They are, I believe, highly esteemed. Some of them represent the fable of
Cupid and Psyche, which is probably the romantic invention of a literary period,
and cannot, I think, be reckoned as a genuine mythical product. But if you like
these wall-paintings we can easily drive thither; and you will then, I think,
have seen the chief works of Raphael, any of which it were a pity to omit in a
visit to Rome. He is the painter who has been held to combine the most complete
grace of form with sublimity of expression. Such at least I have gathered to be
the opinion of conoscenti.«
    This kind of answer given in a measured official tone, as of a clergyman
reading according to the rubric, did not help to justify the glories of the
Eternal City, or to give her the hope that if she knew more about them the world
would be joyously illuminated for her. There is hardly any contact more
depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of
knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.
    On other subjects indeed Mr. Casaubon showed a tenacity of occupation and an
eagerness which are usually regarded as the effect of enthusiasm, and Dorothea
was anxious to follow this spontaneous direction of his thoughts, instead of
being made to feel that she dragged him away from it. But she was gradually
ceasing to expect with her former delightful confidence that she should see any
wide opening where she followed him. Poor Mr. Casaubon himself was lost among
small closets and winding stairs, and in an agitated dimness about the Cabeiri,
or in an exposure of other mythologists' ill-considered parallels, easily lost
sight of any purpose which had prompted him to these labours. With his taper
stuck before him he forgot the absence of windows, and in bitter manuscript
remarks on other men's notions about the solar deities, he had become
indifferent to the sunlight.
    These characteristics, fixed and unchangeable as bone in Mr. Casaubon, might
have remained longer unfelt by Dorothea if she had been encouraged to pour forth
her girlish and womanly feeling - if he would have held her hands between his
and listened with the delight of tenderness and understanding to all the little
histories which made up her experience, and would have given her the same sort
of intimacy in return, so that the past life of each could be included in their
mutual knowledge and affection - or if she could have fed her affection with
those childlike caresses which are the bent of every sweet woman, who has begun
by showering kisses on
