Читать книгу The Life, Travels, and Literary Career of Bayard Taylor онлайн

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Them, who with artifice of ivy-leaf

Unsex the splendid loins, or shrink the frame

From life’s pure honesty, as shrinks a thief,

While stands a hero ignorant of blame!

“Each part expressed its nicely measured share,

In the mysterious being of the whole:

Not from the eye or lip looked forth the soul,

But made her habitation everywhere

Within the bounds of flesh; and Art might steal,

As once, of old, her purest triumphs there.”

This appreciation of the inner feelings of the sculptor and painter, is the more astonishing, because of the unusual disadvantages under which he first studied the works of the ancient masters. Aching limbs, bruised feet, and an empty stomach are not usually aids to the critic in forming a judgment of the symmetry or grace of any work of art. But his enthusiastic recitals of his visits to the celebrated paintings, show no less rapture when he saw them in fatigue and hunger, than when he looked upon them in rest and bodily satiety. Thus, most naturally, he became the companion and intimate friend of a large number of the European artists, and was sought and highly esteemed by all the American painters and sculptors whom he met in Europe. He understood them. He sympathized with their enthusiasm and sacrifices; while a great, cold world went by them without a comforting word or a smile of recognition.