other, the
Amore Greco, may be fitly described in these words of Landor:
"There is a gloom in deep love, as in deep water; there is a
silence in it which suspends the foot, and the folded arms and
the dejected head are the images it reflects. No voice shakes
its surface; the Muses themselves approach it with a tardy and
a timid step, with a low and tremulous and melancholy song."'

* * * * *

'The Sibyl I understood. What grace in that beautiful oval!
what apprehensiveness in the eye! Such is female Genius; it
alone understands the God. The Muses only sang the praises of
Apollo; the Sibyls interpreted his will. Nay, she to whom it
was offered, refused the divine union, and preferred remaining
a satellite to being absorbed into the sun. You read in the
eye of this one, and the observation is confirmed by the
low forehead, that the secret of her inspiration lay in the
passionate enthusiasm of her nature, rather than in the ideal
perfection of any faculty.

* * * * *

'A Christ, by Raphael, that I saw the other night, brought
Christianity more home to my heart, made me more long to
be like Jesus, than ever did sermon. It is from one of the
Vatican frescoes. The Deity,--a stern, strong, wise man, of
about forty-five, in a square velvet cap, truly the Jewish
God, inflexibly just, yet jealous and wrathful,--is at the
top of the picture, looking with a gaze of almost frowning
scrutiny down into his world. A step below is the Son.
Stately angelic shapes kneel near him in dignified
adoration,--brothers, but not peers. A cloud of more ecstatic
seraphs floats behind the Father. At the feet of the Son is
the Holy Ghost, the Heavenly Dove. In the description, by a
connoisseur, of this picture, read to me while I was looking
at it, it is spoken of as in Raphael's first manner, cold,
hard, trammeled. But to me how did that face proclaim the
Infinite Love! His head is bent back, as if seeking to
behold the Father. His attitude expresses the need of adoring
something higher, in order to keep him at his highest. What
sweetness, what purity, in the eyes! I can never express it;
but I felt, when looking at it, the beauty of reverence, of
self-sacrifice, to a degree that stripped the Apollo of his
beams.'

MAGNANIM