hat we find in those clouds of saints and angels, those marvellously
sweet Madonnas, those majestic and touching crucifixions, that with a
simplicity and sincerity beyond praise, Angelico has left up and down
Italy, and not least in the convent of S. Marco.

Yes, it is a divine world he has dreamed of, peopled by saints and
martyrs, where the flowers are quickly woven into crowns and the light
streams from the gates of Paradise, and every breeze whispers the sweet
sibilant name of Jesus, and there, on the bare but beautiful roads,
Christ meets His disciples, or at the convent gate welcomes a
traveller, and if He be not there He has but just passed by, and if He
has not just passed by He is to come. It is for Him the sun is darkened;
to lighten His footsteps the moon shall rise; because His love has
lightened the world men go happily, and because He is here the world is
a garden. In all that convent of S. Marco you cannot turn a corner but
Christ is awaiting you, or enter a room but His smile changes your
heart, or linger on the threshold but He bids you enter in, or eat at
midday but you see Him on the Cross, and hear, "Take, eat; this is My
Body, which was given for you."

You enter the cloister, and the first word is Silence; St. Peter Martyr,
with finger on lip, seems to utter the first indispensable word of the
heavenly life. The second you see over the door of the chapter-house,
Discipline and the denial of the body; St. Dominic with a scourge of
nine cords is about to give you the difficult book of heavenly wisdom.
The third is spoken by Christ Himself; Faith, for He points to the wound
in His side. And the fourth Christ speaks too, for none other may utter
it; Love, for as a pilgrim He is welcomed by two pilgrims, two Dominican
brothers, to their home. Pass into the Refectory and He is there; go
into the Capitolo and He is there also, the Prince of life between two
malefactors, hanging on a cross for love of the world, and in His face
all the beauty and sweetness of the earth have been gathered and purged
of their dross, and between His arms is the kingdom of Heaven. In that
room the name of Jesus continually vibrates with an intense and
passionate life, more wonderful, more beautiful, and more terrible than
the tremor of all the sea. And it has brought together in adoration not
the world, which cannot hear its music, but those who above the tumult
of their hearts have caught some faint far echo of that supernal