Do you desire to rest eyes upon the noblest products of the hand of man? Go into the Land of Romance as we did, and wander among its castled hill-tops, its ruins of Empire, its cathedrals in the skill of whose exhaustless grandeurs Divinity breathes through genius. Meditate in reverence before the famous masterpieces of antiquity--the Venus of Milo--the silent agony of the Laocoon, the Hyperion Belvedere. Learn from Canova's pure marble, and Raphael's Chambers, and from Titian, and Tintoret, and the astonishing galaxies of intellect that shine in their constellations in the sky of the true Renaissance. Then you may say as I did, "At length, I am finding something great and best. The beautiful is the whole that mankind can directly apprehend, and as for other things hoped for, symbolism is the true outlet for his soul. Art is the union of this beauty and symbolism. No aspiration exists but can be expressed in pleasing forms." Does man desire God, he paints--O how raptly!--a saint; does he feel after immortality, he sculptures an ever-young Apollo. Looking to them, he has faith, as of an oracle, in their emblematic truth, and through them instructs the world. Art seemed to me then the Highest Thing. CHAPTER XIII. SOMETHING MORE OF QUINET? One evening as we sat on the Pincian Hill, in the semi-tropical garden, overlooking the domes and towers of the Imperial City, Quinet broke our silence, and surprised me by saying abruptly: "Let us go to England." "What for?" "Let us go; I wish to go." "But what is your press about England. I thought you hated the English." "I do not hate the English. Among whom are there more amiable friends, more beautiful women. I am seized with a wish to see that great people in their country." "You hated them some time ago." "In the present tense, that verb has with me the peculiarity of parsing itself negatively." I reflected a little on this change of opinion in Quinet, and its possible causes, till he again broke out abruptly: "Miss Carter gave me a message for you." The recollection of my conduct at Picault's sent a pang through me. "What is it?" I said. The tropical plants around us brought up vividly those at the ball. "I did not ask her,"--his voice was curious--"what it meant, but she desired me to say for her; 'I beg you to write me why you left the ball.'" "So you do her page-work," I returned, for I thought I could now divine the reason of his change towards the English. "Pretty work for a grown knight! If you know her so well, you know the picturesque groves of St. Helen's Island where she lives. Why stop at page-work? One would think with an enchanted isle, and an enchanting maiden, the Chevalier would find his proper occupation." Quinet changed aspect. "Do you not then admire her?" he advanced quickly, with uncontrollable feeling. "Not admire Grace Carter!" said I, for I felt as if I had done her injustice when I last left her,--"Yet no more than a friend, Quinet."