If We Have Been Pleased With Life,

If In My Youth I Had Realized That The Sustaining Splendour Of Beauty Of With Which I Was In Love Would One Day Flood Back Into My Heart, There To Ignite A Flame That Would Torture Me Without End, How Gladly Would I Have Put Out The Light In My Eyes.

I Am A Poor Man And Of Little Worth, Who Is Laboring In That Art That God Has Given Me In Order To Extend My Life As Long As Possible.

Do Not Fret, For God Did Not Create Us To Abandon Us.

I Sometimes Set Myself Thinking And Imagining That I Find Amongst Men But One Single Art Or Science, And That Is Drawing Or Painting, All Others Being Members Proceeding Therefrom.

Let Whoever May Have Attained To So Much As To Have The Power Of Drawing Know That He Holds A Great Treasure.