or, there is
full summer; the deep and glowing leaves have drunk in the whole
strength of the sun. The sleepy splendour of the picture is a fit
raiment for the idea incarnate of faultless fleshly beauty and peril of
pleasure unavoidable. For this serene and sublime sorceress there is no
life but of the body; with spirit (if spirit there be) she can dispense.
Were it worth her while for any word to divide those terrible tender
lips, she too might say with the hero of the most perfect and exquisite
book of modern times--_Mademoiselle de Maupin--"Je trouve la terre aussi
belle que le ciel, et je pense que la correction de la forme est la
vertu."_ Of evil desire or evil impulse she has nothing; and nothing of
good. She is indifferent, equable, magnetic; she charms and draws down
the souls of men by pure force of absorption, in no wise wilful or
malignant; outside herself she cannot live, she cannot even see: and
because of this she attracts and subdues all men at once in body and in
spirit. Beyond the mirror she cares not to look, and could not.

_"Ma mia suora Rahel mai non si smaga,
Dal suo miraglio, e siede tutto 'l giorno."_

So, rapt in no spiritual contemplation, she will sit to all time,
passive and perfect: the outer light of a sweet spring day flooding and
filling the massive gold of her hair. By the reflection in a deep mirror
of fervent foliage from without, the chief chord of stronger colour is
touched in this picture; next in brilliance and force of relief is the
heap of curling and tumbling hair on which the sunshine strikes; the
face and head of the siren are withdrawn from the full stroke of the
light.

_Essays and Studies_ (London, 1875).

ADORATION OF THE MAGI

(_DUERER_)

MORIZ THAUSING

Italy, that beautiful enchantress, whose irresistible charms have caused
many of Germany's greatest men to forget their native land, and array
themselves beneath her colours, did not fail to exercise over Duerer, in
the course of the year and more that he spent beyond the Alps, that
subtle influence which elevates the understanding and expands the mind.
He thought, as did Goethe after him, with a sort of shudder, of his
return to cloudy skies, and of the less easy nature of the life which
awaited him at home. But, though he enjoyed himself very much at Venice,
and gave in willingly in many external things to the prevailing taste
there, the essential nature of his art remained untouched by foreign