must
be as real as they are harmonious, because they have, as a matter of
fact, proved powerful as a firm bond of union between most different
natures.

ROME

Winckelmann was at last in Rome, and who could be worthier to feel the
influence which that great privilege is able to produce upon a truly
perceptive nature! He sees his wish fulfilled, his happiness
established, his hopes more than satisfied. His ideals stand embodied
about him. He wanders astonished through the ruins of a gigantic age,
the greatest that art has produced, under the open sky; freely he lifts
his eyes to these wonderful works as to the stars of the firmament, and
every locked treasure is opened for a small gift. Like a pilgrim, the
newcomer creeps about unobserved; he approaches the most sublime and
holy treasures in an unseemly garment. As yet he permits no detail to
distract him, the whole affects him with endless variety, and he already
feels the harmony which finally must arise for him out of these
infinitely diversified elements. He gazes upon, he examines everything,
and to make his happiness complete, he is taken for an artist, as every
one in his heart would gladly be.

In lieu of further observations, we submit to our readers the
overpowering influence of the situation, as a friend has clearly and
sympathetically described it.

"Rome is a place where all antiquity is concentrated into a unity for
our inspection. What we have felt with the ancient poets, concerning
ancient forms of government, we believe more than ever to feel, even to
see, in Rome. As Homer cannot be compared with other poets, so Rome can
be compared with no other city, the Roman country with no other
landscape. Most of this impression is no doubt due, it is true, to
ourselves, and not to the subject; but it is not only the sentimental
thought of standing where this or that great man has stood, it is an
irresistible attraction toward what we regard as--although it may be
through a necessary deception--a noble and sublime past; a power which
even he who wished to cannot resist, because the desolation in which the
present inhabitants leave the land and the incredible masses of ruins
themselves attract and convince the eye. And as this past appears to the
mind in a grandeur which excludes all envy, in which one is more than
happy to take part, if only with the imagination (indeed, no other
participation is conceivable); and as the senses too are charmed by the
beauty