The Innocents Abroad


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forth in barbarous English in the same advertisement. Wouldn't you have  
supposed that the adventurous linguist who framed the card would have  
known enough to submit it to that clergyman before he sent it to the  
printer?  
Here in Milan, in an ancient tumble-down ruin of a church, is the  
mournful wreck of the most celebrated painting in the world--"The Last  
Supper," by Leonardo da Vinci. We are not infallible judges of pictures,  
but of course we went there to see this wonderful painting, once so  
beautiful, always so worshipped by masters in art, and forever to be  
famous in song and story. And the first thing that occurred was the  
infliction on us of a placard fairly reeking with wretched English. Take  
a morsel of it: "Bartholomew (that is the first figure on the left hand  
side at the spectator,) uncertain and doubtful about what he thinks to  
have heard, and upon which he wants to be assured by himself at Christ  
and by no others."  
Good, isn't it? And then Peter is described as "argumenting in a  
threatening and angrily condition at Judas Iscariot."  
This paragraph recalls the picture. "The Last Supper" is painted on the  
dilapidated wall of what was a little chapel attached to the main church  
in ancient times, I suppose. It is battered and scarred in every  
direction, and stained and discolored by time, and Napoleon's horses  
kicked the legs off most the disciples when they (the horses, not the  
disciples,) were stabled there more than half a century ago.  
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210 211 212 213 214

Quick Jump
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