ne; yet they do not show that
readiness for active service which is noticeable in the statues of
converging so closely as almost to meet above the deep-cut eyes. The
nose is straight, but blunter than is consistent with the Greek
ideal. Both cheeks and chin are delicately formed, but fuller than a
severe taste approves: one might trace in their rounded contours
either a survival of infantine innocence and immaturity, or else the
sign of rapidly approaching over-bloom. The mouth is one of the
loveliest ever carved; but here again the blending of the Greek and
Oriental types is visible. The lips, half parted, seem to pout; and
the distance between mouth and nostrils is exceptionally short. The
undefinable expression of the lips, together with the weight of the
brows and slumberous half-closed eyes, gives a look of sulkiness or
voluptuousness to the whole face. This, I fancy, is the first
impression which the portraits of Antinous produce; and Shelley has
well conveyed it by placing the two following phrases, 'eager and
impassioned tenderness' and 'effeminate sullenness,' in close
juxtaposition.[1] But, after longer familiarity with the whole range
of Antinous's portraits, and after study of his life, we are brought
to read the peculiar expression of his face and form somewhat
differently. A prevailing melancholy, sweetness of temperament
overshadowed by resignation, brooding reverie, the innocence of
youth, touched and saddened by a calm resolve or an accepted
doom--such are the sentences we form to give distinctness to a still
vague and uncertain impression. As we gaze, Virgil's lines upon the
young Marcellus recur to our mind: what seemed sullen, becomes
mournful; the unmistakable voluptuousness is transfigured in
tranquillity.

[1] Fragment, _The Coliseum_.

After all is said and written, the statues of Antinous do not render
up their secret. Like some of the Egyptian gods with whom he was
associated, he remains for us a sphinx, secluded in the shade of a
'mild mystery.' His soul, like the Harpocrates he personated, seems
to hold one finger on closed lips, in token of eternal silence. One
thing, however, is certain. We have before us no figment of the
artistic imagination, but a real youth of incomparable beauty, just
as nature made him, with all the inscrutableness of undeveloped
character, with all the pathos of a most untimely doom, with the
almost imperceptible imperfections that render choice reality more