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[218]

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.

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