which the miracle-mongers have done their best to deprive her. Cleared of all the refuse rubbish of thaumaturgy, her life would deserve a chronicler who should do justice at once to the ardour of her religious imagination and to a thing far rarer and more precious—the strength and breadth of patriotic thought and devotion which sent this girl across the Alps to seek the living symbol of Italian hope and unity, and bring it back by force of simple appeal in the name of God and of the country. By the light of those solid and actual qualities which ensure to her no ignoble place on the noble roll of Italian women who have deserved well of Italy, the record of her visions and ecstasies may be read without contemptuous intolerance of hysterical disease. The rapturous visionary and passionate ascetic was in plain matters of this earth as pure and practical a heroine as Joan of Arc.
P. 196.
There on the dim side-chapel wall.
In the church of San Domenico.
P. 198.
But blood nor tears ye love not, you.
In the Sienese Academy the two things notable to me were the detached wall-painting by Sodoma of the tortures of Christ bound to the pillar, and the divine though mutilated group of the Graces in the centre of the main hall. The glory and beauty of ancient sculpture refresh and satisfy beyond expression a sense wholly wearied and well-nigh nauseated with contemplation of endless sanctities and agonies attempted by medieval art, while yet as handless as accident or barbarism has left the sculptured goddesses.
P. 201.
Saw all Italian things save one.
O patria mia, vedo le muri e gli archi,
E le colonne e i simulacri e l'erme
