rm. The other is a more lithe and agile
figure, and there is a quick fire in his countenance which might
overbalance the massive strength of his opponent.

Another cabinet--this is the far-famed Antinous. A countenance of
perfect Grecian beauty, with a form such as we would imagine for one of
Homer's heroes. His features are in repose, and there is something in
their calm, settled expression, strikingly like life.

Now we look on a scene of the deepest physical agony. Mark how every
muscle of old Laocoon's body is distended to the utmost in the mighty
struggle! What intensity of pain in the quivering, distorted, features!
Every nerve, which despair can call into action, is excited in one giant
effort, and a scream of anguish seems just to have quivered on those
marble lips. The serpents have rolled their strangling coils around
father and sons, but terror has taken away the strength of the latter,
and they make but feeble resistance. After looking with indifference on
the many casts of this group, I was the more moved by the magnificent
original. It deserves all the admiration that has been heaped upon it.

I absolutely trembled on approaching the cabinet of the Apollo, I had
built up in fancy a glorious ideal, drawn from all that bards have sung
or artists have rhapsodized about its divine beauty. I feared
disappointment--I dreaded to have my ideal displaced and my faith in the
power of human genius overthrown by a form less than perfect. However,
with a feeling of desperate excitement, I entered and looked upon it.

Now what shall I say of it? How make you comprehend its immortal beauty?
To what shall I liken its glorious perfection of form, or the fire that
imbues the cold marble with the soul of a god? Not with sculpture, for
it stands alone and above all other works of art--nor with men, for it
has a majesty more than human. I gazed on it, lost in wonder and
joy--joy that I could, at last, take into my mind a faultless ideal of
godlike, exalted manhood. The figure appears actually to possess a
spirit, and I looked on it, not as on a piece of marble, but a being of
loftier mould, and half expected to see him step forward when the arrow
had reached its mark. I would give worlds to feel one moment the
sculptor's mental triumph when his work was completed; that one exulting
thrill must have repaid him for every ill he might have suffered on
earth! With what divine inspiration has he wrought its faultless lines!
Ther