pictorial art is capable of something more like magic, more wonderful and
inscrutable in its methods, than poetry or any other mode of developing
the beautiful. But how does this accord with what I have been saying
only a minute ago? How then can the decayed picture of a great master
ever be restored by the touches of an inferior hand? Doubtless it never
can be restored; but let some devoted worshipper do his utmost, and the
whole inherent spirit of the divine picture may pervade his restorations
likewise.

I saw the "Three Fates" of Michael Angelo, which were also being copied,
as were many other of the best pictures. Miss Fanny Howorth, whom I met
in the gallery, told me that to copy the "Madonna della Seggiola,"
application must be made five years beforehand, so many are the artists
who aspire to copy it. Michael Angelo's Fates are three very grim and
pitiless old women, who respectively spin, hold, and cut the thread of
human destiny, all in a mood of sombre gloom, but with no more sympathy
than if they had nothing to do with us. I remember seeing an etching of
this when I was a child, and being struck, even then, with the terrible,
stern, passionless severity, neither loving us nor hating us, that
characterizes these ugly old women. If they were angry, or had the least
spite against human kind, it would render them the more tolerable. They
are a great work, containing and representing the very idea that makes a
belief in fate such a cold torture to the human soul. God give me the
sure belief in his Providence!

In a year's time, with the advantage of access to this magnificent
gallery, I think I might come to have some little knowledge of pictures.
At present I still know nothing; but am glad to find myself capable, at
least, of loving one picture better than another. I cannot always "keep
the heights I gain," however, and after admiring and being moved by a