The thing could not be better managed.
The collection is one of the most celebrated in the world, and contains
between eight and nine hundred pictures, many of which are esteemed
masterpieces. I think I was not in a frame for admiration to-day, nor
could achieve that free and generous surrender of myself which I have
already said is essential to the proper estimate of anything excellent.
Besides, how is it possible to give one's soul, or any considerable part
of it, to a single picture, seen for the first time, among a thousand
others, all of which set forth their own claims in an equally good light?
Furthermore, there is an external weariness, and sense of a thousand-fold
sameness to be overcome, before we can begin to enjoy a gallery of the
old Italian masters. . . . . I remember but one painter, Francia, who
seems really to have approached this awful class of subjects (Christs and
Madonnas) in a fitting spirit; his pictures are very singular and
awkward, if you look at them with merely an external eye, but they are
full of the beauty of holiness, and evidently wrought out as acts of
devotion, with the deepest sincerity; and are veritable prayers upon
canvas.
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