Page:Studies in the history of the renaissance (IA studiesinhistor01pategoog).djvu/186

164 light for the mute Olympian family. Excitement, intuition, inspiration, rather than the contemplative evolution of general principles, was the impression which Winckelmann's literary life gave to those about him. The quick, susceptible enthusiast, betraying his temperament, even in appearance, by his olive complexion, his deep-seated, piercing eyes, his rapid movements, apprehended the subtlest principles of the Hellenic manner not through the understanding, but by instinct or touch. A German biographer of Winckelmann has compared him to Columbus. That is not the happiest of comparisons; but it reminds one of a passage in which M. Edgar Quinet describes Columbus's famous voyage. His science was often at fault; but he had a way of estimating at once the slightest indication of land in a floating weed or passing bird; he seemed actually to come nearer to nature than other men. And that world in which others had moved with so much embarrassment, seems to call out in Winckelmann new senses fitted to deal with it. He is en rapport with it; it penetrates him, and becomes part of his temperament. He remodels his writings with constant renewal of insight; he catches the thread of a whole sequence of laws in some hollowing of the hand, or dividing of the hair; he seems to realise that fancy of the reminiscence of a forgotten