ade indolence and indifference the envied condition of the godlike race;
merely human appellations for the freest and highest mind. As well the
material pressure of natural laws as the spiritual pressure of moral laws
lost itself in its higher idea of necessity, which embraced at the same
time both worlds, and out of the union of these two necessities issued
true freedom. Inspired by this spirit the Greeks also effaced from the
features of their ideal, together with desire or inclination, all traces
of volition, or, better still, they made both unrecognizable, because
they knew how to wed them both in the closest alliance. It is neither
charm, nor is it dignity, which speaks from the glorious face of Juno
Ludovici; it is neither of these, for it is both at once. While the
female god challenges our veneration, the godlike woman at the same time
kindles our love. But while in ecstacy we give ourselves up to the
heavenly beauty, the heavenly self-repose awes us back. The whole form
rests and dwells in itself--a fully complete creation in itself--and as
if she were out of space, without advance or resistance; it shows no
force contending with force, no opening through which time could break
in. Irresistibly carried away and attracted by her womanly charm, kept
off at a distance by her godly dignity, we also find ourselves at length
in the state of the greatest repose, and the result is a wonderful
impression for which the understanding has no idea and language no name.

LETTER XVI.

From the antagonism of the two impulsions, and from the association of
two opposite principles, we have seen beauty to result, of which the
highest ideal must therefore be sought in the most perfect union and
equilibrium possible of the reality and of the form. But this
equilibrium remains always an idea that reality can never completely
reach. In reality, there will always remain a preponderance of one of
these elements over the other, and the highest point to which experience
can reach will consist in an oscillation between two principles, when
sometimes reality and at others form will have the advantage. Ideal
beauty is therefore eternally one and indivisible, because there can only
be one single equilibrium; on the contrary, experimental beauty will be
eternally double, because in the oscillation the equilibrium may be
destroyed in two ways--this side and that.

I have called attention in the foregoing letters to a fact that can als