exhibition-hall as painter), "we moderns are, without contradiction,
stronger in criticism; though in practice we are, collectively and
individually, blockheads." Bouverot remarked that the Corinthian
columns might be higher. The Counsellor of Arts said that after all he
knew nothing more like this fine hemisphere than a much smaller one,
which he had found in Herculaneum molded in ashes, of the bosom of a
fair fugitive. The knight laughed, and Albano turned away in disgust
and went to the Princess.

He asked her for her opinion about the two temples. "Sophocles here,
Shakespeare there; but I comprehend and appreciate Sophocles more
easily," she replied, and looked with new eyes into his new
countenance. For the supernatural illumination through the zenith of
Heaven, not through a hazy horizon, transfigured, in her eyes, the
beautiful and excited countenance of the youth; and she took for
granted that the saintly halo of the dome must also exalt her form.
When he answered her: "Very good! But in Shakespeare, Sophocles also
is contained, not, however, Shakespeare in Sophocles--and upon Peter's
Church stands Angelo's Rotunda!", just then the lofty cloud, all at
once, as by the blow of a hand out of the ether, broke in two, and the
ravished Sun, like the eye of a Venus floating through her ancient
heavens--for she once stood even here--looked mildly in from the upper
deep; then a holy radiance filled the temple, and burned on the
porphyry of the pavement, and Albano looked around him in an ecstasy
of wonder and delight, and said with low voice: "How transfigured at
this moment is everything in this sacred place! Raphael's spirit comes
forth from his grave in this noontide hour, and everything which its
reflection touches brightens into godlike splendor!" The Princess
looked upon him tenderly, and he lightly laid his hand upon hers, and
said, as one vanquished, "Sophocles!"