352 ST. MARK’S REST

yet also in Adam all die;¹ and this return to their earth is not in itself the coming of peace, but the infliction of shame.

At the lower edge of the marble pavement is one of Carpaccio’s lovely signatures, on a white scroll, held in its mouth by a tiny lizard.²

184. And now you will be able to enter into the joy of the last picture, the life of St. Jerome in Heaven.³

I had no thought, myself, of this being the meaning of such closing scene; but the evidence for this reading of it, laid before me by my fellow-worker, Mr. Anderson, seems to me, in the concurrence of its many clauses, irresistible; and this at least is certain, that as the opposite St. George represents the perfect Mastery of the body, in contest with the lusts of the Flesh, this of St. Jerome represents the perfect Mastery of the mind, in the fulfilment of the right desires of the Spirit: and all the arts of man,-music (a long passage of melody written clear on one of the fallen scrolls), painting (in the illuminated missal and golden alcove), and sculpture (in all the forms of furniture and the bronze work of scattered ornaments),-these-and the glad fidelity of the lower animals,-all subjected in pleasant service to the more and more perfect reading and teaching of the Word of God;-read, not in written pages chiefly, but with uplifted eyes by the light of Heaven itself, entering and filling the mansions of Immortality.

This interpretation of the picture is made still more probable, by the infinite pains which Carpaccio has given to the working of it. It is quite impossible to find more beautiful and right painting of detail, or more truthful tones of atmosphere and shadow affecting interior colours.

185. Here then are the principal heads of the symbolic

¹ [1 Corinthians xv. 22.]

² [Ruskin’s drawing of this is No. 189 in the Educational Series at Oxford (Vol. XXI. p. 152); here reproduced, Plate LXV.]

³ [Plate LXVI.; reduced by photogravure from the chromo-lithograph published by the Arundel Society. On the subject of the picture, see above, Introduction, pp. lv.-lvi.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]