he influence of genius, his soul
was tormented with the desire of pouring out the numberless ideas and
thoughts which flooded his mind: at such moments one scarcely dared
approach him, awed, as it were, by the feeling of one's own nothingness
in comparison with his greatness. Again, the time to see him was when,
coming down from the high regions to which a moment before he had
soared, he became once more the simple child adorned with goodness and
every grace; taking an interest in all things, as if he were really a
child. It was impossible then to refrain from the contemplation of this
placid beauty, which, without taking away in the least from the
admiration which it inspired, drew one toward him, and made him more
accessible to one, and more familiar by lessening a little the distance
which separated one from him. But, above all, he should have been seen
during the last days of his stay in Italy, when his soul had to sustain
the most cruel blows; when heroism got the better of his affections, of
his worldly interests, and even of his love of ease and tranquillity;
when his health, already shaken, appeared to fail him each day more and
more, to the loss of his intellectual powers. Had one seen him then as
we saw him, it would scarcely have been possible to paint him as he
looked. Does not genius require genius to be its interpreter?
Thorwaldsen alone has, in his marble bust of him, been able to blend the
regular beauty of his features with the sublime expression of his
countenance. Had the reader seen him, he would have exclaimed with Sir
Walter Scott, "that no picture is like him."

Not only would he have observed in his handsome face the denial of all
the absurd statements which had been made about him, but he would have
noticed a soul greater even than the mind, and superior to the acts
which he performed on this earth; he would have read in unmistakable
characters, not only what he was,--a good man,--but the promise of a
moral and intellectual perfection ever increasing. If this progressive
march toward perfection was at one time arrested by the trials of his
life, and by the consequences of undeserved sorrow, it was well proved
by his whole conduct toward the end of his life, and in the last poems
which he wrote. His poems from year to year assumed a more perfect
beauty, and increased constantly, not only in the splendor of their
conception, but also in the force of their expressions, and their moral
tendency, vis