But I have ever loved you most where you stand a wistful Venus Anadyomene--
"Una donzella non con uman volto," as Politian confessed; for I know your
heart, Madonna, and see on the sharp edge of your threatened life, Ardour
look back to maiden Reclusion, and on (with a pang of foreboding) to
mockery and evil judgment. Never fear but I brave your story out to the
world ere many days. And if any, with profane leer and tongue in the
cheek, take your sorrow for reproach or your pitifulness for a shame, let
them receive the lash of the whip from one who will trouble to wield it:
_non ragioniam di lor_. For your honourable women I give you Ilaria,
the slim Lucchesan, and my little Bettincina, a child yet with none of the
vaguer surmises of adolescence when it flushes and dawns, but likely
enough, if all prosper, to be no shame to your company. As yet she is
aptest to Donatello's fancy: she will grow to be of a statelier bevy. I
see her in Ghirlandajo's garden, pacing, still-eyed, calm and cold, with
Ginevra de' Benci and Giovanna of the Albizzi, those quiet streets on a
visit to the mother of John Baptist.
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