{"id":"01KG8AN251QDZVRXPTZ8RHSX3R","cid":"bafkreiaqatbweusyphe2zggroqm4zl7z4ik7m4y7dd5wdqr66zjbtjwngm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":15559,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":15505,"text":"ascended the stairs.\r\n\r\nIn the anteroom, a catalogue was put into his hand. He paused to give\r\none hurried, comprehensive glance at it. Among long columns of such\r\nnames as Rubens, Raphael, Angelo, Domenichino, Da Vinci, all shamelessly\r\nprefaced with the words \"undoubted,\" or \"testified,\" Pierre met the\r\nfollowing brief line:--\"_No. 99. A stranger's head, by an unknown\r\nhand._\"\r\n\r\nIt seemed plain that the whole must be a collection of those wretched\r\nimported daubs, which with the incredible effrontery peculiar to some of\r\nthe foreign picture-dealers in America, were christened by the loftiest\r\nnames known to Art. But as the most mutilated torsoes of the perfections\r\nof antiquity are not unworthy the student's attention, neither are the\r\nmost bungling modern incompletenesses: for both are torsoes; one of\r\nperished perfections in the past; the other, by anticipation, of yet\r\nunfulfilled perfections in the future. Still, as Pierre walked along by\r\nthe thickly hung walls, and seemed to detect the infatuated vanity which\r\nmust have prompted many of these utterly unknown artists in the\r\nattempted execution by feeble hand of vigorous themes; he could not\r\nrepress the most melancholy foreboding concerning himself. All the walls\r\nof the world seemed thickly hung with the empty and impotent scope of\r\npictures, grandly outlined, but miserably filled. The smaller and\r\nhumbler pictures, representing little familiar things, were by far the\r\nbest executed; but these, though touching him not unpleasingly, in one\r\nrestricted sense, awoke no dormant majesties in his soul, and therefore,\r\nupon the whole, were contemptibly inadequate and unsatisfactory.\r\n\r\nAt last Pierre and Isabel came to that painting of which Pierre was\r\ncapriciously in search--No. 99.\r\n\r\n\"My God! see! see!\" cried Isabel, under strong excitement, \"only my\r\nmirror has ever shown me that look before! See! see!\"\r\n\r\nBy some mere hocus-pocus of chance, or subtly designing knavery, a real\r\nItalian gem of art had found its way into this most hybrid collection of\r\nimpostures.\r\n\r\nNo one who has passed through the great galleries of Europe,\r\nunbewildered by their wonderful multitudinousness of surpassing\r\nexcellence--a redundancy which neutralizes all discrimination or\r\nindividualizing capacity in most ordinary minds--no calm, penetrative\r\nperson can have victoriously run that painted gauntlet of the gods,\r\nwithout certain very special emotions, called forth by some one or more\r\nindividual paintings, to which, however, both the catalogues and the\r\ncriticisms of the greatest connoisseurs deny any all-transcending merit,\r\nat all answering to the effect thus casually produced. There is no time\r\nnow to show fully how this is; suffice it, that in such instances, it is\r\nnot the abstract excellence always, but often the accidental\r\ncongeniality, which occasions this wonderful emotion. Still, the\r\nindividual himself is apt to impute it to a different cause; hence, the\r\nheadlong enthusiastic admiration of some one or two men for things not\r\nat all praised by--or at most, which are indifferent to--the rest of the\r\nworld;--a matter so often considered inexplicable.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKHN2Y7S9TB0AHTHRD3XB","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN24VJEMKE7VEH6YE2Y4N","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AN24VZ7F1GAK0ABFE9WT0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:57.505Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:34.788Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}