Note *154 — Chapter XXVII

It is a curious comment on this that a man like Mr. E.V. Lucas, certainly not "a connoisseur," tells us in his book, A Wanderer in London (Methuen, 1906), that he "once startled and embarrassed a dinner table of artists and art critics by asking which was the best picture in the National Gallery. On my modifying this terrible question to the more human form—Which picture would you choose if you might have one? and limiting the choice to the Italian masters, the most distinguished mind present named at once Tintoretto's Origin of the Milky Way.... After very long consideration," he continues, "I have come to the conclusion that mine would be Francesca's Nativity. Take it for all in all, I am disposed to think that Francesca's Nativity appeals to me as a work of compassionate beauty and charm before any Italian picture in the National Collection."