Therefore I Did Not Go A Step Beyond, But Sat
Down To Enjoy It, And When I Had Gazed Enough For One Morning I Turned To
Leave The Place.
There are never two works of equal beauty of any kind,
just as there are never two moments of equal pleasure:
Seize the one you
have, and make much of it, for such a moment will never return. In
walking away I frequently looked back - first at three or four yards',
then at ten yards' distance; gradually the proportions diminished, but
the great sweep of outline retained its power. At about thirty yards it
is remarkable how this noble work entirely overshadows the numerous
figures close to it. Upon each side of the gallery the wall is lined with
ranks of statuary, but they are quite lost as statuary, and seem nothing
more than wall decorations, merely curious castings put there to conceal
the monotony of the surface. Cleverly executed they may be, but there is
no other merit, and they appear commonplace. They have no meaning; the
eye glances along them without emotion. It always returns to, and rests
upon, the Accroupie - the living and the beautiful. Here is the difference
between genius and talent. Talent has lined the walls with a hundred
clever things, and could line miles of surface; genius gives us but one
example, and the clever things are silenced. Here is the difference
between that which expresses a noble idea, and that which is dexterously
conventional.
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