In Giorgione, you have the same high spiritual power and practical sense; but now, with entirely perfect intellect, contending with evil; conquering it utterly, casting it away for ever, and rising beyond it into magnificence of rest.
[1] As I was correcting these pages, there was put into my hand a little work by a very dear friend—“Travels and Study in Italy,” by Charles Eliot Norton;—I have not yet been able to do more than glance at it; but my impression is, that by carefully reading it, together with the essay by the same writer on the Vita Nuova of Dante, a more just estimate may be formed of the religious art of Italy than by the study of any other books yet existing. At least, I have seen none in which the tone of thought was at once so tender and so just.
I had hoped, before concluding this book, to have given it higher value by extracts from the works which have chiefly helped or guided me, especially from the writings of Helps, Lowell, and the Rev. A. J. Scott. But if I were to begin making such extracts, I find that I should not know, either in justice or affection, how to end.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TWO BOYHOODS.
§ 1. Born half-way between the mountains and the sea—that young George of Castelfranco—of the Brave Castle:—Stout George they called him, George of Georges, so goodly a boy he was—Giorgione.
Have you ever thought what a world his eyes opened on—fair, searching eyes of youth? What a world of mighty life, from those mountain roots to the shore;—of loveliest life, when he went down, yet so young, to the marble city—and became himself as a fiery heart to it?