Yet a kindness would touch the hidden springs of
his generosity as the staff of Moses did the rock of Horeb.
Toward the close of the Roman season, Brullof, growing more and more
moody, and becoming still more of a recluse, painted his last picture,
which showed how diseased and morbid his mind had become. He called it
"The End of All Things," and made it sensational to the verge of that
flexible characteristic. It represented popes and emperors tumbling
headlong into a terrible abyss, while the world's benefactors
were ascending in a sort of theatrical transformation-scene. A
representation of Christ holding a cross aloft was given, and winged
angels were hovering here and there, much in the same manner as
_coryphees_ and lesser auxiliaries of the ballet. A capital portrait
of George Washington was painted in the mass of rubbish, perhaps as
a compliment to Brown. In contradistinction to the portrait of
Washington were seen prominently those of the czar Nicholas and the
emperor Napoleon; the former put in on account of the artist's own
private wrong, and the latter because at that time, just after the
_coup d'etat_, he was the execration of the liberty-loving world.
In the spring the Russian artist gave up his studio, and went down
to some baths possessing a local reputation situated on the road to
Florence, where he died very suddenly. Much mystery overhangs his last
days, and absolutely no knowledge exists as to what became of his
vast property.
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