I. EARLY RENAISSANCE 7

sense; the Temperance which we have seen sitting on an equal throne with Justice amidst the Four Cardinal virtues,¹ and, wanting which, there is not any other virtue which may not lead us into desperate error. Now observe: Temperance, in the nobler sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy; it does not mean a stopping short in any good thing, as in Love or in Faith; but it means the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting in any way but as it ought. And with respect to things in which there may be excess, it does not means imperfect enjoyment of them; but the regulation of their quantity, so that the enjoyment of them shall be greatest. For instance, in the matter we have at present in hand, temperance in colour does not mean imperfect or dull enjoyment of colour; but it means that government of colour which shall bring the utmost possible enjoyment out of all hues. A bad colourist does not love beautiful colour better than the best colourist does, nor half so much. But he indulges in it to excess; he uses it in large masses, and unsubdued; and then it is a law of Nature, a law as universal as that of gravitation, that he shall not be able to enjoy it so much as if he had used it in less quantity. His eye is jaded and satiated, and the blue and red have life in them no more. He tries to paint them bluer and redder, in vain: all the blue has become grey, and gets greyer the more he adds to it: all his crimson has become brown, and gets more sere and autumnal the more he deepens it. But the great painter is sternly temperate in his work; he loves the vivid colour with all his heart; but for a long time he does not allow himself anything like it, nothing but sober browns and dull greys, and colours that have no conceivable beauty in them; but these by his government become lovely: and after bringing out of them all the life and power they possess, and enjoying them to the uttermost,-cautiously, and as the crown of the work, and the consummation of its

¹ [Capital 9 in the Ducal Palace: see Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. § 78.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]