To the same.
Wayland, 1873.
I thank you cordially for the Diana, which is full of life and spirit.
Spiritually, it is far inferior to the Venus of Milo, but it has an all-alive physical beauty which is charming.
Thank you, also, for the bas-relief from Thorwaldsen.
The little heads are delightfully child-like, but to my eye their perpendicular position conveys an idea of walking on the clouds, rather than that of floating, or flying.
As I never expect to see any of the galleries of sculpture, it is a great treat to me to form a small stereoscopic gallery of my own, which, with the aid of imagination, is almost like seeing the originals.
I agree with you that there are portions of the Old Testament too devout and sublime to be omitted in any Bible for the human soul.
But I do not remember anything in the New Testament so demoralizing as Lot and his daughters, Noah's drunkenness, Jacob's dishonest trickery, and David's conduct to Uriah.
I believe the constant reading of such monstrous things, as sacred writ, from God himself, has done much more to unsettle the moral principles of mankind than is generally supposed.