"It is not easy to detect her astray as regards any picture on which those clear, soft eyes of hers have ever rested." "And she has studied and admired few pictures so much as this," observed the sculptor.

"No wonder; for there is hardly another so beautiful in the world.

What an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel's face! There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at being brought in contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it; and yet a celestial tranquillity pervades his whole being." "I have never been able," said Miriam, "to admire this picture nearly so much as Hilda does, in its moral and intellectual aspect.

If it cost her more trouble to be good, if her soul were less white and pure, she would be a more competent critic of this picture, and would estimate it not half so high.

I see its defects today more clearly than ever before." "What are some of them ?" asked Kenyon.
"That Archangel, now," Miriam continued; "how fair he looks, with his unruffled wings, with his unhacked sword, and clad in his bright armor, and that exquisitely fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest Paradisiacal mode! What a dainty air of the first celestial society! With what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled foot on the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that virtue looks the moment after its death struggle with evil?
No, no; I could have told Guido better.