The One Picture
That Holds Jane Addams
[image: "Fortitude," by Botticelli]
DURING the years when I visited European picture galleries, and perhaps definitely formed my tastes and convictions in matters of art, I was much attracted by the pictures of Botticelli. Out of all of them I care for most for the "Fortitude," a copy of which I have ever since kept in my room.
I see in it a tall, beautiful woman with a sensitive face, seated with a spectre across her knees, as if for a moment she were somewhat wistfully contemplating the mysteries of the inner life. She does not embody that fortitude which is ever self-confident and invincinble, ready to rush upon the gleaming spears of the enemey, but she portrays that truer fortitude which is filled with self-distrust and is alert to the ambushed dangers of the spirit.
-- JANE ADDAMS.
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