has set Pilate’s face in shadow: a single ray falls across the pillar behind his head. He looks away from Christ but not towards the crowd: he has spoken: he would fain make an end of this drama. It is the fine, thoughtful, astute face of a Venetian councillor that Tintoretto has depicted. Christ stands before him in the full light--removed only by a single step--a motionless white figure above the restless crowd, complete in control, gathered into himself and folded in a great silence and calm; yet not now more alone than when the crowds cried after him day and night for a sign. His head is bowed upon his breast: his closely folded robe follows the slight curve of his body: his bound hands lie nerveless in their cords: yet beside the strength of this bound prisoner the animation of the foreground figure who grips the cord is impotence indeed. Most wonderful of all perhaps is the contrast of a busy scribe at his table below the judgment-seat, pausing with suspended pen for the words that shall convict, with the majestic, motionless figure of Christ. We seem to hear the words proceeding from those closed lips: he would utter them so, not moving. It is less the originality of this picture that impresses us than its profound directness and truth, comparable only to the story it illustrates. In understanding none has surpassed the conception of that single, solitary figure, face to face with the vast fabric of the judgment-hall, weighted with its burden of custom and tradition; none has more profoundly imagined the tragic triumph in that entire loneliness of the great and good before the tribunal of man. Chapter Eleven THE SOUL THAT ENDURES