"Services are no longer held there. It has been preserved as a national monument. When I first went in I saw nothing for a minute but a blue glory on the walls--a sort of background of light--then picture after picture, in long rows. The history of the Saviour told simply, just as a poor friar would tell it to poor people on Good Friday, provided he was the right sort of preacher."
"But are we not all poor people in the Saviour's eyes?" she ventured to put in shyly.
He paused, stared at her for a moment, and then assented with fervour. "Certainly we are, and not only in the Saviour's, but in those of every great personality, and every great truth.... But that feeling is not easy to cultivate ... the feeling that we must be poor if what is given us is to make us rich. Religion can inspire us with it if it finds the right means of expression. In this case it was found. Here was a poor man speaking to the poor, and therein lay the richness of his gift. Then what in him goes to our hearts and brings tears to our eyes is not his great power, but quite the opposite--his lack of power. Do you grasp my meaning?"
"I think so," she said, her face lighting up. "When someone would beg anything of us and can only stammer out what he has got to say, we are far more touched than if he expressed himself in a stilted speech learnt by heart."
"Yes, that is exactly what I mean," he cried, delighted. "And it is from this bald, hesitating speech that the whole language of Art has arisen. Then, all that preceded it was merely a lifeless copy of worn-out Byzantine models. Here, for the first time, was an artist who, out of the simplicity of his heart, went straight to Nature for what he had to say. For this reason he became the supreme master of them all. And to-day whoever may succeed in depicting with his brush the acme of joy and the acme of sorrow has to thank that little chapel."
"I can well believe," cried Lilly, "that if the ocean had a source, and a man suddenly came upon it, he would feel as you did at Padua."
He caught her arm with both hands in his excitement.
"You have hit on the missing simile," he said, "and it is graphic enough to describe to the letter what took place within me. And yet another source was revealed to me all of a sudden, while I, with folded hands, made the tour of those walls. My work was there, leaping out of nothingness. I said to myself, 'You must write the History of Effects.' The effects, as Art, not only Creative Art, has created, seen, and represented them through the ages. Pictorial Art is only a part, you see; there are besides the elocutionary arts, poetry as well as painting, sculpture as well as music. It struck me that by adopting this method I might succeed in producing a real genuine record of the development of human emotions, which no historian, moralist, or psychologist has ever yet attempted. But why should it not be attempted? Material is hidden everywhere, and awaits elucidation just as fossils lie embedded in the rocks ready for the zoologist's hammer. Tell me what you think of my plan? Is it not worth a lifetime's labour?"
"Indeed, I think it is," she said, with the same solemn air as before. Had she been requested at this moment to sacrifice her own life on the altar of his work, she would have done it without a moment's hesitation.
"Ah! but there is a lot to think over first. One cannot start at a tangent," he continued. "Often Art leads us astray because she has deliberately tried to reflect something quite different from the spirit of her time. Whether she succeeded or not is another question. Often, too, the right channels of expression were lacking. Ah! you and I must have many, many more talks together. Don't look so horrified at the idea. Yes, my dear gracious one, I need you sorely. After this evening I can't do without you, for no one has ever listened to me so intelligently and sympathetically. And I have become such a stranger here, it's almost as if I were a foreigner. All the men I know are so wrapped up in their own interests that they hardly listen to me. Besides, I am conscious that my undertaking is a little mad. But there is solace to be derived from that when one thinks how every great work is supposed to be a little mad till it is finished and has accomplished its aim. Of course, everyone thinks the same about his own work, and I shall get over the feeling in time. But during the period of wrestling, when every day I think I have found a new vein of gold, and perhaps have to reject it afterwards as dross, if I have nobody to whom I can pour out my soul, I get into such a muddle I feel fairly disheartened. And now fate has sent you to me, and the thought of you has prevented my sitting calmly at my desk; a voice has seemed to call me to come out and gaze across at your light. Well, now I have you, I won't let you go in a hurry. I shouldn't, God knows, be so bold if it were for myself alone, but it's for my work. It clamours for you. Good heavens! why are you crying?"