patient and expectant nature that it needed no more in heaven. This is
the transcendental view of the meaning of those sculptures. I do not
dwell upon it. What I do lean upon is their purely naturalistic and
vital power. They are all portraits--unknown, most of them, I believe,
--but palpably and unmistakeably portraits, if not taken from the actual
person for whom the statue stands, at all events studied from some
living person whose features might fairly represent those of the king
or saint intended. Several of them I suppose to be authentic: there is
one of a queen, who has evidently, while she lived, been notable for
her bright black eyes. The sculptor has cut the iris deep into the
stone, and her dark eyes are still suggested with her smile.

There is another thing I wish you to notice specially in these statues
--the way in which the floral moulding is associated with the vertical
lines of the figure. You have thus the utmost complexity and richness
of curvature set side by side with the pure and delicate parallel
lines, and both the characters gain in interest and beauty; but there
is deeper significance in the thing than that of mere effect in
composition; significance not intended on the part of the sculptor, but
all the more valuable because unintentional. I mean the close
association of the beauty of lower nature in animals and flowers, with
the beauty of higher nature in human form. You never get this in Greek
work. Greek statues are always isolated; blank fields of stone, or
depths of shadow, relieving the form of the statue, as the world of
lower nature which they despised retired in darkness from their hearts.
Here, the clothed figure seems the type of the Christian spirit--in
many respects feebler and more contracted--but purer; clothed in its
white robes and crown, and with the riches of all creation at its side.

The next step in the change will be set before you in a moment, merely