ubtler
threads of temperament were inwoven in it, is proved by his romantic,
fervent friendships with young men. He has known, he says, many young men
more beautiful than Guido's archangel. These friendships, bringing him in
contact with the pride of human form, and staining his thoughts with its
bloom, perfected his reconciliation with the spirit of Greek sculpture.
A letter on taste, addressed from Rome to a young nobleman, Friedrich von
Berg, is the record of such a friendship.

*Words of Charlotte Corday before the Convention.

"I shall excuse my delay," he begins, "in fulfilling my promise of an
essay on the taste for beauty in works of art, in the words of Pindar. He
says to Agesidamus, a youth of Locri--ideai te kalon, horai te
kekramenon--whom he had kept waiting for an intended ode, that a debt
paid with usury is the end of reproach. This may win your good-nature on
behalf of my present essay, which has turned out far more detailed and
circumstantial than I had at first intended.

"It is from yourself that the subject is taken. Our intercourse has been
short, too short both for you and me; but the first time I saw you, the
affinity of our spirits was revealed to me: your culture proved that my
hope was not groundless; and I found in a beautiful body a soul created
for nobleness, gifted with the sense of beauty. My parting from you was
therefore one of the most painful in my life; and that this feeling
continues our common friend is witness, for your separation from me
leaves me no hope of seeing you again. Let this essay be a memorial of
our friendship, which, on my side, is free from every selfish motive, and
ever remains subject and dedicate to yourself alone."

The following passage is characteristic--

"As it is confessedly the beauty of man which is to be conceived under
one general idea, so I have noticed that those who are observant of
beauty only in women, and are moved little or not at all by the beauty of
men, seldom have an impartial, vital, inborn instinct for beauty in art.
To such persons the beauty of Greek art will ever seem wanting, because
its supreme beauty is rather male than female. But the beauty of art
demands a higher sensibility than the beauty of nature, because the
beauty of art, like tears shed at a play, gives no pain, is without life,
and must be awakened and repaired by culture. Now, as the spirit of
culture is much more ardent in youth than in manhood, the instinct of
which