During the stay in Milan they went down to Parma for a day, just to look at the fine examples of Correggio's works in the gallery and churches. In this city they could get the association of this artist with his works as nowhere else.
LUINI. POLDI-PEZZOLI MUSEUM, MILAN. MARRIAGE OF SAINT CATHERINE.
Mr. Sumner told them that it was a good thing to give especial attention to Correggio while studying Leonardo, because there is a certain similarity, and yet a very wide difference, between their works. Both painters were consummate masters of the art. Their beautiful figures, perfect in drawing and full of grace and life, melt into soft, rich shadows. Both loved especially to paint women, and smiling women; but the difference between the smiles is as great as between light and darkness. Leonardo's are inexplicable; are wrought from within by depths of feeling we cannot understand. Correggio's only play about the lips, and are as simple as childhood. Leonardo's whole life was given to the study of mankind's innermost emotions. Correggio was no deep student of human nature.
"When you go to Paris and see Mona Lisa, you will understand me better," he said in conclusion.
Delightful weeks among the Italian lakes and the mountains of Switzerland followed. Then came September, and it was time to turn their faces homeward. A week or two was spent in Paris, whose brilliance, fascinating gayety, and beauty almost bewildered them, and in whose great picture-gallery, the Louvre, they reviewed the art-study of the year.
Then they were off to Havre to take a French steamship home. Mr. Sumner had decided to return with them, and a little later in the fall to go back to Florence to settle all things there,—to give up his Italian home and studio. So there was nothing but joy in the setting forth.
"How can we wait a whole week!" exclaimed Bettina, as the two sisters were again unpacking the steamer trunks in their stateroom. "How long one little week seems when it comes at the end of a year, and lies between us and home!"