here from what it is at home, especially because the churches are full
of pictures. There we go into the art museums or the galleries of
different art-clubs,--the only places where pictures are to be
found,--and meet only those people that can afford luxuries; and so the
art itself seems a luxury. But here I have seen such poor, sad-looking
people, who seem to forget all their miseries in looking at some
beautiful sacred picture. Only the other day I overheard a poor woman,
whose clothes were wretched and who had one child in her arms and
another beside her, trying to explain a picture to them, and she
lingered and lingered before it, and then turned away with a pleased,
restful face."

"Yes, it is the spirit of pictures and their truth to nature that appeal
to the mass of people here," replied Mr. Sumner, "and so it must be
everywhere. I have been very glad to read in my papers from home that
free art exhibitions have been occasionally opened in the poor quarters
of our cities. Should the movement become general, as I hope it will,
it must work good in more than one direction. Not only could those who
have hitherto been shut out from this means of pleasure and education
receive and profit by it, but the art itself would gain a wholesome
impulse. A new class of critics would be heard--those unversed in
art-parlance--who would not talk of line, tone, color-harmonies and
technique, but would go to the very heart of picture and painter; and I
think the truest artists would listen to them and so gain something.

"But we must get to Giotto again. I have told you what he tried to
paint, but you will see that he could not do all this in the least as if
he had been taught in our art-schools of to-day. How little could
Cimabue teach him! His hills and rocks are parodies of nature. He knew
not how to draw feet, and would put long gowns or stockings on his