The Marble Faun - Volume 1 - The Romance of Monte Beni by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 49 of 220 (22%)
page 49 of 220 (22%)
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Donatello said the truth; and we forebore to speak descriptively of
Miriam's beauty earlier in our narrative, because we foresaw this occasion to bring it perhaps more forcibly before the reader. We know not whether the portrait were a flattered likeness; probably not, regarding it merely as the delineation of a lovely face; although Miriam, like all self-painters, may have endowed herself with certain graces which Other eyes might not discern. Artists are fond of painting their own portraits; and, in Florence, there is a gallery of hundreds of them, including the most illustrious, in all of which there are autobiographical characteristics, so to speak,--traits, expressions, loftinesses, and amenities, which would have been invisible, had they not been painted from within. Yet their reality and truth are none the less. Miriam, in like manner, had doubtless conveyed some of the intimate results of her heart knowledge into her own portrait, and perhaps wished to try whether they would be perceptible to so simple and natural an observer as Donatello. "Does the expression please you?" she asked. "Yes," said Donatello hesitatingly; "if it would only smile so like the sunshine as you sometimes do. No, it is sadder than I thought at first. Cannot you make yourself smile a little, signorina?" "A forced smile is uglier than a frown," said Miriam, a bright, natural smile breaking out over her face even as she spoke. "O, catch it now!" cried Donatello, clapping his hands. "Let it shine upon the picture! There! it has vanished already! And you are sad again, very sad; and the picture gazes sadly forth at me, as if some evil had |
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