epressions
and swellings of the muscles, the slender shapeliness of the long legs
and springy feet, the back bulging with strong muscles above, and going
in, tight, with a magnificent dip at the waist; all impressions were
merged in a sense of ease, of suavity, of full-blown harmony. Here was
no pomp of anatomical lore, of cunning handicraft, but the life seemed
to circulate strong and gentle in this exquisite effortless body. And
the creature was not merely alive with a life more harmonious than
that of living men or carved marbles, but beautiful, equally in simple
outline if you chose that, and in subtle detail when that came under
your notice, with a beauty that seemed to multiply itself, existing in
all manners, as it can only in things that have life, in perfect flowers
and fruits, or high-bred Oriental horses. Of such things did the
under-strata of consciousness consist in Neroni--vague impressions
of certain bunches of grapes with their great rounded leaves hanging
against the blue sky, of the flame-like tapered petals of wild tulips in
the fields, of the golden brown flanks of certain horses, and the broad
white foreheads of the Umbrian bullocks; forming as it were a background
for the perception of this god, for no man or woman had ever been like
unto him.

Domenico remained silent, his arms folded on his breast; it was not a
case for talking.

But the young man who had read Cicero aloud at table had come up behind
him, and thought it more seemly to praise his patron's new toy, while
at the same time displaying his learning; so he cleared his throat, and
said in a pompous manner:--

"It is stated in the fifth chapter of the Geography of Strabo that the
painter Parrhasius, having been summoned by the inhabitants of Lindos to
make them an image of their tutelary hero Hercules, obtained from the
son of Jupiter that he should appear to him in a dream, and thus enable
him worthily to portray the perfections of a demigod. Might we not be
tempted to believe that the divine son of Semele had vouchsafed a
similar boon to the happy sculptor of this marble?"

But Domenico only bit his thumb and sighed very heavily.

IV

To the men of those days, which have taken their name from the revival
of classical studies, Antiquity, although studied and aped till its
phrases, feelings, and thoughts had entered familiarly into all life,
remained, nevertheless, a period of permanent miracle. It was natural,
therefore, to the