The more finished a character, the more, discriminated by his actions and turn of thought from his contemporaries, he pursues paths of his own, so much the more he attracts, so much the more he repels; the ardour of the one is equal to the violence of the other: he is not merely disliked, he is detested by all who have no sense for him; whilst by those who enter his train of thought, or sympathise with him, he is adored. Indifference has no share in what relates to him, it is a softer word for antipathy--it resembles the indifference of a female wooed; her indifference, her apathy, is a refusal without a verbal repulse. Where yes or no must decide, the mouth that can form neither, rejects. The principles, the style of Michael Angelo, are of that so closely-connected magnitude, that they are either all true or all false: pretended gold is either gold or not--the purer, the simpler a substance, the less it can coalesce with another; a pretended diamond of the size of a fist, is either of inestimable value or of none. If Michael Angelo did not establish art on a solid basis, he subverted it; he can claim only the heresies of paradox and receive their reward--disgust. What Armenini relates as a proof of his nearly intuitive power of conception and execution, may be repeated as a much stronger instance of his deference and gratitude for the most humble claims. "Meeting one day, behind S. Pietro, with a young Ferrarese, a potter who had baked some model of his, M. Angelo thanked him for his care, and in return offered him any service in his power: the young man, emboldened by his condescension, fetched a sheet of paper, and requested him to draw the figure of a standing Hercules: M. Angelo took the paper, and retiring to a small shed near by, put his right foot on a bench, and with his elbow on the raised knee and his face on his hand stood meditating a little while, then began to draw the figure, and having finished it in a short time, beckoned to the youth, who stood waiting at a small distance, to approach, gave it him, and went away toward Belvedere. That design, as far as I was then able to judge, in precision of outline, shadow, and finish, no miniature could excel; it afforded matter of astonishment to see accomplished in a few minutes what might have been reasonably supposed to have taken up the labour of a month."