ore skilful than learned, nor
let greed get the better of glory. Seest thou not among human beauties
that it is the beautiful faces which stop the passers-by, and not the
richness of their ornaments? And this I say to thee who adornest thy
figures with gold and other rich ornaments: Seest thou not splendid,
youthful beauties, who diminish their excellence by the excess and
elaboration of their {104} ornaments? Hast thou not seen women of the
mountains dressed in rough and poor clothes richer in beauty than those
who are adorned? Make no use of the affected arrangements and
headdresses such as those adopted by loutish maids, who, by placing one
lock of hair more on one side than the other, credit themselves with
having committed a great enormity, and think that the bystanders will
forget their own thoughts to talk of them alone, and to blame them.
For such persons have always the looking-glass and the comb, and the
wind, which ruffles elaborate headdresses, is their worst enemy. In
thy heads let the hair sport with the wind thou depictest around
youthful countenances, and adorn them gracefully with various turns,
and do not as those who plaster their faces with gum and make the faces
seem as if they were of glass. This is a human folly which is always
on the increase, and the mariners do not satisfy it who bring arabic
gums from the East, so as to prevent the smoothness of the hair from
being ruffled by the wind,--but they pursue their investigations still
further in this direction.

49.

I cannot but mention among these precepts a new means of study, which,
although it may seem trivial and almost ridiculous, is nevertheless
extremely useful in arousing the mind to {105} various inventions. It
is as follows: when you look at walls mottled with various stains or
stones made of diverse substances, if you have to invent some scene,
you may discover on them the likeness of various countries, adorned
with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, great valleys and hills
in diverse arrangement; again, you may be able to see battles and
figures in action and strange effects of physiognomy and costumes, and
infinite objects which you could reduce to complete and harmonious
forms. And the effect produced by these mottled walls is like that of
the sound of bells, in the vibrating of which you may recognize any
name or word you choose to imagine. I have seen blots in the clouds
and in mottled walls which have stimulated