Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/37

Rh of imposing them upon him had he decided to refuse them. But he dare not.

He was weak. He was weak in all ways: through virtue and through timidity. He was weak through conscience. He tormented himself with a thousand scruples which a more energetic nature would have rejected. Through an exaggerated sense of responsibility he felt himself obliged to undertake mediocre tasks which any foreman could have done better. He knew neither how to keep his engagements nor to forget them.

He was weak through prudence and through fear. The man whom Julius II. called “the terrible”—“il terribile”—Vasari styles as “prudent”—too prudent; and he “who frightened everybody, even the Popes,” had a fear of every one. He was weak with princes. And yet, who despised more than he did those who were weak with princes—“the pack-donkeys of princes,” as he called them? He wished to flee from the Popes, but he remained and obeyed. He tolerated insulting letters from his masters, and replied to them humbly. At times