He lived and died with a deep sense of sin upon him, and on his death-bed he ordained that this token of him should go down to his posterity.

And my forefathers, being a cheerful race of men in their natural disposition, found it needful to have the skull often before their eyes, because they dearly loved life and its enjoyments, and hated the very thought of death." "I am afraid," said Kenyon, "they liked it none the better, for seeing its face under this abominable mask." Without further discussion, the Count led the way up one more flight of stairs, at the end of which they emerged upon the summit of the tower.
The sculptor felt as if his being were suddenly magnified a hundredfold; so wide was the Umbrian valley that suddenly opened before him, set in its grand framework of nearer and more distant hills.

It seemed as if all Italy lay under his eyes in that one picture.

For there was the broad, sunny smile of God, which we fancy to be spread over that favored land more abundantly than on other regions, and beneath it glowed a most rich and varied fertility.

The trim vineyards were there, and the fig-trees, and the mulberries, and the smoky-hued tracts of the olive orchards; there, too, were fields of every kind of grain, among which, waved the Indian corn, putting Kenyon in mind of the fondly remembered acres of his father's homestead.