And when they entered the hall and encountered the painting it was with a sense of anticlimax. Oh, the mystery of all deservedly famous achievements! How they always seem smaller than their fame suggests! How it is that they do not perform instant miracles on the first encounter! That they don’t make the senses jump, and don’t burst into song like the ancient oracles when the mood of Apollo had seized their hidden sibyls!
Deservedly famous achievements are always smaller than their fame, and vaster. Upon greater study and immersion into their powers they always seem to be even more famous than they at first appeared. So it was when the crew first saw Poussin’s Les Bergers d’Arcadie.