grotesque capitals rise hardly higher than your head, and an
upper choral plane reached by broad stairways of the bravest
effect. I shall never forget the impression of majestic chastity
that I received from the great nave of the building on my former
visit. I then decided to my satisfaction that every church is
from the devotional point of view a solecism that has not
something of a similar absolute felicity of proportion; for
strictly formal beauty seems best to express our conception of
spiritual beauty. The nobly serious character of San Zenone is
deepened by its single picture--a masterpiece of the most serious
of painters, the severe and exquisite Mantegna.

[Illustration: THE AMPHITHEATRE, VERONA]

1872





TWO OLD HOUSES AND THREE YOUNG WOMEN


There are times and places that come back yet again, but that,
when the brooding tourist puts out his hand to them, meet it a
little slowly, or even seem to recede a step, as if in slight
fear of some liberty he may take. Surely they should know by this
time that he is capable of taking none. He has his own way--he
makes it all right. It now becomes just a part of the charming
solicitation that it presents precisely a problem--that of giving