"The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect; because it may thus drive out useless things, and retain the good.
"Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.
"Reprove your friend in secret, and praise him openly."
In the midst of the corruption of that age, we hear no word breathed against the character of this eager, brilliant, many-sided man. He won from his pupils the most complete devotion, and he seems to have given as fond an affection in return. This possibly satisfied the craving of the human heart for love. Perhaps, after all, life did not appear as satisfactory as he could have wished, with all his worship of the beautiful, for he says, "When I thought I was learning to live, I was but learning to die." He seemed at the zenith of his powers when death came; but who shall estimate the value of a life by its length? He said, "As a day well spent gives a joyful sleep, so does life well employed give a joyful death.... A life well spent is long."
RAPHAEL OF URBINO.
"In the history of Italian art Raphael stands alone, like Shakespeare in the history of our literature; and he takes the same kind of rank—a superiority not merely of degree, but of quality.... His works have been an inexhaustible storehouse of ideas to painters and to poets. Everywhere in art we find his traces. Everywhere we recognize his forms and lines, borrowed or stolen, reproduced, varied, imitated,—never improved.
