I do not find,
in any of the representations of her, that her truly distinctive
character, namely, _forethought_, is enough insisted upon: Giotto
expresses her vigilance and just measurement or estimate of all things
by painting her as Janus-headed, and gazing into a convex mirror, with
compasses in her right hand; the convex mirror showing her power of
looking at many things in small compass. But forethought or
anticipation, by which, independently of greater or less natural
capacities, one man becomes more _prudent_ than another, is never
enough considered or symbolized.
The idea of this virtue oscillates, in the Greek systems, between
Temperance and Heavenly Wisdom.
SECTION LXIV. _Eighth side_. Hope. A figure full of devotional
expression, holding up its hands as in prayer, and looking to a hand
which is extended towards it out of sunbeams. In the Renaissance copy
this hand does not appear.
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.
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