lead them to the beautiful, and always had a
tendency thitherward, even if they lingered to gather up golden drops
by the wayside. Their actual business (though they talked about it very
much as other men talk of cotton, politics, flour barrels, and sugar)
necessarily illuminated their conversation with something akin to the
ideal....

As interesting as any of these relics was a large portfolio of old
drawings, some of which, in the opinion of their possessor, bore
evidence on their faces of the touch of master-hands.

... According to the judgment of several connoisseurs, Raphael's own
hand had communicated its magnetism to one of these sketches; and if
genuine, it was evidently his first conception of a favorite Madonna,
now hanging in the private apartment of the Grand Duke, at Florence....
There were at least half a dozen others, to which the owner assigned as
high an origin. It was delightful to believe in their authenticity, at
all events; for these things make the spectator, more vividly sensible
of a great painter's power, than the final glow and perfected art of the
most consummate picture that may have been elaborated from them. There
is an effluence of divinity in the first sketch; and there, if any
where, you find the pure light of inspiration, which the subsequent toil
of the artist serves to bring out in stronger lustre, indeed, but
likewise adulterates it with what belongs to an inferior mood. The aroma
and fragrance of new thought were perceptible in these designs, after
three centuries of wear and tear. The charm lay partly in their very
imperfection; for this is suggestive, and sets the imagination at work;
whereas, the finished picture, if a good one, leaves the spectator
nothing to do, and if bad, confuses, stupefies, disenchants, and
disheartens him.

* * * * *

From the "English Note Books."

=_300._= RUINS OF FURNESS ABBEY.

The most interesting part is that which was formerly the church, and
which, though now roofless, is still surrounded by walls, and retains
the remnants of the pillars that formerly supported the intermingling
curves of the arches. The floor is all overgrown with grass strewn with
fragments and capitals of pillars. It was a great and stately edifice,
the length of the nave and choir having been nearly three hundred feet,
and that of the transept more than half as much. The pillars along the
nave were alternately, a round solid one, and a c