This picture excited my ponderings and inquiries. There was a conflict
of emotion in that mother's face, and shadowed mysteriously in the
child's, of which I queried, "Was it fear? was it sorrow? was it
adoration and faith? was it a presage of the hour when a sword should
pierce through her own soul? Yet, with this, was there not a solemn
triumph in the thought that she alone, of all women, had been called
to that baptism of anguish? And in that infant face there seemed a
foreshadowing of the spirit which said, "Now is my soul troubled; and
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause
came I unto this hour."
The deep-feeling soul which conceived this picture has spread over the
whole divine group a tender and transparent shadow of sorrow. It is
this idea of sorrow in heaven--sorrow, for the lost, in the heart of
God himself--which forms the most sacred mystery of Christianity; and
into this innermost temple of sorrow had Raphael penetrated. He is a
sacred poet, and his poetry has precisely that trait which Milton
lacks--tenderness and sympathy. This picture, so unattractive to the
fancy in merely physical recommendations, has formed a deeper part of
my inner consciousness than any I have yet seen.
Pages:
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453