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Within that sacred but graceless edifice, the rigors of the hour and occasion reached their climax. The shivering gas-jets lit up the austere pallor of the bare walls, and the hollow, shell-like sweep of colorless vacuity behind the cold communion table.

But it would be virtue terribly unrewarded, it would be virtue too austere for a person who sometimes flattered himself that he had taught himself stoicism. The minor luxury tempted him irresistibly, since the larger that of happy love was denied him; the luxury of letting the girl know that it would not be an accident oh, not at all that they should never meet again.

I cherish the image of thy purity in my bosom, that in my last hour, acceptable in thine eyes, my soul may leave my body." Thus did Dante impersonate the worship of Venus Urania, spiritual tenderness overcoming sensual desire. Thus faithful to the traditions of this great poet did the austere Michael Angelo do reverence to the virtues of Vittoria Colonna.

His tone was tender as a woman's. His ghostly face, disfigured by exhaustion, showed him absorbed in pity. Mary, standing near, longed to kneel down by him, and weep; but there was an austere sense that not even she must interrupt the moment of recognition. At last it came. Hester opened her eyes "Uncle Richard? Is that Uncle Richard?"

They have been aware that in describing it as they actually saw it, they would be regarded by some as gloomy fanatics, tinctured with insanity by the influence of some austere creed; and that others, of kinder nature, but whose sensibility has more of self-indulging refinement than tendency to active benevolence, would almost wish that so revolting an exhibition had never been made, though the fact be actually so.

Poverty of the most distressing sort, with sometimes the near prospect of a gaol, embittered the remainder of his life. Chill, backward, and austere with strangers, grave and imperious in his family, he was yet a man of very unusual parts and of an affectionate nature.

Felix Bonpre raised one hand with a slight gesture enjoining silence, and seemed wrapped for a moment in painful meditation. Angela looking anxiously up at him caught, not his glance, but that of Manuel, who smiled at her encouragingly. Presently the Cardinal spoke, gently and with a kind of austere patience.

She turned, and saw that his face no longer wore the austere expression which had made her miserable last night, and even during the meal this morning. 'Are we friends? he said, with the attempt at playfulness which always made him look particularly awkward. 'Of course we are, Monica answered, smiling, but not regarding him. 'Didn't he behave gruffly last night to his little girl?

I used to wander among those rigid corpses, and peer into their austere faces, by the hour. The later the time, the more impressive it was; I preferred the late time. Sometimes I turned the lights low: this gave perspective, you see; and the imagination could play; always, the dim receding ranks of the dead inspired one with weird and fascinating fancies.

But every man, happily for himself, has a material as well as an immaterial world with which he must be concerned. To transpose Bagehot's profound little saying, Each man dines in a room apart, but we all go down to dinner together. And though Holbein knew the pinch of narrow means, he had no lack of good cheer as well as austere food in his art.