Fili Hominis, Ecce Ego Tollo A Te Desiderabile Oculorum Tuorom In Plaga. Ezech. Xxiv. 16. How I Remember Cleaning That Strange Picture! I Had Been Deep In Duty For My Sick Neighbour - His Besides My Own Over Several Sundays, Often, Too, In The Week; So With Parish Pressures, Baptisms, Burials, Doctorings, Conjugal Counsel - All The Whatnots Asked Of A Rural Parson - Faith, I Was Well-Nigh Broken, Should Have Been Fully Saving For One Small Secret Relaxation, One That In Mounting Manhood Had Grown My Hobby. This Was To Delve At Whiles For Easel-Lumber, Stowed In The Backmost Slums Of A Soon-Reached City, Merely On Chance To Uncloak Some Worthy Canvas, Panel, Or Plaque, Blacked Blind By Uncouth Adventure, Yet Under All Concealing A Precious Art-Feat. Such I Had Found Not Yet. My Latest Capture Came From The Rooms Of A Trader In Ancient House-Gear Who Had No Scent Of Beauty Or Soul For Brushcraft. Only A Tittle Cost It Murked With Grime-Films, Gatherings Of Slow Years, Thick-Varnished Over, Never A Feature Manifest Of Man'S Painting. So, One Saturday, Time Ticking Hard On Midnight Ere An Hour Subserved, I Set Me Upon It. Long With Coiled-Up Sleeves I Cleaned And Yet Cleaned, Till A First Fresh Spot, A High Light, Looked Forth, Then Another, Like Fair Flesh, And Another; Then A Curve, A Nostril, And Next A Finger, Tapering, Shapely, Significantly Pointing Slantwise. "Flemish?" I Said. "Nay, Spanish . . . But, Nay, Italian!" - Then Meseemed It The Guise Of The Ranker Venus, Named Of Some Astarte, Of Some Cotytto. Down I Knelt Before It And Kissed The Panel, Drunk With The Lure Of Love'S Inhibited Dreamings. Till The Dawn I Rubbed, When There Gazed Up At Me A Hag, That Had Slowly Emerged From Under My Hands There, Pointing The Slanted Finger Towards A Bosom Eaten Away Of A Rot From The Lusts Of A Lifetime . . . - I Could Have Ended Myself In Heart-Shook Horror. Stunned I Sat Till Roused By A Clear-Voiced Bell-Chime, Fresh And Sweet As The Dew-Fleece Under My Luthern. It Was The Matin Service Calling To Me From The Adjacent Steeple.