Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/288

270 Spanish wine on board a ship which had just come into port. It was on this spot that Romulus and Remus are said to have been found. Thus keeping, as it were, a double or treble festival, we revelled in the inspiration of art, of a mild atmosphere, and of antiquarian reminiscences.

20, 1787.

What at first furnishes a hearty enjoyment, when we take it superficially only, often weighs on us afterward most oppressively, when we see that, without solid knowledge, the true delight must be missed.

As regards anatomy, I am pretty well prepared: and I have, not without some labour, gained a tolerable knowledge of the human frame; for the continual examination of the ancient statues is continually stimulating one to a more perfect understanding of it. In our medico-chirurgical anatomy, little more is in view than an acquaintance with the several parts; and, for this purpose, the sorriest picture of the muscles may serve very well: but in Rome the most exquisite parts would not even be noticed, unless as helping to make a noble and beautiful form.

In the great Lazaretto of San Spirito, there has been prepared, for the use of the artists, a very fine anatomical figure, displaying the whole muscular system. Its beauty is really amazing. It might pass for some flayed demigod,—even a Marsyas.

Thus, after the example of the ancients, men here study the human skeleton, not merely as an artistically arranged series of bones, but rather for the sake of the ligaments with which life and motion are carried on.

When now I tell you that in the evening we also study perspective, it must be pretty plain to you that we are not idle. With all our studies, however, we are always hoping to do more than we ever accomplish.