al faith that needs heat like tropical plants, that desires
unnatural vows. It breathes of neurotic emotions with its damask-covered
walls, with its carpet that deadens the footfall, its sombre, gorgeous
pictures. The sweet breeze of heaven never enters there, nor the
sunlight; the air is languid with incense; one is oppressed by a
strange, heavy silence. In such a church sins must be fostered for the
morbid pleasure of confession. One can imagine that the worshippers in
that overloaded atmosphere would see strange visions, voluptuous and
mystical; the Blessed Mary and the Saints might gain visible and
palpable flesh, and the devil would not be far off. There the gruesome
imaginings of Valdes Leal are a fitting decoration. Every one knows that
grim picture of a bishop in episcopal robes, eaten by worms, his flesh
putrefying, which led Murillo to say: 'Leal, you make me hold my nose,'
and the other answered: 'You have taken all the flesh and left me
nought but the bones.' Elsewhere, by the same master, there is a
painting that suggests, with greater poignancy to my mind because less
brutally, the thoughts evoked by the more celebrated work, and since it
seems to complete the ideas awakened by this curious chapel, I mention
it here.

It represents a priest at the altar, saying his mass, and the altar
after the Spanish fashion is sumptuous with gilt and florid carving. He
wears a magnificent cope and a surplice of exquisite lace, but he wears
them as though their weight were more than he could bear; and in the
meagre, trembling hands, and in the white, ashen face, in the dark
hollowness of the eyes and in the sunken cheeks, there is a bodily
corruption that is terrifying. The priest seems to hold together with
difficulty the bonds of the flesh, but with no eager yearning of the
soul to burst its prison, only with despair; it is as if the Lord
Almighty had forsaken him, and the high heavens were empty of their
solace. All the beauty of life appears forgotten, and there is nothing
in the world but decay. A ghastly putrefaction has attacked already the
living man; the worms of the grave, the piteous horror of mortality, and
the darkness before him offer nought but fear, and what soul is there to
rise again! Beyond, dark night is seen and a turbulent sea, the dark
night of the soul of which the mystics write, and the troublous sea of
life whereon there is no refuge for the weary and the sick at heart.

* * *

Then, if you w