Essays on Life 



highest rank can reach, and D'Enrico was not 

 more than a second or third-rate man. The 

 hood is like Handel's Truth sailing upon the 

 broad wings of Time, a prophetic strain that 

 nothing but the old experience of a great poet 

 can reach. The lips of the prophetess are for 

 the moment closed, but she has been prophesy- 

 ing all the morning, and the people round the 

 wall in the background are in ecstasies at the 

 lucidity with which she has explained all sorts 

 of difficulties that they had never been able to 

 understand till now. They are putting their 

 forefingers on their thumbs and their thumbs 

 on their forefingers, and saying how clearly 

 they see it all and what a wonderful woman 

 Anna is, A prophet indeed is not generally 

 without honour save in his own country, but 

 then a country is generally not without honour 

 save with its own prophet, and Anna has been 

 glorifying her country rather than reviling 

 it. Besides, the rule may not have applied to 

 prophetesses. 



The Death of the Virgin is the last of the 

 six chapels inside the church itself. The 

 Apostles, who of course are present, have all 



