michelangelo painting

though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future:
its blue- where blue was visible- was mild and settled, and its
cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam
chilled it- it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning
behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a
golden redness.
I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped
once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it
was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to
a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival.
'Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,' said I; 'and
little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know
very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not
thinking of you.'
But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as
inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have