MARGARET said that in every important sense Byron was his very opposite; but Goethe hardly looked upon him as a responsible being. He was rather the instrument of a _higher_ power. He was the exponent of his period. SOPHIA PEABODY had been making a drawing of Crawford’s Orpheus at the Athenæum. It was here brought down for me to see. At Sophia’s request, MARGARET repeated a sonnet she had written on it. She recited it wretchedly, but the sonnet was pleasant. I spoke of Bode’s Essay on the Orphic Poetry, and sympathized in his view of the spuriousness of the Hymns. They might have been signed Orpheus, however, as other things were signed Hermes, simply because they were exponents of Orphic thought. MARGARET dilated on this Orphic thought. I quoted Proclus in his Commentary on Plato’s “Republic” as follows:— “Mars perpetually discerns and nourishes, and constantly excites the contrarieties of the Universe, that the world may exist perfect and entire in all its parts; but requires the assistance of Venus, that he may bring order and harmony into things contrary and discordant. “Vulcan adorns by his art the sensible universe, which he fills with certain natural impulses, powers, and proportions; but _he_ requires the assistance of Venus, that he may invest material effects with beauty, and by this means secure the comeliness of the world. Venus is the source of all the harmony and analogy in the Universe, and of the union of form with matter, connecting and comprehending the powers of the elements. Although this Goddess ranks among the supermundane divinities, yet her principal employment consists in beautifully illuminating the order, harmony, and communion of all mundane concerns.” I asked MARGARET if this was not something like her own thought,—this Venus, for example, was it not better than that we got from Greek art? She said it was the primal idea, but she did not attach much importance to chronology. Philosophy must decide the age of a thought. I gave her as good an abstract of Bode’s theory as I could. WILLIAM WHITE took the drawing of Orpheus from me, and, while speaking of its beauty, said it always made him angry to think of the deterioration of the human figure. He thought it ought to have been prevented, and that his ancestors had deprived him of his rights. Upon this, MARGARET entered into a lively disquisition upon masculine beauty. She said the best specimens of it she had ever seen were a Southern oddity named Hutchinson and some Cambridge students who came from Virginia. We lost a finer talk to-night through the inclemency of the weather. WHEELER was to have come with a great stock of information. Had he done so, I need not have quoted Bode or Proclus. CAROLINE W. HEALEY. April 23, 1841. IX. HERMES AND ORPHEUS. _April 29, 1841._