It is with a full but humble heart that I thus venture to record my long
indebtedness, and pay this poor tribute, still fresh from the days of my
unquestioning hero-worship. It will serve, at least, to show my reader
(should I ever have one sufficiently interested to care) in what mental
latitudes and longitudes I dwelt, who was destined to such singular
experience--a kind of reference, so to speak--that he may be able to
place me at a glance, according to the estimation in which he holds
these famous and perhaps deathless names.
It will be admitted, at least, that my tastes were normal, and shared by
a large majority--the tastes of an every-day young man at that
particular period of the nineteenth century--one much given to athletics
and cold tubs, and light reading and cheap tobacco, and endowed with the
usual discontent; the last person for whom or from whom or by whom to
expect anything out of the common.
* * * * *
But the splendor of the Elgin Marbles! I understood that at
once--perhaps because there is not so much to understand. Mere
physically beautiful people appeal to us all, whether they be in flesh
or marble.
By some strange intuition, or natural instinct, I _knew_ that people
ought to be built like that, before I had ever seen a single statue in
that wondrous room.
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