The Meek Man, Having
Howled Out His French Sentence, Sat Aghast, Stroking His Poor Hat,
While His Wife Opposite Was In Convulsions, And We All Agog.
The
gentleman then asked H. if she proposed sitting where she was, saying,
very significantly, "If you do, I'll put my hat there;" suiting the
action to the word.
We did not recover from this all the way to
Frankfort.
Arrived at Frankfort we drove to the Hotel de Russie. Then, after
visiting all the lions of the place, we rode to see Dannecker's
Ariadne. It is a beautiful female riding on a panther or a tiger. The
light is let in through a rosy curtain, and the flush as of life falls
upon the beautiful form. Two thoughts occurred to me; why, when we
gaze upon this form so perfect, so entirely revealed, does it not
excite any of those emotions, either of shame or of desire, which the
living reality would excite? And again; why does not the immediate
contact of feminine helplessness with the most awful brute ferocity
excite that horror which the sight of the same in real life must
awaken? Why, but because we behold under a spell in the transfigured
world of art where passion ceases, and bestial instincts are felt to
be bowed to the law of mind, and of ideal truth.
LETTER XLI.
DEAR: -
To-day we came to Frankfort, and this afternoon we have been driving
out to see the lions, and in the first place the house where Goethe
was born.
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