ter.
I am as if intoxicated with art, my brain is full of lines and figures,
but in the midst of the apparent confusion there stand out clearly
before me the women of the early masters, those never-to-be-forgotten
heads of Saints and Virgins which smiled down upon my childish piety in
old Sienna from the frescoes of Taddeo and Simone.

'No masterpiece of art, however advanced and brilliant, leaves upon the
mind so strong and enduring an impression. All these slender forms,
delicate and drooping as lily-buds, these grave and noble attitudes for
receiving a flower offered by an angel, placing the fingers on an open
book, bending over the Holy Infant, or supporting the body of Christ; in
the act of blessing, of agonising, of ascending into Heaven--all these
things, so pure, so sincere, so profoundly touching, affect the soul to
its depths and imprint themselves for ever on the memory.

'Thus, one by one, the women of the Early Masters passed in review
before us. Francesca and I were seated on a low couch with a great stand
before us, on which lay the portfolio containing the drawings which the
artist, seated opposite, slowly turned over, commenting on each in
succession. I watched his hand as he took up a sheet and placed it with
peculiar care on the other side of the portfolio, and each time I felt a
sort of thrill, as if that hand were going to touch me--Why?--

'Presently, his position doubtless becoming uncomfortable, he knelt on
the floor, and in that attitude continued turning over the drawings. In
speaking, he nearly always addressed himself to me, not at all with the
air of imparting instruction, but as if discussing the pictures with a
person as familiar with the subject as he was himself; and, at the
bottom of my heart, I was conscious of a sense of complacency mingled
with gratitude. Whenever I exclaimed in admiration, he looked at me with
a smile which I can still see, but cannot define. Two or three times,
Francesca rested her arm on his shoulder in unconscious familiarity.
Looking at the head of the first-born of Moses, copied from Botticelli's
fresco in the Sistine Chapel, she said--"It has a look of you when you
are in one of your melancholy moods."--And when we came to the head of
the Archangel Michael from Perugino's Madonna of Pavia, she
remarked---"It is a little like Giulia Moceto, is it not?" He did not
answer, but only turned the page over rather sooner than usual. Upon
which she added with a laugh