raised
too greatly. He carried with him to Europe just that knowledge of Nature
and that executive power which prepared him to take advantage of the aid
that all great Art was waiting to afford. Had he won "the large truth,"
he would have found the scope and purpose of his genius, as in America
he had found that of his talent. He would have seen his specialty to be
worthy of all reverence, for he would have attained to an appreciation
of the high possibilities of portrait-Art. There would have been
developed, under the influence of great principles, the power to make
_statues_ of great men,--colossal, instead of big,--reposeful, instead
of paralyzed,--grand, instead of arrogant,--statues worthy of the hand
that wrought the busts of Calhoun, Jackson, and Webster, worthy to rank
with the few mighty embodiments of power, the Sophocles, the Aristides,
and the Demosthenes. This he might have done; and this he may yet
accomplish.

THE AMBER GODS.

STORY FIRST.

_Flower o' the Peach._

We've some splendid old point-lace in our family, yellow and fragrant,
loose-meshed. It isn't every one has point at all; and of those who
have, it isn't every one can afford to wear it. I can. Why? Oh, because
it's in character. Besides, I admire point any way,--it's so becoming;
and then, you see, this amber! Now what is in finer unison, this old
point-lace, all tags and tangle and fibrous and bewildering, and this
amber, to which Heaven knows how many centuries, maybe, with all their
changes, brought perpetual particles of increase? I like yellow things,
you see.

To begin at the beginning. My name, you're aware, is Giorgione
Willoughby. Queer name for a girl! Yes; but before papa sowed his wild
oats, he was one afternoon in Fiesole, looking over Florence nestled
below, when some whim took him to go into a church there, a quiet place,
full of twilight and one great picture, nobody within but a girl and
her little slave,--the one watching her mistress, the other saying
dreadfully devout prayers on an amber rosary, and of course she didn't
see him, or didn't appear to. After he got there, he wondered what
on earth he came for, it was so dark and poky, and he began to feel
uncomfortably,--when all of a sudden a great ray of sunset dashed
through the window, and drowned the place in the splendor of the
illumined painting. Papa adores rich colors; and he might have been
satiated here, except that such things make you want more. It