To weaken all orders of sentiment, to render them all equal in their abasement, to deprive beings of their autonomy, to remove from them their own particular soul, amounts to converting the world of spirit into the world of _nature:_ an unreal world, which has no existence save when we perform upon it this act of conversion, and in certain respects, the whole world becomes nature for Ariosto, a surface drawn and coloured, shining, but without substance. Hence his seeing of objects in their every detail, as a naturalist making minute observations, his description that is not satisfied with a single trait which suffices as inspiration for other artists, hence his lack of passionate impatience with its inherent objections to certain material. It may seem that the figure of St. John is drawn in the way it is, as a jest: Nel lucente vestibulo di quella felice casa un Vecchio al Duca occorre, Che'l manto ha rosso e bianca la gonnella, che l'un più al latte, l'altro al minio opporre; i crini ha bianchi e bianca la mascella di folta barba ch'al petto discorre ...[6] But the beauty of Olympia is portrayed in a like manner, forgetful of the chastity of the lady, which might have seemed to ask a different sort of description or rather veiling: Le bellezze d' Olimpia eran di quelle che son più rare; e non la fronte sola, gli occhi e le guancie, e le chiome avea belle, la bocca, il naso, gli omeri e la gola....[7] Finally, Medoro is described in the same way, Medoro whose brave and devoted heart and youthful heroism might seem to ask in its turn a less attentive observation of its fresh youthfulness: Medoro avea la guancia colorita, e bianca e grata ne la età novella.[8] ... The very numerous similes between the personages and the situations in which they find themselves and the spectacles afforded by the life of animals or the phenomena of nature, also form an almost prehensible and palpable part of this conversion of the human world into the world of nature. We shall not give details of it, for this has already been done in an irritatingly patient manner by a German philologist, whose cumbrous compilation effectually precludes one from desiring to dwell even for a moment upon Ariosto's similes, comparisons and metaphors.