Note 4 — (First Pilgrimage.)

With another painting I was more at home—Rembrandt’s “Dissection.” It has been said by a connoisseur that—“the corpse is less an image of death than a vehicle of colour. It adjusts the equilibrium of warmth and coolness, and supplies a focus of brilliancy which irradiates the whole scene.” I doubt whether this picture was painted from life (I see I am infected by the neighbouring bull), for such a corpse has never come before me in the various dissecting-rooms which I have visited.