eBooks Base 2000

I did not
think them noticeably indecorous, as compared with a hundred other
pictures that are shown and looked at without scruple;--Calypso and her
nymphs, a knot of nude women by Titian, is perhaps as objectionable as
any. But even Titian's flesh-tints cannot keep, and have not kept their
warmth through all these centuries. The illusion and lifelikeness
effervesces and exhales out of a picture as it grows old; and we go on
talking of a charm that has forever vanished.
From St. Luke's we went to San Pietro in Vincoli, occupying a fine
position on or near the summit of the Esquiline mount. A little abortion
of a man (and, by the by, there are more diminutive and ill-shapen men
and women in Rome than I ever saw elsewhere, a phenomenon to be accounted
for, perhaps, by their custom of wrapping the new-born infant in
swaddling-clothes), this two-foot abortion hastened before us, as we drew
nigh, to summon the sacristan to open the church door. It was a needless
service, for which we rewarded him with two baiocchi.


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