We lingered often in the
sepulchral chapel of San Lorenzo, and watched Michael Angelo's
dim-visaged warrior sitting there like some awful Genius of Doubt and
brooding behind his eternal mask upon the mysteries of life. We stood
more than once in the little convent chambers where Fra Angelico wrought
as if an angel indeed had held his hand, and gathered that sense of
scattered dews and early bird-notes which makes an hour among his relics
seem like a morning stroll in some monkish garden. We did all this and
much more--wandered into dark chapels, damp courts, and dusty
palace-rooms, in quest of lingering hints of fresco and lurking treasures
of carving.
I was more and more impressed with my companion's remarkable singleness
of purpose. Everything was a pretext for some wildly idealistic rhapsody
or reverie. Nothing could be seen or said that did not lead him sooner
or later to a glowing discourse on the true, the beautiful, and the good.
If my friend was not a genius, he was certainly a monomaniac; and I found
as great a fascination in watching the odd lights and shades of his
character as if he had been a creature from another planet.
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