X. THE SHRINE OF THE SLAVES 355

are, I think, symbols of the world, of the flesh, placed behind even the old Scripture studies. You remember Jerome’s early learning, and the vision that awakened him from Pagan thoughts (to read the laws of the True City) with the words, ‘Ubi est thesaurus tuus.’¹

186. “I have put these things down without trying to dress them into an argument, that you may judge them as one would gather them haphazard from the picture. Individually several of them might be weak arguments, but together I do think they are conclusive. The keynote is struck by the empty altar bearing the risen Lord. I do not think Carpaccio thought of immortality in the symbols derived from mortal life, through which the ordinary mind feels after it. Nor surely did Dante (V. esp. Par. IV. 27 and following lines). And think of the words in Canto II. 112:-

‘Dentro dal ciel della Divina Pace

Si gira un corpo nella cui virtute

L’esser di tutto suo contento giace.’

But there is no use heaping up passages, as the sense that in using human language he merely uses mystic metaphor is continually present in Dante, and often explicitly stated. And it is surely the error of regarding these picture writings for children who live in the nursery of Time and Space, as if they were the truth itself, which can be discovered only spiritually, that leads to the inconsistencies of thought and foolish talk of even good men.

“St. Jerome, in this picture, is young and brown-haired, not bent and with long white beard, as in the two others. I connect this with the few who have stretched their necks

‘Per tempo al pan degli angeli, del quale

Vivesi qui, ma non si vien satollo.’²

¹ [Matthew vi. 21.]

² [Paradiso, ii. 10: “Voi altri pochi, che drizzaste’ l collo....” (“Ye other few who have outstretch’d the neck timely for food of angels, on which here they live, yet never know satiety”).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]