I mean to leave off speaking of the Venus
hereafter, in utter despair of saying what I wish; especially as the
contemplation of the statue will refine and elevate my taste, and make it
continually more difficult to express my sense of its excellence, as the
perception of it grows upon one. If at any time I become less sensible
of it, it will be my deterioration, not any defect in the statue.
I looked at many of the pictures, and found myself in a favorable mood
for enjoying them. It seems to me that a work of art is entitled to
credit for all that it makes us feel in our best moments; and we must
judge of its merits by the impression it then makes, and not by the
coldness and insensibility of our less genial moods.
After leaving the Uffizi Palace, . . . . I went into the Museum of
Natural History, near the Pitti Palace. It is a very good collection of
almost everything that Nature has made,--or exquisite copies of what she
has made,--stones, shells, vegetables, insects, fishes, animals, man; the
greatest wonders of the museum being some models in wax of all parts of
the human frame.
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