Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare01fullrich).pdf/279

Rh as to remind you of the lioness in her lair, and suggest a word which I will not write.

‘The Delphica is even beautiful, in Michel’s fair, calm, noble style, like the mother and child asleep in the Persica, and Night in the casts I have just seen.

‘The Libica is also more beautiful than grand. Her adjuncts are admirable. The elder figure, in the lowest pannel, — with what eyes of deep experience, and still unquenched enthusiasm, he sits meditating on the past! The figures at top are fiery with genius, especially the melancholy one, worthy to lift any weight, if he did but know how to set about it. As it is, all his strength may be wasted, yet he no whit the less noble,

‘But the Persica is my favorite above all. She is the true sibyl. All the grandeur of that wasted frame comes from within. The life of thought has wasted the fresh juices of the body, and hardened the sere leaf of her cheek to parchment; every lineament is sharp, every tint tarnished; her face is seamed with wrinkles, — usually as repulsive on a woman's face as attractive on a man. We usually feel, on looking at a woman, as if Nature had given them their best dower, and Experience could prove little better than a step-dame. But here, her high ambition and devotion to the life of thought gives her the masculine privilege of beauty in advancing years. Read on, hermitess of the world! what thou seekest is not there, yet thou dost not seek in vain.

‘The adjuncts to this figure are worthy of it. On the right, below, those two divine sleepers, redeeming human nature, and infolding expectation in a robe of pearly sheen. Here is the sweetness of strength, — honey to the valiant; on the other side, its awfulness, — meat to