being works of art. But suppose a literary artist ventured
to go into a painstaking and elaborate description
of one of these grisly things--the critics would skin
him alive. Well, let it go, it cannot be helped;
Art retains her privileges, Literature has lost hers.
Somebody else may cipher out the whys and the wherefores
and the consistencies of it--I haven't got time.

Titian's Venus defiles and disgraces the Tribune, there is
no softening that fact, but his "Moses" glorifies it.
The simple truthfulness of its noble work wins the heart
and the applause of every visitor, be he learned or ignorant.
After wearying one's self with the acres of stuffy,
sappy, expressionless babies that populate the canvases
of the Old Masters of Italy, it is refreshing to stand
before this peerless child and feel that thrill which tells
you you are at last in the presence of the real thing.
This is a human child, this is genuine. You have seen him
a thousand times--you have seen him just as he is here
--and you confess, without reserve, that Titian WAS a Master.
The doll-faces of other painted babes may mean one thing,
they may mean another, but with the "Moses" the case
is different. The most famous of all the art-critics
has said, "There is no room for doubt, here--plainly this
child is in trouble."

I consider that the "Moses" has no equal among the works
of the Old Masters, except it be the divine Hair Trunk
of Bassano. I feel sure that if all the other Old Masters
were lost and only these two preserved, the world would