ore
lovable place, Vasari is very brief with Vittore Scarpaccia, as he calls
him, and there are few known facts. Research has placed his birth at
Capo d'Istria about 1450. His earliest picture is dated 1490: his last
1521 or 1522. Gentile Bellini was his master.

Ruskin found Carpaccio by far the most sympathetic Venetian painter.
Everything that he painted, even, as I point out later, the Museo Civico
picture of the two ladies, he exults in, here, there, and everywhere. In
his little guide to the Accademia, published in 1877, he roundly calls
Carpaccio's "Presentation of the Virgin" the "best picture" in the
gallery. In one of the letters written from Venice in _Fors
Clavigera_--and these were, I imagine, subjected to less critical
examination by their author before they saw the light than any of his
writings--is the following summary, which it may be interesting to read
here. "This, then, is the truth which Carpaccio knows, and would teach:
That the world is divided into two groups of men; the first, those whose
God is their God, and whose glory is their glory, who mind heavenly
things; and the second, men whose God is their belly, and whose glory is
in their shame, who mind earthly things. That is just as demonstrable a
scientific fact as the separation of land from water. There may be any
quantity of intermediate mind, in various conditions of bog; some,
wholesome Scotch peat,--some, Pontine marsh,--some, sulphurous slime,
like what people call water in English manufacturing towns; but the
elements of Croyance and Mescroyance are always chemically separable out
of the putrescent mess: by the faith that is in it, what life or good it
can still keep, or do, is possible; by the miscreance in it, what
mischief it can do, or annihilation it can suffer, is appointed for its
work and fate. All strong character curdles itself out of the scum into
its own place and power, or impotence: and they that sow to the Flesh,
do of the Flesh reap corruption; and they that sow to the Spirit, do of
the Spirit reap Life.

"I pause, without writing 'everlasting,' as perhaps you expected.
Neither Carpaccio nor I know anything about duration of life, or what
the word translated 'everlasting' means. Nay, the first sign of noble
trust in God and man, is to be able to act without any such hope. All
the heroic deeds, all the purely unselfish passions of our existence,
depend on our being able to live, if need be, through the Shadow of
Death: