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Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2 by Harriet Beecher Stowe
page 49 of 423 (11%)
part, you have the body of the princess in all the desolation and
abandonment of death. The attitude of the figure is as if she had
thrown herself over in a convulsion, and died. The body is lying
listless, simply covered with a sheet, through every fold of which you
can see the utter relaxation of that moment when vitality departs, but
the limbs have not yet stiffened. Her hand and a part of the arm are
hanging down, exposed to view beneath the sheet.

Four figures, with bowed heads, covered with drapery, are represented
as sitting around in mute despair. The idea meant to be conveyed by
the whole group is that of utter desolation and abandonment. All is
over; there is not even heart enough left in the mourners to
straighten the corpse for the burial. The mute marble says, as plainly
as marble can speak, "Let all go; 'tis no matter now; there is no more
use in living--nothing to be done, nothing to be hoped!"

Above this group rises the form of the princess, springing buoyant and
elastic, on angel wings, a smile of triumph and aspiration lighting up
her countenance. Her drapery floats behind her as she rises. Two
angels, one carrying her infant child and the other with clasped hands
of exultant joy, are rising with her, in serene and solemn triumph.

Now, I simply put it to you, or to any one who can judge of poetry, if
this is not a poetical conception. I ask any one who has a heart, if
there is not pathos in it. Is there not a high poetic merit in the
mere conception of these two scenes, thus presented? And had we seen
it rudely chipped and chiselled out by some artist of the middle ages,
whose hand had not yet been practised to do justice to his
conceptions, should we not have said this sculptor had a glorious
thought within him? But the chiselling of this piece is not unworthy
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