eBooks Base 2000

When the room was in its first
glory, I can conceive that the world had not elsewhere to show, within so
small a space, such magnificence and beauty as were then displayed here.
Even now, I enjoyed (to the best of my belief, for we can never feel sure
that we are not bamboozling ourselves in such matters) some real pleasure
in what I saw; and especially seemed to feel, after all these ages, the
old painter's devout sentiment still breathing forth from the religious
pictures, the work of a hand that had so long been dust.
When we had looked long at these, the old gentleman led us into a chapel,
of the same size as the former room, and built in the same fashion,
wainscoted likewise with old oak. The walls were also frescoed, entirely
frescoed, and retained more of their original brightness than those we
had already seen, although the pictures were the production of a somewhat
inferior hand, a pupil of Perugino. They seemed to be very striking,
however, not the less so, that one of them provoked an unseasonable
smile.


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