"The generality of modern painters are too theatrical. They bear the stamp of an age in which the unity of existence and natural way of life, familiar to Andrew Mantegne, Perugin, and Leonardo da Vinci, is entirely forgotten. To this antique repose _they_ were wont to add the depth of feeling which marks Christianity. For this I admire the compositions of Raphael, especially in his early works. All the figures tend towards the main object, without being elaborately grouped to create a sensation--this honesty in the arts, as in all things else, characterizes true genius; for speculations on success usually destroy enthusiasm. There is a rhetoric in painting as in poetry; and those who have it not seek to veil the defect in brilliant but illusive auxiliaries, rich costume, remarkable postures, while an unpretending virgin, with her infant at her breast, an old man attending the mass of Bolsena, a young one leaning on his staff, in the school of Athens, or Saint Cecilia raising her eyes to heaven, by the mere force of expression, act most powerfully on the mind. These natural beauties grow on us each day, while of works done for effect our first sight is always the most striking."[1] Corinne fortified these reflections by another--it was the impossibility of our sympathizing with the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, or inventing on their ground. "We may imitate them by study," she said; "but the wings of genius cannot be restrained to flights for which learning and memory are so indispensable, and wherein it can but copy books or statues. Now, in pictures alluding to our own history and faith, the painter is personally inspired; feeling what he depicts, retracing what he has seen, he draws from the life. Portraitures of piety are mental blessings that no others could replace; as they assure us that the artist's genius was animated by the holy zeal which alone can support us against the disgusts of life and the injustice of man."