ould study yet another phase of the religious sentiment,
go to the Museo, where are the fine pictures that Murillo painted for
the Capuchin Monastery. You will see all the sombreness of Spanish
piety, the savage faith, dissolved into ineffable love. Religion has
become a wonderful tenderness, in which passionate human affection is
inextricably mingled with god-like adoration. Murillo, these sensual
forms quivering with life, brought the Eternal down to earth, and gave
terrestrial ardour to the apathy of an impersonal devotion; that,
perhaps, is why to women he has always been the most fascinating of
painters. In the _Madonna de la Servilleta_--painted on a napkin for the
cook of the monastery--the child is a simple, earthly infant, fresh and
rosy, with wide-open, wondering eyes and not a trace of immortality. I
myself saw a common woman of the streets stand before this picture with
tears running down her cheeks.

'_Corazon de mi alma!_' she said, 'Heart of my soul! I could cover his
little body with kisses.'

She smiled, but could hardly restrain her sobs. The engrossing love of a
mother for her child seemed joined in miraculous union with the worship
of a mortal for his God.

Murillo had neither the power nor the desire to idealise his models. The
saints of these great pictures, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Felix of
Cantalicio, St. Thomas of Villanueva, are monks and beggars such as may
to this day be seen in the streets of Seville. St. Felix is merely an
old man with hollow cheeks and a grey, ragged beard; but yet as he
clasps the child in his arms with eager tenderness, he is transfigured
by a divine ecstasy: his face is radiant with the most touching
emotion. And St. Antony of Padua, in another picture, worships the
infant God with a mystic adoration, which, notwithstanding the realism
of the presentment, lifts him far, far above the earth.

XXII

[Sidenote: Gaol]

I was curious to see the prison in Seville. Gruesome tales had been told
me of its filth and horror, and the wretched condition of the prisoners;
I had even heard that from the street you might see them pressing
against the barred windows with arms thrust through, begging the
passer-by for money or bread. Mediaeval stories recurred to my mind and
the clank of chains trailed through my imagination.

I arranged to be conducted by the prison doctor, and one morning soon
after five set out to meet him. My guide informed me by a significant
gest