ding until
the last day break, and the last shadow flee away; until then, she
"shall not return." Her hands are laid on her breast--not praying--she
has no need to pray now. She wears her dress of every day, clasped at
her throat, girdled at her waist, the hem of it drooping over her feet.
No disturbance of its folds by pain of sickness, no binding, no
shrouding of her sweet form, in death more than in life. As a soft, low
wave of summer sea, her breast rises; no more: the rippled gathering of
its close mantle droops to the belt, then sweeps to her feet, straight
as drifting snow. And at her feet her dog lies watching her; the mystery
of his mortal life joined, by love, to her immortal one.

Few know, and fewer love, the tomb and its place,--not shrine, for it
stands bare by the cathedral wall: only, by chance, a cross is cut deep
into one of the foundation stones behind her head. But no goddess statue
of the Greek cities, no nun's image among the cloisters of Apennine, no
fancied light of angel in the homes of heaven, has more divine rank
among the thoughts of men.

250. In so much as the reader can see of it, and learn, either by print
or cast, or beside it; (and he would do well to stay longer in that
transept than in the Tribune at Florence,) he may receive from it,
unerring canon of what is evermore Lovely and Right in the dealing of
the Art of Man with his fate, and his passions. Evermore _lovely_, and
_right_. These two virtues of visible things go always hand in hand: but
the workman is bound to assure himself of his Rightness first; then the
loveliness will come.

And primarily, from this sculpture, you are to learn what a "Master" is.
Here was one man at least, who knew his business, once upon a time!
Unaccusably;--none of your fool's heads or clown's hearts can find a
fault here! "Dog-fancier,[49] cobbler, tailor, or churl, look
here"--says Master Jacopo--"look! I know what a brute is, better than
you, I know what a silken tassel is--what a leathern belt is--Also,
what a woman is; and also--what a Law of God is, if you care to know."
This it is, to be a Master.

Then secondly--you are to note that with all the certain rightness of
its material fact, this sculpture still is the Sculpture of a Dream.
Ilaria is dressed as she was in life. But she never lay so on her
pillow! nor so, in her grave. Those straight folds, straightly laid as a
snowdrift, are impossible; known by the Master to be so--chiseled with