The Peris, the naiads, the fairies, the sylphs of ancient legend, the Muses of Greece, the Marble Virgins of the Certosa at Pavia, the Day and Night of Michael Angelo, the little Angels which Bellini was the first to put at the foot of his Church pictures, and which Raphael painted so divinely in his Virgin with the Donor, and the Madonna who shivers at Dresden, the lovely Maidens by Orcagna in the Church of San-Michele, at Florence, the celestial choir round the tomb in Saint-Sebaldus, at Nuremberg, the Virgins of the Duomo, at Milan, the whole population of a hundred Gothic Cathedrals, all the race of beings who burst their mould to visit you, great imaginative artists—­all these angelic and disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla’s bed, and wept!

PARIS, May 25th, 1839.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Cane, Marco-Facino
  Facino Cane

Tinti, Clarina
  Albert Savarus

Varese, Emilio Memmi, Prince of
  Gambara

Varese, Princess of
  Gambara

Vendramini, Marco
  Facino Cane

Victorine
  Lost Illusions
  Letters of Two Brides
  Gaudissart II