is Death, the sad mother with weary, downcast
eye and outspread lap ready to receive her load; but with neither of
them is the final word, for Judgment, poised in the clouds, wields his
fiery sword of eternal law and holds the balance before his hidden face.
In "Love Triumphant" Love takes the place of, and transcends Judgment.
Time and Death having travelled together through the ages, are in the
end overthrown, and Love alone rises on immortal wings. Thus the stoical
painter reaches his greatest height--tells his best truth.

_The Death Series_.--As may be expected, Death has no terrors for the
fundamental Watts. Never once does Death look with hollow eyes and
sunken cheeks, or grasp with bony fingers at the living. In "Death
Crowning Innocence," as a mother she puts her halo on the infant
Innocence, whom she claims. Death holds a Court to which all must
go--priest, soldier, king, cripple, beautiful woman, and young child.
The lion must die, the civilisation be overthrown, wealth, fame, and
pride must be let go--so Watts shows in his "Court of Death"; all come
to the end of the book marked _Finis_. Death is calm and majestic, with
angel wings, and overhead are the figures of Silence and Mystery,
guarding, but partially revealing what is beyond the veil--sunrise and
the star of hope; while even in the lap of Death nestles a new-born
babe--the soul passing into new realms through the gates of Death.

Again, Death is _the Messenger_ who comes, not to terrify, but as an
ambassador to call the soul away from this alien land, quietly touching
the waiting soul with the finger-tips. In the beautiful "Paolo and
Francesca" the lovers are seen as Dante told of them; wafted along by
the infernal wind; of them he spoke:

"... Bard! Willingly
I would address these two together coming,
Which seem so light before the wind."

Francesca's reply to Dante is of Love and Death:

"Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt,
Entangled him by that fair form...;
Love, that denial takes from none beloved,
Caught me with pleasing him so passing well,
That as thou seest, he yet deserts me not.
Love brought us to one death."

Watts has admirably caught the sweetness and sorrow of this situation in
his beautiful picture, which, again, is one of the very few he
considered finally "finished." It is almost a monochrome of blues and
greys.

In "Time and Oblivion," one of the earliest of the symbolic