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what the Venus is in sculpture."
"
Ha!" said he thoughtfully, "the Venus--the beautiful Venus?--the Venus
of the Medici?--she of the diminutive head and the gilded hair? Part of
the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be heard with difficulty,)
and all the right, are restorations; and in the coquetry of that right
arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all affectation. Give me the
Canova! The Apollo, too, is a copy--there can be no doubt of it--blind
fool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo!
I cannot help--pity me!--I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it
not Socrates who said that the statuary found his statue in the block of
marble? Then Michael Angelo was by no means original in his couplet--
'Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto
Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.'"
It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the true
gentleman, we are always aware of a difference from the bearing of the
vulgar, without being at once precisely able to determine in what such
difference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied in its full
force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt it, on that
eventful morning, still more fully applicable to his moral temperament
and character. Nor can I better define that peculiarity of spirit which
seemed to place him so essentially apart from all other human beings,
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