The movement of this great work is very fine.  There are ten thousand figures, and they are all doing something.  There is a wonderful “go” to the whole composition.  Some of the figures are driving headlong downward, with clasped hands, others are swimming through the cloud-shoals—­some on their faces, some on their backs—­great processions of bishops, martyrs, and angels are pouring swiftly centerward from various outlying directions—­everywhere is enthusiastic joy, there is rushing movement everywhere.  There are fifteen or twenty figures scattered here and there, with books, but they cannot keep their attention on their reading—­they offer the books to others, but no one wishes to read, now.  The Lion of St. Mark is there with his book; St. Mark is there with his pen uplifted; he and the Lion are looking each other earnestly in the face, disputing about the way to spell a word—­the Lion looks up in rapt admiration while St. Mark spells.  This is wonderfully interpreted by the artist.  It is the master-stroke of this imcomparable painting. [Figure 10]

I visited the place daily, and never grew tired of looking at that grand picture.  As I have intimated, the movement is almost unimaginable vigorous; the figures are singing, hosannahing, and many are blowing trumpets.  So vividly is noise suggested, that spectators who become absorbed in the picture almost always fall to shouting comments in each other’s ears, making ear-trumpets of their curved hands, fearing they may not otherwise be heard.  One often sees a tourist, with the eloquent tears pouring down his cheeks, funnel his hands at his wife’s ear, and hears him roar through them, “Oh, to be there and at rest!”

None but the supremely great in art can produce effects like these with the silent brush.

Twelve years ago I could not have appreciated this picture.  One year ago I could not have appreciated it.  My study of Art in Heidelberg has been a noble education to me.  All that I am today in Art, I owe to that.

The other great work which fascinated me was Bassano’s immortal Hair Trunk.  This is in the Chamber of the Council of Ten.  It is in one of the three forty-foot pictures which decorate the walls of the room.  The composition of this picture is beyond praise.  The Hair Trunk is not hurled at the stranger’s head—­so to speak—­as the chief feature of an immortal work so often is; no, it is carefully guarded from prominence, it is subordinated, it is restrained, it is most deftly and cleverly held in reserve, it is most cautiously and ingeniously led up to, by the master, and consequently when the spectator reaches it at last, he is taken unawares, he is unprepared, and it bursts upon him with a stupefying surprise.