o cunning, after being such a tragedy queen. The man on the
stage actually kissed her. Bob says they don't really kiss, though.
I'm sorry it's over. Oh dear! I don't like being alone in such a
crowd. Brother Bob wouldn't have let me come, I know, only he thought
I should meet the Davidsons. No matter: I'll never tell him. I do
believe Dick hasn't stayed, after all. I'll just put on my waterproof
and thick veil, and go home and have a good cry.
Oh, Mr. Livingstone, how you startled me! I had no idea you were here.
Yes, I am by myself: certainly you may escort me home. Take a walk in
this pouring rain? Why, it's all sunshine!
C.A.D.
NOTES.
Wellnigh half a century has elapsed since the discovery of the
beautiful Venus of Milo (the exact year was 1825), and yet now, for
the first time, the endless discussions regarding two doubtful and
interesting points in its history have been set at rest. These two
points are--first, the original pose of the statue; and, secondly, the
reason of its being armless. After so many years of dispute over
these questions, it occurred at length to M. Jules Ferry to do what of
course ought to have been done long ago--namely, go to the very spot
whence the statue was exhumed, and there talk with all the surviving
witnesses of the exhumation. M. Ferry not long since put his idea into
execution, went to Milo, took into consultation with him M. Brest,
son of the consul who procured the statue for France, and found and
cross-questioned two Greeks who were present at the unearthing of
the statue. M. Ferry has collected the details of his labors in an
elaborate communication to the Academie des Beaux Arts, but a brief
indication of the results obtained may be made as follows:
First, then, the Venus was found in 1825 at the foot of a little hill,
where it had been covered up by successive crumblings of the earth
above. The proprietor of the ground, wishing to clear a little more
of the soil for his planting, chanced to strike the statue with his
shovel. "It was on its base, erect," said the two Greek peasants to
the French minister. "With one hand she held together her draperies,
and in the other an apple"--the same, doubtless, that Paris had just
given her. Such, very briefly, is the clear, short, definite, decisive
story which puts an end to ten thousand disquisitions and hypotheses
about the pose. The evidence thus given is that of people who actually
saw what they describe. But,
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