Volume I Part 24 (1/2)
All undulates to lides or floats upon the soul's horizon, as soft as is consistent with perfectly distinct and filled-out forht see his pictures in e; but thou, Michel, didst look straight upwards to the heaven, and grasp and bring thine down from the very sun of invention
'How Raphael revels in the i was abstract or conscious Pantheisetes,--what need of life beyond the divine work? ”I paint,” said he, ”from an idea that comes into my mind”
'But thou, Michel, didst not only feel but see the divine Ideal Thine is the conscious monotheism of Jewry Like thy own Moses, even on the mount of celestial converse, thou didst ask thy God to sho his face, and didst write his words, not in the alphabet of flowers, but on stone tables
'It is, indeed, the two geniuses of Greece and Jehich are reproduced in these two us nature saw fit to wait but a very few years before using these ain, in sht? look at Michel; the Greek Mythology? look at Raphael Would you kno the sublime coexists with the beautiful, or the beautiful with the sublinant on the one side, with beauty and love harmonious and ministrant, but subordinate; or would you look at the other aspect of Deity?--study here Would you open all the founts of marvel, adher than the other; yet I a so poured out el He seems to remind of Mr E's view, and ask, ”Why did you not question whether there was not aught else? why not reserve sohold for ates of the mind to such tides of emotion?” But there is no reality or permanence in this; it is only a reminder that the feminine part of human nature elo excite allto such a physique an expression which coed in these powerful franity of one accustomed to command, and to command servants able to obey her hests
Who else could have so ani, but never heavy? The strong man is made sohe is The wide folds of the drapery, the breadth of light and shade, are great as anything in
”the large utterance of the early Gods”
'How they read,--these prophets and sibyls! Never did the always-baffled, always reaspiring hope of the finite to compass the infinite find such expression, except in the _sehnsucht_ of music They are buried in the volume They cannot believe that it has not soma, the link between the human and divine, matter and spirit Evidently, they hope to find it on the very next page I have always thought, that clearly enough did nature and the soul's own consciousness respond to the craving for ireat weakness to need the voucher of a miracle, or of any of those direct interpositions of a divine pohich, in common parlance, are alone styled revelation When the revelations of nature seeht it was the weakness of the heart, or the dog, which had such need of _a book_ But in these figures of Michel, the highest power seizes upon a scroll, hoping that some other mind may have dived to the depths of eternity for the desired pearl, and enable hi Now
'How fine the attendant intelligences! So youthful and fresh, yet so strong Soer for utterance before the thought be known,--so firreat the desire for sy eye, so intelligent in every feature, that they seem to divine the whole, before they hear it
'Zachariah is much the finer of the two prophets
'Of the sibyls, the _cuth in the feenius had notof faintness and aversion I cannot express The female breast looks hts, while this is so forest a hich I will not write
'The _Delphica_ is even beautiful, in Michel's fair, calm, noble style, like the ht_ in the casts I have just seen
'The _Libica_ is also rand Her adjuncts are adure, in the lowest pannel,--hat eyes of deep experience, and still unquenched enthusiasures at top are fiery with genius, especially the ht, if he did but kno to set about it As it is, all his strength may be wasted, yet he no whit the less noble
'But the _Persica_ is randeur of that wasted fraht has wasted the fresh juices of the body, and hardened the sere leaf of her cheek to parchment; every lineament is sharp, every tint tarnished; her face is seamed rinkles,--usually as repulsive on a wo at a woiven them their best dower, and Experience could prove little better than a step-dah aives her theyears Read on, hermitess of the world! what thou seekest is not there, yet thou dost not seek in vain
'The adjuncts to this figure are worthy of it On the right, below, those two divine sleepers, redee expectation in a robe of pearly sheen Here is the sweetness of strength,--honey to the valiant; on the other side, its awfulness,--of myriads of other th in this night's slu of it, wild-haired child of the lyre?
'I admire the heavy fall of the sleeper's luxuriant hair, which reht upon a sullen twilight
'The other figures, too, are full of augury, sad but life-like, in its poetry On the shi+eld, how perfectly is the expression of being struck hoiven! I wish I could have that shi+eld, in sole bloas needed; the hand was sure, the breast shrinking, but unresisting Die, child of e!
Let the blood follow to the hilt, for it is the sword of the Lord!
'In looking again, this shi+eld is on the _Libica_, and that of the _Persica_ represents conquest, not sacrifice
'Over all these figures broods the spirit of prophecy You see their sternest deed is under the theocratic forures
'When I first ca to the beautiful Raphael, and feared his Druidical axe But now, after the sibyls of Michel, it is unsafe to look at those of Raphael; for they seem weak, which is not so, only seems so, beside the sterner ideal
'The beauty of coreat, and you feel that Michel's works are looked at frag so naturally, does so easily justice to each part'
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