uth
in this one work--wherein likewise by long perusal and deep love of
'Paradise Lost,' the 'Comus,' the 'Lycidas,' and 'L'Allegro,' the
sculptor had succeeded even better than he knew in spiritualizing
his marble with the poet's mighty genius. And this was a great
thing to have achieved, such a length of time after the dry bones
and dust of Milton were like those of any other dead man."

Richard Greenough and the painter, Mr. Haseltine, were prominent figures
among the early American group of the nineteenth-century artists in
Rome. There came Emma Stebbins, who modelled a fine portrait bust of
Charlotte Cushman; and Anne Whitney, whose statues of Samuel Adams and
of Leif Ericson adorn public grounds in Boston; whose life-size statue
of Harriet Martineau is the possession of Wellesley College; and whose
"Chaldean Astronomer," "Lotus-Eater," and "Roma"--a figure personifying
the Rome of Pio Nono--reveal her power in ideal creation.

The name of Harriet Hosmer stands out in brilliant pre-eminence among
those of all women who have followed the plastic art. Her infinite charm
of personality seems to impart itself to her work, and she has the gift
to make friends as well as to call forms out of clay--the success of
friendship being one even more permanently satisfying. In her early life
as a girl hardly more than twenty, she sought Rome, living with art as
her chaperon. Her versatility, her picturesque individuality, and her
imaginative power all combined to win sympathetic recognition. Gibson,
whose guidance was particularly well adapted to develop her gifts,
received her into his own studio and took a deep interest in her work.
It was during the period of her early efforts that Hawthorne was in
Rome, and she is graphically depicted in his notebooks in her boyish cap
at work in the clay. Gibson was an artist, _con amore_, and Miss
Hosmer's joyous abandon to her art captivated his sympathy. "In my art
what do I find?" he questioned; "happiness; love which does not depress
me; difficulties which I do not fear; resolution which never abates;
flights which carry me above the ground; ambition which tramples no one
down." Master and pupil were akin in their unwearied devotion to art. Of
Gibson, whose absence of mind regarding all the details of life made him
almost helpless in travel and affairs, Miss Hosmer used gleefully to say
that he "was a god in his studio, but God help him out of it!" This
g