The Sanctuary of Montrigone - Page 2

Dear mamma has come. We felt sure she would, and that any little
misunderstandings between her and Joachim would ere long be
forgotten and forgiven. They are both so good and sensible if they
would only understand one another. At any rate, here she is, in
high state at the right hand of the bed. She is dressed in black,
for she has lost her husband some few years previously, but I do not
believe a smarter, sprier old lady for her years could be found in
Palestine, nor yet that either Giovanni d'Enrico or Giacomo Ferro
could have conceived or executed such a character. The sacristan
wanted to have it that she was not a woman at all, but was a
portrait of St. Joachim, the Virgin's father. "Sembra una donna,"
he pleaded more than once, "ma non e donna." Surely, however, in
works of art even more than in other things, there is no "is" but
seeming, and if a figure seems female it must be taken as such.
Besides, I asked one of the leading doctors at Varallo whether the
figure was man or woman. He said it was evident I was not married,
for that if I had been I should have seen at once that she was not
only a woman but a mother-in-law of the first magnitude, or, as he
called it, "una suocera tremenda," and this without knowing that I
wanted her to be a mother-in-law myself. Unfortunately she had no
real drapery, so I could not settle the question as my friend Mr. H.
F. Jones and I had been able to do at Varallo with the figure of Eve
that had been turned into a Roman soldier assisting at the capture
of Christ. I am not, however, disposed to waste more time upon
anything so obvious, and will content myself with saying that we
have here the Virgin's grandmother. I had never had the pleasure,
so far as I remembered, of meeting this lady before, and was glad to
have an opportunity of making her acquaintance.

Tradition says that it was she who chose the Virgin's name, and if
so, what a debt of gratitude do we not owe her for her judicious
selection! It makes one shudder to think what might have happened
if she had named the child Keren-Happuch, as poor Job's daughter was
called. How could we have said, "Ave Keren-Happuch!" What would
the musicians have done? I forget whether Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz was
a man or a woman, but there were plenty of names quite as
unmanageable at the Virgin's grandmother's option, and we cannot
sufficiently thank her for having chosen one that is so euphonious
in every language which we need take into account. For this reason
alone we should not grudge her her portrait, but we should try to
draw the line here. I do not think we ought to give the Virgin's
great-grandmother a statue. Where is it to end? It is like Mr.
Crookes's