leant 
 A woman, with old features, dim and sere, 
 And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming 
 tear, 
 
 And with a voice, like some sad instrument, 
 That sighing said , 44 I ’m dead there ; love me 
 here ! ” 
 
 J. W. Riley. 
 
 ( From “Afterwhiles ” The Bowen-Merrill Co.) 
 CXCIII. 
 
 Genius unexerted is no more genius than a 
 bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
 CXCIV. 
 
 A bad painter caricatures himself. 
 
 Wouvermans. 
 
foments tasitl) Strt, 
 
 199 
 
 cxcv. 
 
 Have faith in nothing but in industry. 
 
 Be at it late and early ; persevere, 
 
 And work right on through censure and applause, 
 Or else abandon Art. 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 CXCV I. 
 
 “FINIS CORONAT OPUS.” 
 
 “ The end shall crown the work ” — 
 Ah, who shall tell the end ! 
 
 It is a woesome way, 
 
 And clouds portend. 
 
 The work is all we know — 
 
 Enough for our faint sight. 
 
 The end God knows. Press on 
 The crown — is light. 
 
 R. R. Bowker. 
 
. 
 
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 The selections in prose and verse are chosen from a wide range 
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 appreciative criticism, and represent those writers everywhere 
 who have felt deepest. — The Boston Globe . 
 
 This is one of those really valuable little collections of poetic 
 gems that had one common object for inspiration. The selec- 
 tions are from a large list of authors, and all testify to the divine 
 influence of music. — The Christian Register , Boston. 
 
 Short selections in prose and verse are here compiled from 
 authors of all ages and climes who have written on the melody 
 of sweet sounds, either incidentally, or as the principal theme. 
 The extracts are well chosen, and, like music itself, always refin- 
 ing and elevating. — The Kansas City Journal. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers , or mailed on receipt of price, by 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers. 
 
The Lovers’ Shakspere 
 
 ^ mpiled » Chloe Blakeman Jones 
 
 i6mo, gilt top, deckle edges, with appropriate chapter 
 head and tail pieces, and beautiful cover stamp in gold. 
 
 In box, $1.25 ; half calf or half morocco, $3.00 
 
 A very pretty little book of Shaksperian extracts on 
 sweethearts and lovers, their symptoms, fates, and all that 
 concerns them. To facilitate reference, the matter is 
 arranged m sections, each bearing a distinctive title, — “ The 
 course of true love,” “ I will live a bachelor,” etc. All 
 who are bachelors, maids, wives, or widows, will find here 
 much to interest them ; and there could scarcely be a more 
 universally appropriate gift-book. 
 
 “ Lovers are given to poetry,” and here they will find in 
 the daintiest of volumes what the world’s poet says of their 
 ailment, and gather from it what consolation they may. 
 Aside from the inherent value, one of the merits of this 
 book is that it will be a most appropriate present, whether 
 given by Benedick to Beatrice, or by Chloe to Strephon, or 
 whether it be the joint property of both. It is one of the 
 prettiest and choicest of the many Shakspere compilations. 
 — Saturday Evening ■ Gazette , Boston . 
 
 The selections have been made with care and evident 
 completeness, by Chloe Blakeman Jones, who has shown a 
 good deal of native wit in classifying the excerpts. The 
 is typographically very pretty.— The Philadelphia 
 
 “ The Lover’s Shakspere,” compiled by Mrs. Chloe 
 Blakeman Jones, is what the title indicates, a collection of 
 quotations pertaining to the various phases of love. They 
 are carefully selected, adroitly grouped, and daintily deco- 
 rated.— The Dial . 
 
 Sold by all booksellers , or mailed on receipt of price, by 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers 
 CHICAGO 
 

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