To lovers of dogs the greyhound is no unimportant part of our picture. The painter has expressed with much insight the character of this beautiful and high-bred creature. The muzzle is pressed affectionately to the master's side, and the eyes are fixed upon the beloved face with an expression of intense devotion. There is a tradition that this animal once saved the duke's life by rousing him from sleep at the approach of an assassin.
In the making up of the composition, the dog's figure describes a diagonal line on the left, which balances a similar diagonal on the other side made by the duke's placing his arm akimbo. Thus the general diagram of a pyramid is suggested as the basis of the grouping.
Authorities.—Robert Vaughn: The History of England under the House of Stuarts; L. von Ranke: The History of England in the Seventeenth Century; Warwick's Memoirs; Doyle's Official Baronage of England.
XIII
CHRIST AND THE PARALYTIC
It was a part of our Lord's ministry among men to restore to health the body as well as the soul. He was often moved with compassion by the disease and suffering which he saw as he went about Galilee or passed through the streets of Jerusalem. St. John, the evangelist (chapter v.), relates an incident which took place at a pool called Bethesda near a sheep market in Jerusalem.
There were here five porches in which lay "a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water." It seems that at certain intervals the waters of the pool were troubled, as if moved by some unseen agency. It was believed that the first person stepping in thereafter would be healed of any disease he might have.
"And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked."[20]