George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[45] prevent him from ever fully publishing all he thinks and feels on either of them. But he is a man of wisely liberal views in politics, I should think, and a sincere Catholic in his faith. His temperament leads him to live much and quietly in the country, where he occupies himself with agriculture and botany, with poetry and literature. He is rich already, and on the death of his aged uncle, the present Marquis Beccaria, he will be master of a large fortune; though I think this will hardly much affect his habits or his modes of life, which will always be determined by his original character. He is of middling size, and his hair is quite gray, so that he looks older than he is; he stutters a very little, and he takes snuff freely. He is simple, frank, and ardent,—at least sometimes ardent in his manner,—and left with me not only a strong impression of his talent, but of his excellent and faithful character. . . . .

October 10.—. . . . . To the Brera we next went. . . . . Most of its halls are not well enough lighted, but the three pictures that are best worth seeing are in very good positions. They are Raffaelle's Sposalizio,—a work of his youth, which, notwithstanding its grace and sweetness, has so many awkward parts about it, that it cannot be looked at with great pleasure; Guido's Peter and Paul in Discussion about the Gentiles, a grand picture full of deep meaning; and Guercino's Hagar sent away by Abraham, in which the severity of the patriarch, the half-concealed triumph of Sarah, and the broken-hearted expression of the beautiful victim, who hesitates yet an instant to believe or obey the cruel command for her exile, produce altogether an effect which places it among the very first pictures in the world. I was glad to find that the beautiful Hagar was quite fresh in my recollection after an interval of nearly twenty years. . . . .

October 11.—We passed the forenoon in the cathedral, which, in fact, I visit every day; but which we to-day examined in some detail. It is a magnificent structure, inferior in size only to St. Peter's and St. Paul's, and built of solid marble in all its architecture and ornaments, from the foundation-stone to the pinnacle . . . . . This is precisely one of the buildings where you care nothing about the details, though I must needs say I do not like the doors and windows on the front, or the magnificent granite pillars on the inside of the principal entrance, because they are of Roman architecture and contradict the rest of the fabric. Still, after all, you do not think of these incongruities when you are there, for they are lost in the effect of the whole. Its vastness, its gorgeousness, and the richness of the dim light by which it is seen, give it full power over the imagination.