manner, much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling with his force
of imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about, just
as Correggio does. But he never does it like Correggio, without cause.

Look at Judith again,--at her face, not her drapery,--and remember that
when a man is base at the heart, he blights his virtues into
weaknesses; but when he is true at the heart, he sanctifies his
weaknesses into virtues. It is a weakness of Botticelli's, this love of
dancing motion and waved drapery; but why has he given it full flight
here?

Do you happen to know anything about Judith yourself, except that she
cut off Holofernes' head; and has been made the high light of about a
million of vile pictures ever since, in which the painters thought they
could surely attract the public to the double show of an execution, and
a pretty woman,--especially with the added pleasure of hinting at
previously ignoble sin?

When you go home to-day, take the pains to write out for yourself, in
the connection I here place them, the verses underneath numbered from
the book of Judith; you will probably think of their meaning more
carefully as you write.

Begin thus:

"Now at that time, Judith heard thereof, which was the daughter of
Merari, ... the son of Simeon, the son of Israel." And then write out,
consecutively, these pieces--

Chapter viii., verses 2 to 8. (Always inclusive,) and read the whole