and neck, gave me a sighing sense of rest. These were they who would have
stayed with me under the shadow of the
oaks while the blackbirds fluted and the south air swung the
cowslips. They would have walked with me among the reddened
gold of the wheat. They would have rested with me on the hill-tops and in
the narrow valley grooved of ancient times. They would have listened with me
to the sob of the summer sea drinking theland. These had thirsted of sun,
and earth,
and sea, and sky. Their shape spoke this thirst and desire like
mine--if I had lived with them from Greece till now
I should not have had enough of them. Tracing the form of limb and torso
with the eye gave me a sense of rest.

Sometimes I came in from the crowded streets and ceaseless hum;
one glance at these shapes and I became myself. Sometimes I came from the
Reading-room, where under the dome I often looked up from the desk and
realised the crushing hopelessness of books, useless, not equal to one
bubble borne along on the running brook I had walked by, giving no thought
like the spring when I lifted the water in my hand and saw the light gleam
on it. Torso and limb, bust and neck instantly returned me to myself; I felt
as I did lying on the turf listening to the wind among the grass; it would
have seemed natural to have found butterflies fluttering among he statues.
The same deep desire was with me. I shall always go to speak to them; they
are a place of pilgrimage; wherever there is a beautiful statue there is a
place of pilgrimage.

I always stepped aside, too, to look awhile at the head of
Julius Caesar. The domes of the swelling temples of his broad
head are full of mind, evident to the eye as a globe is full of
substance to the sense of feeling in the hands that hold it.