The pavilion of Francis I. taken at
Pavia was of no secondary interest, and everywhere was personal and
national history told in the weapons and the armor of those who made the
history. Perhaps some time the peoples will gather into museums the pens
and pencils and chisels of authors and artists, and the old caps and
gowns they wore, or the chairs they sat in at their work, or the pianos
and violoncellos of famous musicians, or the planes of surpassing
carpenters, or the hammers of eminent ironworkers; but these things will
never be so picturesque as the equipments with which the military heroes
saved their own lives or took others'. We who have never done either
must not be unreasonable or impatient. It will be many a long century
yet before we are appreciated at the value we now set upon ourselves. In
the mean while we do not have such a bad time, and we are not so easily
forgotten as some of those princes and warriors.
XI
One of the first errors of our search for the Archaeological Museum,
promoted by the mistaken kindness of people we asked the way, found us
in the Academy of Fine Arts, where in the company of a fat and flabby
Rubens (Susanna, of course, and those filthy Elders) we chanced on a
portrait of Goya by himself: a fine head most takingly shrewd.
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