352 PRÆTERITA-II

manifested. Anything less than this, the mere acceptance of the sayings of Christ, or assertion of any less than divine power in His Being, may be, for aught I know, enough for virtue, peace, and safety; but they do not make people Christians, or enable them to understand the heart of the simplest believer in the old doctrine. One verse more of George Herbert will put the height of that doctrine into less debateable, though figurative, picture than any longer talk of mine:-

“Hast thou not heard that my Lord Jesus died?

Then let me tell thee a strange story.

The God of power, as he did ride

In his majestic robes of glory,

Resolved to ‘light; and so, one day

He did descend, undressing all the way.

The stars his tire of light, and rings obtained,

The cloud his bow, the fire his spear,

The heavens his azure mantle gained,

And when they asked what he would wear,

He smiled, and said as he did go,

‘He had new clothes a-making, here, below.’”¹

I write from memory; the lines have been my lesson, ever since 1845, of the noblesse of thought which makes the simplest word best.

118. And the Campo Santo of Pisa is absolutely the same in painting as these lines in word. Straight to its purpose, in the clearest and most eager way; the purpose, highest that can be; the expression, the best possible to the workman according to his knowledge. The several parts of the gospel of the Campo Santo are written by different persons; but all the original frescoes are by men of honest genius. No matter for their names; the contents of this wall-scripture are these.

First, the Triumph of Death,² as Homer, Virgil, and Horace thought of death. Having been within sight of it myself, since Oxford days, and looking back already over

¹ [The second and third verses of “The Bag.” Ruskin’s memory was only at fault in writing “The heavens” for “The sky.”]

² [Commonly ascribed to Orcagna: for references to the fresco, see Vol. XII. p. 146.]

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