No one, however, who
looked upon his suffering martyrs, could suppose for a moment that he
honoured their martyrdom. They were but the vehicles for his hate of
humanity. He was the torturer, and not Diocletian or Nero.
"But, stranger yet to tell, there was no picture, whatever its subject,
into which he did not introduce one form of placid and harmonious
loveliness. In this, however, his fierceness was only more fully
displayed. For in no case did this form manifest any relation either to
the actors or the endurers in the picture. Hence its very loveliness
became almost hateful to those who beheld it. Not a shade crossed the
still sky of that brow, not a ripple disturbed the still sea of that
cheek. She did not hate, she did not love the sufferers: the painter would
not have her hate, for that would be to the injury of her loveliness:
would not have her love, for he hated. Sometimes she floated above, as a
still, unobservant angel, her gaze turned upward, dreaming along, careless
as a white summer cloud, across the blue.
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