Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/87



We must not be deceived by this good humour. Michael Angelo could not endure being ugly. To a man like himself, appreciating physical beauty more than any one, ugliness was a disgrace. We find traces of his humiliation in some of his madrigals. His sorrow was so much the more acute as, the whole of his life he was consumed with love, which does not appear ever to have been returned. Consequently he retired within himself, putting all his tenderness and troubles into his poetry.

The composition of verse—a pressing necessity with him—dated from his earliest years. He covered his drawings, letters and loose sheets of paper with thoughts, to which he afterwards returned and ceaselessly polished. Unfortunately, in 1518, he burnt the greater number of