_23rd._--To-day went over the Pinakothek (the new grand national picture gallery) with M. de Klenze, the architect, and Comtesse de V----. This is the second time; but I have not yet a clear and connected idea of the general design, the building being still in progress. As far as I can understand the arrangements, they will be admirable. The destination of the edifice seems to have been the first thing kept in view. The situation of particular pictures has been calculated, and accurate experiments have been made for the arrangement of the light, &c. Professor Zimmermann has kindly promised to take me over the whole once more. He has the direction of the fresco paintings here. * * * * * Society is becoming so pleasant, and engagements of every kind so multifarious, that I have little time for scribbling memoranda. New characters unfold before me, new scenes of interest occupy my thoughts. I find myself surrounded with friends, where only a few weeks ago I had scarcely one acquaintance. Time ought not to linger--and yet it does sometimes. Our circumstances alter; our opinions change; our passions die; our hopes sicken, and perish utterly:--our spirits are broken; our health is broken, and even our hearts are broken; but WILL survives--the unconquerable strength of will, which is in later life what passion is when young. In this world, there is always something to be done or suffered, even when there is no longer any thing to be desired or attained. The Glyptothek is, at certain hours, open to strangers _only_, and strangers do not at present abound: hence it has twice happened that I have found myself in the gallery alone--to-day for the second time. I felt that, under some circumstances, an hour of solitude in a gallery of sculpture may be an epoch in one's life. There was not a sound, no living thing near, to break the stillness; and lightly, and with a feeling of awe, I trod the marble pavements, looking upon the calm, pale, motionless forms around me, almost expecting they would open their marble lips and speak to me--or, at least, nod--like the statue in Don Giovanni: and still, as the evening shadows fell deeper and deeper, they waxed, methought, sadder, paler, and more life-like. A dim, unearthly glory effused those graceful limbs and perfect forms, of which the exact outline was lost, vanishing into shade, while the sentiment--the _ideal_--of their immortal loveliness, remained distinct, and became every moment more impressive: and thus they stood; and their melancholy beauty seemed to melt into the heart.