weight made steadfast and immovable;
Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight'--et caetera

what do you think of a critic who says those lines are finer than
anything Shakspeare ever wrote?" A dim consciousness of danger for
Clive, a terror that his son had got into the society of heretics and
unbelievers, came over the Colonel,--and then presently, as was the wont
with his modest soul, a gentle sense of humility. He was in the wrong,
perhaps, and these younger men were right. Who was he, to set up his
judgment against men of letters, educated at college? It was better that
Clive should follow them than him, who had had but a brief schooling,
and that neglected, and who had not the original genius of his son's
brilliant companions. We particularise these talks, and the little
incidental mortifications which one of the best of men endured, not
because the conversations are worth the remembering or recording, but
because they presently very materially influenced his own and his son's
future history.

In the midst of the artists and their talk the poor Colonel was equally
in the dark. They assaulted this Academician and that; laughed at Mr.
Haydon, or sneered at Mr. Eastlake, or the contrary; deified Mr. Turner
on one side of the table, and on the other scorned him as a madman--nor
could Newcome comprehend a word of their jargon. Some sense there must
be in their conversation: Clive joined eagerly in it and took one side
or another. But what was all this rapture about a snuffy brown picture
called Titian, this delight in three flabby nymphs by Rubens, and so
forth? As for the vaunted Antique, and the Elgin Marbles--it might be
that that battered torso was a miracle, and that broken-nosed bust a
perfect beauty. He tried and tried to see that they were. He went away
privily and worked at the National Gallery with a catalogue: and passed
hours in the Museum before the ancient statues, desperately praying to
comprehend them, and puzzled before them as he remembered he was puzzled
before the Greek rudiments as a child when he cried over o kai hae
alaethaes kai to alaethaes. Whereas when Clive came to look at these
same things his eyes would lighten up with pleasure, and his cheeks
flush with enthusiasm. He seemed to drink in colour as he would a feast
of wine. Before the statues he would wave his finger, following the line
of grace, and burst into ejaculations of delight and admiration. "