All the pictures lacked the charm (no doubt I am a barbarian to think it
one) of being in brilliant frames, and looked as if it were a long, long
while since they were cleaned or varnished. The light was so scanty,
too, on that heavily clouded day, and in those gloomy old rooms of the
palace, that scarcely anything could be fairly made out.
[I cannot refrain from observing here, that Mr. Hawthorne's inexorable
demand for perfection in all things leads him to complain of grimy
pictures and tarnished frames and faded frescos, distressing beyond
measure to eyes that never failed to see everything before him with the
keenest apprehension. The usual careless observation of people both of
the good and the imperfect is much more comfortable in this imperfect
world. But the insight which Mr. Hawthorne possessed was only equalled
by his outsight, and he suffered in a way not to be readily conceived,
from any failure in beauty, physical, moral, or intellectual. It is not,
therefore, mere love of upholstery that impels him to ask for perfect
settings to priceless gems of art; but a native idiosyncrasy, which
always made me feel that "the New Jerusalem," "even like a jasper stone,
clear as crystal," "where shall in no wise enter anything that defileth,
neither what worketh abomination nor maketh a lie," would alone satisfy
him, or rather alone not give him actual pain.
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