'I have been studying Flaxman and Retzsch. How pure, how immortal, the language of Form! Fools cannot fancy they fathom its meaning; witless dillettanti cannot degrade it by hackneyed usage; none but genius can create or reproduce it. Unlike the colorist, he who expresses his thought in form is secure as man can be against the ravages of time.'
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'I went to the Athenæum in an agonizing conflict of mind, when some high influence was needed to rouse me from the state of sickly sensitiveness, which, much as I despise, I cannot wholly conquer. How soothing it was to feel the blessed power of the Ideal world, to be surrounded, once more with the records of lives poured out in embodying thought in beauty! I seemed to breathe my native atmosphere, and smoothed my ruffled pinions.'
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'No wonder God made a world to express his thought. Who, that has a soul for beauty, does not feel the need of creating, and that the power of creation alone can satisfy the spirit? When I thus reflect, the Artist seems the only fortunate man. Had I but as much creative genius as I have apprehensiveness!'
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'How transcendently lovely was the face of one young angel by Raphael! It was the perfection of physical, moral, and mental life. Variegated wings, of pinkish-purple touched with green, like the breasts of doves, and in perfect harmony with the complexion, spring from the shoulders upwards, and against them leans the divine head. The eye seems fixed on the centre of being, and the lips are gently parted, as if uttering strains of celestial melody.'
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'The head of Aspasia was instinct with the voluptuousness of intellect. From the eyes, the cheek, the divine lip, one might hive honey. Both the Loves were exquisite: one, that zephyr sentiment which visits all the roses of life; the other, the Amore Greco, may be fitly described in these words of Landor: "There is a gloom in deep love, as in deep water; there is a silence in it which suspends the foot, and the folded arms and the dejected head are the images it reflects. No voice shakes its surface; the Muses themselves approach it with a tardy and a timid step, with a low and tremulous and melancholy song."'
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