uence that rays
from those silent forms that stand ranged along the walls. Like the
moral prestige that might encircle the vital presence of divine beings,
we behold divinities represented in human shapes idealized into a
significance altogether irresistible. What constitutes that idealizing
modification we know not; but we feel that it imparts to the figures
an interest and impressiveness which natural forms possess not. These
sculptured images seem directly to address the imagination. They do not
suffer the cold and critical survey of the eye, but awaken an instant
and vivid mental consideration.

... It has sometimes been suggested that the superiority of the Greeks
in delineating the figure, arose from the familiarity with it which they
acquired from their frequent opportunities of viewing it nude,--on
account of their usages, costumes, climate, &c. This is too superficial
an account of that vital faculty of skill and knowledge upon this
subject, which was a part of the inherent capacity of the Greek.... The
outflow and characteristic exercise of Grecian inspiration in sculpture,
was in the representation of their mythology, which included heroes, or
deified men, as well as gods of the first rank. Later, it extended to
winners at the public games, athletes, runners, boxers;--but this class
of persons partook, in the national feeling, of a heroic or half-divine
superiority. A particular type of form, highly ideal, became appropriate
to them, as to the heroes, and to each of the gods. It may be added,
that a capacity thus derived from religious impressibility, extended to
a great number of natural forms, which were to the Greeks measurably
objects of a divine regard. Many animals as connected with the gods, or
with sacrifices, were sacred beings to them, and became subjects of
their surpassing gift in sculpture. In general, nature,--the visible,
the sensible, the actual, was to the Hellenic soul, Religion; as inward
and reflective emotions were and are, to the modern European.

[Footnote 55: A young writer of great cultivation and of uncommon
promise. His premature death occurred while on a tour in Europe. A
native of Philadelphia.]

* * * * *

=_Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862._= (Manual, p. 532.)

From "Autumnal Tints."

=_231._= DESCRIPTION OF "POKE" OR GARGET, (_Phytolacca Decandra_.)

Some which stand under our cliffs quite dazzle me with their purple
stems now, and early in