Fingers cunning in art grew stiff with age.
Hearts full of glorious inspiration waxed dull and spiritless! One by one they all went the way which mortal feet must tread.
A terrible, a wonderful change came over the people.
Weighed down by this leaden grief, surrounded day and night by these speechless, motionless marble forms, which, although silent as the very clod itself, yet cried out unceasingly: “Give us more companions in these solitudes!” these unfortunate people almost turned to marble itself.
They became, in good sooth, brothers and sisters to the marble dwellers on this island.
At length the end came!
The last sculptor was laid upon the carved bier of the great white temple by the sea!
A silence so long, so deep, so dreadful, fell upon the people that it almost seemed their speech was lost forever.
Within the dark grottoes and bosky underwood, they crawled to hide away from the very light of day.
Their limbs, once so supple and elastic, ever ready to bear their owners over hill and across plain, delighting in the dance, inured to the race, now became heavy and slow.