His whole comportment is quite
exemplary. What irony that he should be unobserved! Even we,
posterity, think far less of St. Peter than of Bellini when we see
this picture; St. Peter is no more to us than the blue harmony of
those little hills beyond, or than that little sparrow perched on a
twig in the foreground. After all, there have been so many martyrs--
and so many martyrs named Peter--but so few great painters. The little
screed on the fence is no mere vain anachronism. It is a sly, rather
malicious symbol. PERIIT PETRUS: BILLINUS FECIT, as who should say.
`L'OISEAU BLEU'
A PAINTING ON SILK BY CHARLES CONDER
Over them, ever over them, floats the Blue Bird; and they, the
ennuye'es and the ennuyants, the ennuyantes and the ennuye's, these
Parisians of 1830, are lolling in a charmed, charming circle, whilst
two of their order, the young Duc de Belhabit et Profil-Perdu with the
girl to whom he has but recently been married, move hither or thither
vaguely, their faces upturned, making vain efforts to lure down the
elusive creature. The haze of very early morning pervades the garden
which is the scene of their faint aspiration. One cannot see very
clearly there. The ladies' furbelows are blurred against the foliage,
and the lilac-bushes loom through the air as though they were white
clouds full of rain.
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