Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1901-06-13
Letter From Frank Harris
MUsEo CAPIToLlAM.

Inns 10 another famous palace OF
Conservstori which occupies the
other part of the square on the
famous Capitol Hill are two
places that to one who loves art,
brings the so-called cart heaven"
to earth and makes dreams reali-
ties. 1t is to these two places 1
generally go to spend my Sun
days. Perchance there are those
who would think it worldly to do
such things on the Lords day, yet
| can't help but think that if they
could but see and realize what
great truths, what great treasure
and what great helps these places
are, they too could be lead into
their sacred walls.
The first time one goes into the
Capitoliam, it matters not how
much they have read, seen or
heard, they feel that they are
truly Stones of a mammoth span"
| felt 80 little, so overwhelmed
the first day that l spent there /
thought it would be madness to
try to find out what this was or
what that was, but after about the
tenth visit l began to see that it
wasn't 30 hard after all.
Those old stone figures can in q
marvelously short time become
friends, and good friends--friend
that keep their mouths shut but
at the same time teach you and
teach you far better than they
could we're they to use words.
But to learn what they have to
say one has to go there day after
day, week after week and year
after year. One could spend a
life time in those two grand old
museums and never grow tired of
them and at each new visit some
thing they had not seen on the
last visit would greet them.
To men the key note of the
Capitoliam is reached in the "Hall
of the Dying Gladiator" The
statue from which the room gets
its name is SO we'll known that it
would be truly useless for me to
attempt to describe it, only will
say that it is much larger than l
had supposed it was, and it con-
tains moro life than one would
think it does after seeing the
many copies. In this room is the
Sumo" which Michael Angelo
considered the most beautiful
work of art in all the world and it
certainly is wonderful. It's tall
woman most marvelously sculp-
tured in the purest of marble and
as one stands and looks it seems
that the statue is going to step
down from its stone pedestal. 1t
has more life in it than any paint
ing ] have ever seen. Really
after one looks at it for q few
minutes you forget it is marble;
you forget it is work of art; you
stand there and wonder, "Well,
what are you going to say next"
and the longer you stand there
the more you are impressed with
the fact that it isn't marble. i
lift my hat to the unknown sculp-
tor of some two or three thousand
years ago who created that won
derful Juno. In the same room
is the Fawn of Pratitelers which
Hawthorne made famous in one
day by his story Of the Marble
Fawn. / liked it but to me it had
no place in the same company
with the Juno and the Dying
Gladiator. Another thing in the
room is little figure that 1 do
not know the name of, yet it is
something that speaks the loudest
of anything 1 have ever seen in
art. 1t is the figure of little
girl holding a dove 80 the snake
cannot catch it, yet when one
thinks that it is nearly 5000 years
old or over thousand years older
than Christ, one just begins to
realize the ages through which
that little stone figure has been
telling its story, and today the
story means just as much as it did
the day it was finished and its
story is just as we'll told and can
be just as we'll received. Itseems
strange, does it not, to think
that even 5000 years ago it was
some little child and a girl at