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Twenty Years at Hull House; with autobiographical notes by Jane Addams
page 69 of 369 (18%)
believed that his canvases intimated the coming religious and
social changes of the Reformation and the peasants' wars, that they
were surcharged with pity for the downtrodden, that his sad
knights, gravely standing guard, were longing to avert that
shedding of blood which is sure to occur when men forget how
complicated life is and insist upon reducing it to logical dogmas.

The largest sum of money that I ever ventured to spend in Europe
was for an engraving of his "St. Hubert," the background of which
was said to be from an original Durer plate. There is little
doubt, I am afraid, that the background as well as the figures
"were put in at a later date," but the purchase at least
registered the high-water mark of my enthusiasm.

The wonder and beauty of Italy later brought healing and some
relief to the paralyzing sense of the futility of all artistic
and intellectual effort when disconnected from the ultimate test
of the conduct it inspired. The serene and soothing touch of
history also aroused old enthusiasms, although some of their
manifestations were such as one smiles over more easily in
retrospection than at the moment. I fancy that it was no smiling
matter to several people in our party, whom I induced to walk for
three miles in the hot sunshine beating down upon the Roman
Campagna, that we might enter the Eternal City on foot through
the Porta del Popolo, as pilgrims had done for centuries. To be
sure, we had really entered Rome the night before, but the
railroad station and the hotel might have been anywhere else, and
we had been driven beyond the walls after breakfast and stranded
at the very spot where the pilgrims always said "Ecco Roma," as
they caught the first glimpse of St. Peter's dome. This
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