I was confounded by this assertion, for only a short time before I had been looking at the copperplates in Fabroni, which I immediately brought forward and opened. I find no trace in the statues of raging horror and death, but rather the greatest subordination of tragical situation under the highest ideas of dignity, nobleness, beauty, and simplicity. I trace everywhere the artistic purpose to dispose the limbs agreeably and gracefully. The character is expressed only in the most general lines, which run through the work like a sort of ideal skeleton. _He._--Let us turn to the bas-reliefs, which we shall find at the end of the book. We turned to them. _I._--Of anything horrible, to speak truly, I see no trace here either. Where is this rage of horror and death? I see figures so artfully interwoven, so happily placed against or extended upon each other, that while they remind me of a mournful destiny, they give room at the same time for the most charming imaginations. All that is characteristic is tempered, the violent is elevated, and I might say that Character lies at the foundation; upon it rest simplicity and dignity; the highest aim of art is beauty and its last effect the feeling of pleasure. The agreeable, which may not be immediately united with the characteristic, comes remarkably before our eyes in these sarcophagi. Are not the dead sons and daughters of Niobe here made use of as ornaments? This is the highest luxury of art; she adorns no longer with flowers and fruits, but with the corpses of men, with the greatest misfortune that can befall a father or mother, to see a blooming family all at once snatched away. Yes, the beauteous genius who stands beside the grave, his torch reversed, has stood beside the artist as he invented and perfected, and over his earthly greatness has breathed a heavenly grace. My guest looked at me with a smile, and shrugged his shoulders. Alas,--said he, as I concluded,--alas, I see plainly that we can never agree. What a pity that a man of your acquirements, of your sense, will not perceive that these are all empty words; that to a man of understanding Beauty and Ideal must always be a dream which he cannot translate into reality, but finds to be in direct opposition to it.... _I._--Will you allow me also to put in a word? _The guest_ (somewhat scornfully.)--With all my heart, and I hope nothing about mere phantoms. _I._--I have some acquaintance with the poetry of the ancients, but have little knowledge of the plastic arts. _Guest._--That I regret; for in that case we can hardly come to an understanding. _I._--And yet the fine arts are nearly related, and the friends of the separate arts should not misunderstand each other. _Uncle._--Let us hear what you have to say. _I._--The old tragic writers dealt with the stuff in which they worked in the same way as the plastic artists, unless these engravings, representing the family of Niobe, give an altogether false impression of the original.