Judging from the muscles of the left shoulder the left arm must have been raised. Sometimes it has been claimed that the broken hand with the apple, which with other debris was found in the neighborhood, belonged to the statue; and that the apple being the emblem of Venus and at the same time that of the island of Milo as well, the statue represented the patron goddess of the island, but this is very doubtful. Archeologists are not in full accord upon this point for the mere reason that the fragment of the hand with the apple is of rough workmanship and is commonly judged as not worthy of the statue; at best it might be regarded as the work of an ancient restoration. All critics, however, are pretty well agreed that the right hand must have grasped for the falling garment, preliminarily held up by the raised knee. The Venus of Milo is at present the pride of the Louvre at Paris, and the place where she stands on account of her presence alone may be likened to an ancient pagan shrine, comparable to the room in the Dresden gallery where the Sistine Madonna stands, the latter being a Christian counterpart of the former. Our Blessed Lady of Milo, as we may call this beautiful representative of Greek paganism in imitation of Veit Valentin’s name _Die hohe Frau von Milo_, has always a group of admiring visitors sitting quietly before her, and there is often a hush in the room which recalls the sanctity of religious chapels attended by quiet worshipers. There is a sacred atmosphere surrounding the statue and even the hurried globe-trotter feels that he has come into the presence of some divinity that exerts her influence upon the world not by might, but by beauty, grace and loveliness. RESTORATIONS. Many attempts have been made to restore the statue of the Venus of Milo, and we here reproduce a number of them, but none of them have proved successful. It almost seems, as the German poet Heinrich Heine somewhere says, that the Venus of Milo in her helpless condition with her arms broken off appeals more to our sympathy than in her original condition of glory when she received the homage of faithful worshipers, and it is true the very mutilated form is extremely attractive in its present dilapidated state. Broken by fanatics of a hostile faith, she represents in dignity and beauty the natural charm of Greek religion at its best. The hordes of bigoted monks vented their hatred with especial wrath against the goddess of love and also against her son, Eros, as may be seen from a figure of this god represented in his daintiest youthfulness. Here too the marks of the clubs of a furious mob are visible, betraying the same spirit as in the treatment of the Venus of Milo. It is the fanaticism of ascetic frenzy in the bitterness [Illustration: A MUTILATED STATUE OF EROS.] of its wrath against nature in general and love in particular that showed itself in these iconoclastic demonstrations. [Illustration: VENUS WITH SHIELD AND PENCIL.]