gold net, which looped back, from her forehead to her neck, hair the
colour and gloss of which were hardly distinguishable from that of
the metal itself, such as Athene herself might haveenvied for tint,
and mass, and ripple. Her features, arms, and hands were of the
severest and grandest type of old Greek beauty, at once showing
everywhere the high development of the bones, and covering them with
that firm, round, ripe outline, and waxy morbidezza of skin, which
the old Greeks owed to their continual use not only of the bath and
muscular exercise, but also of daily unguents. There might have
seemed to us too much sadness in that clear gray eye; too much self-
conscious restraint in those sharp curved lips; too much affectation
in the studied severity of her posture as she read, copied, as it
seemed, from some old vase or bas-relief. But the glorious grace
and beauty of every line of face and figure would have excused, even
hidden those defects, and we should have only recognised the marked
resemblance to the ideal portraits of Athene which adorned every
panel of the walls.

She has lifted her eyes off her manuscript; she is looking out with
kindling countenance over the gardens of the Museum; her ripe
curling Greek lips, such as we never see now, even among her own
wives and sisters, open. She is talking to herself. Listen!

'Yes. The statues there are broken. The libraries are plundered.
The alcoves are silent. The oracles are dumb. And yet--who says
that the old faith of heroes and sages is dead? The beautiful can
never die. If the gods have deserted their oracles, they have not
deserted the souls who aspire to them. If they have ceased to guide
nations, they have not ceased to speak to their own elect. If they
have cast off the vulgar herd, they have not cast off Hypatia.