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Then Brother Ambrose limned a wondrous fair city of gold with turrets and spires; and he inlaid blue for the sapphire, and green for the emerald, and vermilion where the city seemed aflame with the glory of God; but the angels he could not limn, nor could he set the rest of the colours as he saw them, nor the wall of stars on either hand; and Brother Ambrose fell sick because of the exceeding great longing he had to limn the Holy City, and was very sad; but our Prior bade him thank God and remember the infirmity of the flesh, which, like the little grey cloud, veiled Jerusalem to his sight."
Today no one knows how Brunelleschi was able to construct his great dome without centering, nor how Michaelangelo could limn his terrible figures on the wet plaster of the Sistine vault with such extraordinary swiftness and skill; but we have their testimony that they invoked and received divine aid.
There are women whose image cunning fingers may catch with brush and pigment and limn it on canvas; there are women whose image may be traced in burning words so that a vision of her rises before the reader or the hearer; and there are women whose beauty can only be told in music the subtle music that lies in vibrating strings, music into which a man can pour his whole soul and so make the world understand.
"He questioned Brother Ambrose of the matter, and when he heard the Vision, bade him limn the Holy City even as he had seen it; and the Precentor gave him uterine vellum and much fine gold and what colours he asked for the work.
The three other judges gave immediate orders to convey the viceroy on board ship, that he might be sent to Spain; justly fearing, if Gonzalo Pizarro should find him in custody on his arrival at Limn, that he would put him to death, or that the relations and friends of the commissary Suarez might kill him in revenge for the murder of that officer; as in either of which cases the blame might be imputed to them, the judges were much embarrassed how best to act in this delicate emergency, considering that if they merely sent the viceroy on board the fleet which lay at anchor off the harbour of Calao, he might be soon in condition to return in force against them.
Look at that sky; look at the river beneath which has turned to blood. Hark to the howl of the wind in the reeds and the cry of the birds we cannot see. Ay, and look at our shadows on the snow. Mine lies flat by a great hole, and yours rising against yonder bank is that of a hooded man with hollow eyes Death himself as I should limn him! There, it is gone!
The coquetry went out of it, and in its place there shone a great light of love which seemed to glorify it, and make it like that of the marble angel overhead. I could not help thinking that it must have been a touch of prophetic instinct which made the long dead Rademas limn, in the features of the angel of his inspiring vision, so strange a likeness of his own descendant.
"'Tommy Linn is a Scotchman born, His head is bald and his beard is shorn; He had a cap made of a hare skin, An elder man is Tommy Limn! "There was a sort of prophecy respecting my ancestor's descendants darkly insinuated in the concluding stanza of this ballad: "'Tommy Linn, and his wife, and his wife's mother, They all fell into the fire together; They that lay undermost got a hot skin,
Nevertheless I was of good courage, knowing the Lord's ways are not as ours; and mindful how Brother Ambrose held that inasmuch as the Heavenly City is laid with fair colours 'twere no sin to deem that a man may limn perfect pictures there, for the gift is from the Lord."
"Now, Marcus Bauer," he said, "I have done with you. See to it that you do not again break your plighted vows to my daughter! She is your wife. You are her husband. Not even death can divide you. Go!" His strong, splendidly molded face, massive and dignified, cast in lines that would have appealed to a sculptor who wished to limn the features of a patriarch of old, wore an aspect of settled calm.
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