Take away the tied tendons that all over seem bursting
from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its charm would be gone.
As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the naked corpse
of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the man,
that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even
God the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there.
And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in the Son,
the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which
his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures,
so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power,
but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance,
which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical
virtues of his teachings.
Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether
wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood
it be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace.
Therein no fairy's arm can transcend it.
Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a
fin for progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle;
Third, in sweeping; Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes.
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