heretic as he was,
that Kenyon likewise put up a prayer, rendered more fervent by the
symbols before his eyes, for the peace of his friend's conscience and
the pardon of the sin that so oppressed him.

Not only at the crosses did Donatello kneel, but at each of the many
shrines, where the Blessed Virgin in fresco--faded with sunshine and
half washed out with showers--looked benignly at her worshipper; or
where she was represented in a wooden image, or a bas-relief of plaster
or marble, as accorded with the means of the devout person who built,
or restored from a mediaeval antiquity, these places of wayside worship.
They were everywhere: under arched niches, or in little penthouses with
a brick tiled roof just large enough to shelter them; or perhaps in
some bit of old Roman masonry, the founders of which had died before the
Advent; or in the wall of a country inn or farmhouse; or at the midway
point of a bridge; or in the shallow cavity of a natural rock; or high
upward in the deep cuts of the road. It appeared to the sculptor that
Donatello prayed the more earnestly and the more hopefully at these
shrines, because the mild face of the Madonna promised him to intercede
as a tender mother betwixt the poor culprit and the awfulness of
judgment.

It was beautiful to observe, indeed, how tender was the soul of man and
woman towards the Virgin mother, in recognition of the tenderness which,
as their faith taught them, she immortally cherishes towards all human
souls. In the wire-work screen 'before each shrine hung offerings of
roses, or whatever flower was sweetest and most seasonable; some already
wilted and withered, some fresh with that very morning's dewdrops.
Flowers there were, too, that, being artificial, never bloomed on earth,
nor would ever fade. The thought occurred to Kenyon, that flower-pots
with living plants might be set within the niches, or even that
rose-trees, and all kinds of flowering shrubs, might be reared under the
shrines, and taught to twine and wreathe themselves around; so that
the Virgin should dwell within a bower of verdure, bloom, and fragrant
freshness, symbolizing a homage perpetually new. There are many things
in the religious customs of these people that seem good; many things,
at least, that might be both good and beautiful, if the soul of goodness
and the sense of beauty were as much alive in the Italians now as they
must have been when those customs were first imagined and adopted. B