without caring whether or not his words are in accordance with
academic rules. I regret to see photography being introduced for
votive purposes, and also to detect in some places a disposition on
the part of the authorities to be a little ashamed of these
pictures and to place them rather out of sight.

Sometimes in a little country village, as at Doera near Mesocco,
there is a modern fresco on a chapel in which the old spirit
appears, with its absolute indifference as to whether it was
ridiculous or no, but such examples are rare.

Sometimes, again, I have even thought I have detected a ray of
sunset upon a milkman's window-blind in London, and once upon an
undertaker's, but it was too faint a ray to read by. The best
thing of the kind that I have seen in London is the picture of the
lady who is cleaning knives with Mr. Spong's patent knife-cleaner,
in his shop window nearly opposite Day & Martin's in Holborn. It
falls a long way short, however, of a good Italian votive picture:
but it has the advantage of moving.

I knew of a little girl once, rather less than four years old,
whose uncle had promised to take her for a drive in a carriage with
him, and had failed to do so. The child was found soon afterwards
on the stairs weeping, and being asked what was the matter,
replied, "Mans is all alike." This is Giottesque. I often think
of it as I look upon Italian votive pictures. The meaning is so
sound in spite of the expression being so defective--if, indeed,
expression can be defective when it has so well conveyed the
meaning.