These long-frocked guardians sit beside their playgrounds,
with noses in their breviaries, or they head processions of boys and
girls on the way to chapel, or they follow, two by two, behind a long
string of blue-checked aprons and severe felt hats, the uniform of the
motherless; or they teach the little vagrants by the hour--often it is
the only schooling that these children get.
But I never remember one of them carrying such a waif about in his arms,
nor one irradiated by such a flash of heavenly joy when some child, in a
mad frolic, saw fit to scrape her muddy shoes down the front of his
clean, black cassock.
The beatific smile itself was not altogether new to me. Anyone else can
see it who wanders into the Gallery of the Prado. It irradiates the face
of an old saint by Ribera--a study for one of his large canvases, and is
hung above the line. I used to stand before it for hours, studying the
technique. The high lights on the face are cracked in places, and the
shadows are blackened by time, but the expression is that of one who
looks straight up into heaven.
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