In those days everybody said you must be sure
and go to the Capuchins', because Guide's "St. Michael and the Enemy"
was there, and still more because the wonderful bone mosaics in the
cemetery under the church were not on any account to be missed. I
suspect that in both these matters I had then a very crude taste, but it
was not from my greater refinement that I now let the Capuchin church go
on long un-revisited. It was, for one thing, too instantly and
constantly accessible across the street there; and it is well known
human nature is such that it will not seek the line of the least
resistance as long as it can help. Besides, I could hardly believe that
it was really the Capuchin church which I had once so hastened to see,
and I neglected it almost two months, contenting myself with the display
of those hand-bills on the convent walls, spreading largely and
glaringly incongruous over it. When I did go I found the Guido
ridiculous, of course, in the painter's imagination of the archangel as
a sort of dancing figure in a _tableau vivant,_ and yet of a sublime
authority in the execution.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211