"'How often the painter, desirous of depicting the human countenance lit up by some sublime feeling, has had to lament the impotence of his art!
"'Timanthes, unable to express the death-emotion on the face of Agamemnon, conceals the head of the king in a purple robe; Da Vinci in "The Last Supper," despairing of diffusing a ray of divinity over the features of the Saviour, lays down his pencil, and leaves nothing but a blank oval for the face.
"'Who shall succeed where such masters fail? Echo answers—Vasari! A bold statement, but a true one!
"'Mr. Vasari might reasonably and with perfect fidelity to historic truth have adopted the method of Timanthes, since, every schoolboy knows, that Cæsar fell with his head concealed in the folds of his toga; but, disdaining the pusillanimity of such a method, the artist has permitted the whole of Cæsar's face to be seen, for the purpose of delineating with ghastly realism the expression of a dead face. The effect of the sunlight quivering on——'"
At this point I paused to look up at Daphne, whose eyes were eloquently expressive of the interest she was taking in the subject of my reading, and remarked quietly:
"To be continued in our next."
"Go on," she said eagerly. "Don't stop."
It was with a certain amount of malice that I replied:
"There is no more."