Of passion, of
physical excitement, they contain only just so much as stimulates the eye
to the finest delicacies of colour and form. These friendships, often the
caprices of a moment, make Winckelmann's letters, with their troubled
colouring, an instructive but bizarre addition to the History of Art,
that shrine of grave and mellow light for the mute Olympian family. The
impression which Winckelmann's literary life conveyed to those about him
was that of excitement, intuition, inspiration, rather than the
contemplative evolution of general principles. The quick, susceptible
enthusiast, betraying his temperament even in appearance, by his olive
complexion, his deep-seated, piercing eyes, his rapid movements,
apprehended the subtlest principles of the Hellenic manner, not through
the understanding, but by instinct or touch. A German biographer of
Winckelmann has compared him to Columbus. That is not the aptest of
comparisons; but it reminds one of a passage in which M. Edgar Quinet
describes the great discoverer's famous voyage.
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