spect of his crime, thus strangely presented to
him in another of the many guises under which guilt stares the criminal
in the face. "Do not alter it! Chisel it, rather, in eternal marble!
I will set it up in my oratory and keep it continually before my eyes.
Sadder and more horrible is a face like this, alive with my own crime,
than the dead skull which my forefathers handed down to me!"

But, without in the least heeding Donatello's remonstrances, the
sculptor again applied his artful fingers to the clay, and compelled the
bust to dismiss the expression that had so startled them both.

"Believe me," said he, turning his eyes upon his friend, full of grave
and tender sympathy, "you know not what is requisite for your spiritual
growth, seeking, as you do, to keep your soul perpetually in the
unwholesome region of remorse. It was needful for you to pass through
that dark valley, but it is infinitely dangerous to linger there too
long; there is poison in the atmosphere, when we sit down and brood in
it, instead of girding up our loins to press onward. Not despondency,
not slothful anguish, is what you now require,--but effort! Has there
been an unalterable evil in your young life? Then crowd it out with
good, or it will lie corrupting there forever, and cause your capacity
for better things to partake its noisome corruption!"

"You stir up many thoughts," said Donatello, pressing his hand upon his
brow, "but the multitude and the whirl of them make me dizzy."

They now left the sculptor's temporary studio, without observing that
his last accidental touches, with which he hurriedly effaced the look of
deadly rage, had given the bust a higher and sweeter expression than it
had hitherto worn. It is to be regretted that Kenyon had not seen
it; for only an artist, perhaps, can conceive the irksomeness, the
irritation of brain, the depression of spirits, that resulted from his
failure to satisfy himself, after so much toil and thought as he had
bestowed on Donatello's bust. In case of success, indeed, all this
thoughtful toil would have been reckoned, not only as well bestowed,
but as among the happiest hours of his life; whereas, deeming himself to
have failed, it was just so much of life that had better never have
been lived; for thus does the good or ill result of his labor throw back
sunshine or gloom upon the artist's mind. The sculptor, therefore, would
have done well to glance again at his work; for here were still the