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APPENDIX 119
angel holds a crown before her”-Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. § 85 (Vol. X. p. 399)-while the latter’s account is:-
“A youthful female figure, winged, soaring upwards towards a crown offered her by an angel.”1-Christian Art (vol. ii. p. 196).
We may add, however, Ruskin’s words on the virtue itself:-
“Of all the virtues, this is the most distinctively Christian (it could not, of course, enter definitely into any Pagan scheme); and above all others, it seems to me the testing virtue,-that by the possession of which we may most certainly determine whether we are Christians or not; for many men have charity, that is to say, general kindness of heart, or even a kind of faith, who have not any habitual hope of, or longing for, heaven.”-Stones of Venice, ibid.
This design was the first of these frescoes to be given in Fors, where it forms the frontispiece to the fifth letter (May 1871), which, while it contains no description of the fresco, deals with Wordsworth’s well-known line:-
“We live by admiration, hope, and love.”
Of these “three immaterial essentials to life” writes Ruskin there, hope is “the recognition, by true foresight, of better things to be reached hereafter, whether by ourselves or others; necessarily issuing in the straight-forward and undisappointed effort to advance, according to our proper power, the gaining of them.”
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DESPAIR
“A woman hanging herself, a fiend coming for her soul.”-Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. § 73 (Vol. X. p. 391).
Lord Lindsay gives a different account, saying:-
“She has hanged herself at the instigation of the devil.”-Christian Art (vol. ii. p. 196).2
1 [Rather by Christ, as the inscription tells us, which is thus given by Mr. de Selincourt (Giotto, p. 162):-
“Spe depicta sub figura hoc signatur quod mens pura
Spe fulcita non clausura terrenorum clanditur
Sed a Christo coronanda sursum volat sic reanda
Et in celis sublimanda fore firma redditur.”]
2 [A portion of the inscription can be made out, and supports Lord Lindsay’s interpretation. It reads: “Instar cordis desperati | sathan ducta suffocati | et gehenne sic dampnati | tenet | hec figura.”]
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
