Still, I would not
have that admission get out and obtain general circulation. It
might be used against me as an argument that my artistic education
was grounded on a false foundation.
It was in Rome, while we were doing the Vatican, that our guide
furnished us with a sight that, considered as a human experience,
was worth more to me than a year of Old Masters and Young Messers.
We had pushed our poor blistered feet - a dozen or more of us - past
miles of paintings and sculptures and relics and art objects, and
we were tired - oh, so tired! Our eyes ached and our shoes hurt us;
and the calves of our legs quivered as we trailed along from gallery
to corridor, and from corridor back to gallery.
We had visited the Sistine Chapel; and, such was our weariness,
we had even declined to become excited over Michelangelo's great
picture of the Last Judgment. I was disappointed, too, that he
had omitted to include in his collection of damned souls a number
of persons I had confidently and happily expected would be present.
I saw no one there even remotely resembling my conception of the
person who first originated and promulgated the doctrine that all
small children should be told at the earliest possible moment that
there is no Santa Claus.
