The railroad brought us in three hours from Leipsic over the eighty miles of plain that intervene.  We came from the station through the Neustadt, passing the Japanese palace and the equestrian statue of Augustus the Strong.  The magnificent bridge over the Elbe was so much injured by the late inundation as to be impassable; we were obliged to go some distance up the river-bank and cross on a bridge of boats.  Next morning my first search was for the picture-gallery.  We set off at random, and after passing the church of Our Lady, with its lofty dome of solid stone, which withstood the heaviest bombs during the war with Frederick the Great, came to an open square one side of which was occupied by an old brown, red-roofed building which I at once recognized from pictures as the object of our search.

I have just taken a last look at the gallery this morning, and left it with real regret; for during the two visits Raphael’s heavenly picture of the Madonna and Child had so grown into my love and admiration that it was painful to think I should never see it again.  There are many mere which clung so strongly to my imagination, gratifying in the highest degree the love for the beautiful, that I left them with sadness and the thought that I would now only have the memory.  I can see the inspired eye and godlike brow of the Jesus-child as if I were still standing before the picture, and the sweet, holy countenance of the Madonna still looks upon me.  Yet, tho this picture is a miracle of art, the first glance filled me with disappointment.  It has somewhat faded during the three hundred years that have rolled away since the hand of Raphael worked on the canvas, and the glass with which it is covered for better preservation injures the effect.  After I had gazed on it a while, every thought of this vanished.

The figure of the Virgin seemed to soar in the air, and it was difficult to think the clouds were not in motion.  An aerial lightness clothes her form, and it is perfectly natural for such a figure to stand among the clouds.  Two divine cherubs look up from below, and in her arms sits the sacred Child.  Those two faces beam from the picture like those of angels.  The mild, prophetic eye and lofty brow of the young Jesus chain one like a spell.  There is something more than mortal in its expression—­something in the infant face which indicates a power mightier than the proudest manhood.  There is no glory around the head, but the spirit which shines from those features marks its divinity.  In the sweet face of the mother there speaks a sorrowful foreboding mixed with its tenderness, as if she knew the world into which the Savior was born and foresaw the path in which he was to tread.  It is a picture which one can scarce look upon without tears.