The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1906-06-30

the real wall of a church in Milan.
Napoleon stabbed his horses in the
church. The horses kicked away much
of the painting. People from all lands
visit the old church every year and
as they study the beautiful faces now
grown dim they moralize about Napol-
con, about Da Vinci's peasants mother,
about times ravages and other things.
They might as we'll moralize over the
story Of Da Vinci's great model if they
knew it.
Here is the story. 1t applies to
every human being. You can make use
of it to yourself without going to the
church in Milan. The artist sought
to express the widest range of char
acter study in his great painting. La
boriously during many years he sought
and sketched types of men. The eleven
good disciples We're first painted, and
then Da Vinci began eagerly seeking
for face worthy to serve as a foun-
dation for his inspired portrait of
Christ. He found a face that pleased
him at last. 1t was that of a young
man singing in the Milan cathedral.
1t was beautiful face, breathing a
spirit of truth and of lofty idealism.
The young man gladly accepted the
honor offered him and posed for the
face that today looks out so calm and
gentle among the twelve disciples.
Only one face then remained to be
painted-that of Judas the traitor.
Throughout the jails and through
haunts of crime Da Vinci sought face
that should embody the hiG.cus .le-
pravity, the utter baseness of a spirit
that could betray the gentlest of men.
He found his model at last in prison
cell in Rome The face was not that
of an old man. But vice, evil thoughts,
evil living, gave it the stamp of sunk
en- humanity which the painter sought
That face was painted rs the face IF
Judas-and after the work was done
Da Vinci learned through an accident
that the young man who had posed
for the face of Jesus was the same as
he in the prison cell who had posed for
the face of Judas. A few years of
evil living had done the work. Such
change had been made in those few
years that the painter, himself, famil-
lar through long work with the moders
face, failed utterly to recognize it.
This story is often heard with in
credulity, but why should it be heard
with Incredibly? Can you recognize
a stream of pure spring; water after it
has run through the gutter of city?
Can you believe that the face twitch-
ing under the black mask as the hang
man mounts the scaffold was once the
face of pretty, young child loved by
it's mother and seeming in every mans
eyes the embodiment of permanent in
nocence?
Each city magistrate when he climbs
to his police court seat sees a row OF
unhappy women before him. They
vary in age from twenty to sixty. List
lessly he sentences these women
sometimes for drunkenness, sometimes
for Grimes" in which the responsible
-
miserable women be recognized by
those who knew her when her face re-
Elected Il pure mind? Not one, except
perhaps. some mother whose eyes see
through all the marks OF a hard world
and into the soul that can not be de-
s.royed.
Have you ever seen photograph OF
yourself made when you We're child
You have laughed at the old pictures
probably, at the old fashioned clothing
the best suit" with the wide black
braid Or the funny old dress. Look
again at the picture of your childhood
and look seriously. You will be a
fortunate man or woman if you can
look and not miss anything. Look
carefully at the eyes and the mouth
Study the expression. Do you find
none of the frankness, freshness, truth
woman who has devoted her life to
pleasure, to dismal social vanity, to
eager pursuit of worthless excitement
looks bitterly in her glass as the years
go by. Peace has gone. Youth has
been replaced not by calm, self-re-
specting age, but by bitter regret
which stains all the expression, dead
ems the eyes and makes the face look
out at it's owner as different from the
girl Of ten or fifteen years ago as the
face of Judas from that of Jesus in
the great picture of Milan.
The moral in the story of Leonardos
model does not apply to extreme cases
alone. 1t applies to the middle aged
man made hard-hard inside and out
by persistent, selfish hunting for mon
ey. 1t applies to the gourmet or gour-
mand who has devoted his intelligence
exclusively to the service Of his stom-
ach. 1t applies to the newspaper man
who thinks that journalism makes
men pessimistic, but who ought to
know that lack of sincere interest in
other men is what makes men pessi-
YniStic