all technical accomplishment, or even habit. It is painted in white
and blue, and the streak of red in the foreground, the red of a screen
on which is embroidered the lily--emblem of purity--adds to the chill
and coldness. Drawn up upon her white bed the Virgin crouches, silent
with expectation, listening to the mystic dream that has come upon her
in the dim hush of dawn. The large blue eyes gleam with some strange
joy that is quickening in her. The mouth and chin tell no tale, but
the eyes are deep pools of light, and mirror the soul that is on fire
within. The red hair falls about her, a symbol of the soul. In the
drawn-up knees, faintly outlined beneath the white sheet, the painter
hints at her body's beauty. One arm is cast forward, the hand not
clenched but stricken. Behind her a blue curtain hangs straight from
iron rods set on either side of the bed. Above the curtain a lamp is
burning dimly, blighted by the pallor of the dawn. A dead, faint
sky--the faint ashen sky which precedes the first rose tint; the
circular window is filled with it, and the paling blue of the sky's
colour contrasts with the deep blue of the bed's curtain, on which the
Virgin's red hair is painted.

The angel stands by the side of the white bed--I should say floats,
his fair feet hanging out of a few pale flames. White raiment clothes
him, falling in long folds, leaving the arms and feet bare; in the
right hand he holds a lily all in blossom; the left hand is extended
in rigid gesture of warning. Brown-gold hair grows thick about the
angel's neck; the shadowed profile is outlined against the hard, sad
sky; the expression of the face is deep and sphinx-like; he has come,
it is clear, from vast realms of light, where uncertainty and doubt
are unknown. The Dove passes by him towards the Virgin. Look upon her
again, crouching in her white bed, her knees drawn to her bosom, her
deep blue eyes--her dawn-tinted eyes--filled with ache, dream, and