ot help loving all, since you can compare with none, and are above
all personal offence or anger. Oh! how bitter it would be to me to
know that you felt anger or shame on my account, for that would be your
fall--you would become comparable at once with such as me.

"Yesterday, after seeing you, I went home and thought out a picture.

"Artists always draw the Saviour as an actor in one of the Gospel
stories. I should do differently. I should represent Christ alone--the
disciples did leave Him alone occasionally. I should paint one little
child left with Him. This child has been playing about near Him, and
had probably just been telling the Saviour something in its pretty
baby prattle. Christ had listened to it, but was now musing--one
hand reposing on the child's bright head. His eyes have a far-away
expression. Thought, great as the Universe, is in them--His face is sad.
The little one leans its elbow upon Christ's knee, and with its cheek
resting on its hand, gazes up at Him, pondering as children sometimes do
ponder. The sun is setting. There you have my picture.

"You are innocent--and in your innocence lies all your perfection--oh,
remember that! What is my passion to you?--you are mine now; I shall be
near you all my life--I shall not live long!"

At length, in the last letter of all, he found:

"For Heaven's sake, don't misunderstand me! Do not think that I
humiliate myself by writing thus to you, or that I belong to that class
of people who take a satisfaction in humiliating themselves--from pride.
I have my consolation, though it would be difficult to explain it--but I
do not humiliate myself.

"Why do I wish to unite you two? For your sakes or my own? For my own
sake, naturally. All the problems of my life would thus be solved;
I have thought so for a long time. I know that once when your sister
Adelaida saw my portrait she said that such beauty could overthrow
the world. But I have renounced the world. You think it strange that
I should say so, for you saw me decked with lace and diamonds, in the
company of drunkards and wastrels. Take no notice of that; I know that
I have almost ceased to exist. God knows what it is dwelling within me
now--it is not myself. I can see it every day in two dreadful eyes which
are always looking at me, even when not present. These eyes are silent
now, they say nothing; but I know their secret. His house is gloomy, and
there is a secret in it. I am convinced that in some box