ressions many
curious tales are told. The sight of refulgent jewels, of flowers, and
of fair landscapes, had the same effect upon his nerves as the sound
of the Dorian mood upon the youths whom Pythagoras cured of passion by
music. He found in them an anodyne for pain, a restoration from
sickness. Like Walt Whitman, who adheres to nature by closer and more
vital sympathy than any other poet of the modern world, Alberti felt
the charm of excellent old age no less than that of florid youth. 'On
old men gifted with a noble presence and hale and vigorous, he gazed
again and again, and said that he revered in them the delights of
nature (_naturae delitias_).' Beasts and birds and all living creatures
moved him to admiration for the grace with which they had been gifted,
each in his own kind. It is even said that he composed a funeral
oration for a dog which he had loved and which died.

To this sensibility for all fair things in nature, Alberti added the
charm of a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation. The
activity of his mind, which was always being exercised on subjects of
grave speculation, removed him from the noise and bustle of
commonplace society. He was somewhat silent, inclined to solitude,
and of a pensive countenance; yet no man found him difficult of
access: his courtesy was exquisite, and among familiar friends he was
noted for the flashes of a delicate and subtle wit. Collections were
made of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by his
anonymous biographer.[5] Their finer perfume, as almost always happens
with good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, but
owe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author,
and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here,
however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti's
genius: 'Gold is the soul of labour, and labour the slave of
pleasure.' Of women he used to say that their inconstancy was an
antidote to their falseness; for if a woman could but persevere in
what she undertook, all the fair works of men would be ruined. One of
his strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, from which he suffered
much in his own life, and against which he guarded with a curious
amount of caution. His own family grudged the distinction which his
talents gained for him, and a dark story is told of a secret attempt
made by them to assassinate him through his servants. Alberti met
these ignoble jeal