In every angle of the palace there are
statues, and in every corner of the gardens one finds groups or single
figures. Ancient Rome had sixty thousand statues--a statue for every
thirty-three or thirty-four inhabitants; in Paris the proportion of
statues to the people is not so great, still there are a great many;
no city has had so many since antiquity; and that is why Paris always
reminds me of those great days of Greece and Rome when this world was
the only world.
When one tires of watching the sunlight there is no greater delight
than to become absorbed in the beauty of the balustrades, the stately
flights of steps, the long avenues of clipped limes, the shapely stone
basins, every one monumented in some special way. "How shapely these
gardens are," I said, and I fell to dreaming of many rocky hills
where, at the entrance of cool caves, a Neptune lies, a vase in his
arms with water flowing from it. Yesterevening I walked in these
gardens with a sculptor; together we pondered Carpeau's fountain, and,
after admiring Fremiet's horses, we went to Watteau's statue,
appropriately placed in a dell, among greenswards like those he loved
to paint. At this moment my meditation was broken.
"I thought I should find you in the museum painting, but here you are,
idling in this pretty alley, and in the evening you'll tell us you've
been working all day.
Pages:
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300