The Extinction of a Lamp

Between Hilda and the sculptor there had been a kind of half-expressed
understanding, that both were to visit the galleries of the Vatican
the day subsequent to their meeting at the studio. Kenyon, accordingly,
failed not to be there, and wandered through the vast ranges of
apartments, but saw nothing of his expected friend. The marble faces,
which stand innumerable along the walls, and have kept themselves so
calm through the vicissitudes of twenty centuries, had no sympathy
for his disappointment; and he, on the other hand, strode past these
treasures and marvels of antique art, with the indifference which any
preoccupation of the feelings is apt to produce, in reference to objects
of sculpture. Being of so cold and pure a substance, and mostly deriving
their vitality more from thought than passion, they require to be seen
through a perfectly transparent medium.

And, moreover, Kenyon had counted so much upon Hilda's delicate
perceptions in enabling him to look at two or three of the statues,
about which they had talked together, that the entire purpose of his
visit was defeated by her absence. It is a delicious sort of mutual aid,
when the united power of two sympathetic, yet dissimilar, intelligences
is brought to bear upon a poem by reading it aloud, or upon a picture
or statue by viewing it in each other's company. Even if not a word
of criticism be uttered, the insight of either party is wonderfully
deepened, and the comprehension broadened; so that the inner mystery
of a work of genius, hidden from one, will often reveal itself to two.
Missing such help, Kenyon saw nothing at the Vatican which he had not
seen a thousand times before, and more perfectly than now.