in clay or plaster, exhibiting the second stage of the
idea as it advances towards a marble immortality; and then is seen the
exquisitely designed shape of clay, more interesting than even the
final marble, as being the intimate production of the sculptor himself,
moulded throughout with his loving hands, and nearest to his imagination
and heart. In the plaster-cast, from this clay model, the beauty of
the statue strangely disappears, to shine forth again with pure white
radiance, in the precious marble of Carrara. Works in all these stages
of advancement, and some with the final touch upon them, might be found
in Kenyon's studio.

Here might be witnessed the process of actually chiselling the marble,
with which (as it is not quite satisfactory to think) a sculptor in
these days has very little to do. In Italy, there is a class of men
whose merely mechanical skill is perhaps more exquisite than was
possessed by the ancient artificers, who wrought out the designs of
Praxiteles; or, very possibly, by Praxiteles himself. Whatever of
illusive representation can be effected in marble, they are capable of
achieving, if the object be before their eyes. The sculptor has but to
present these men with a plaster-cast of his design, and a sufficient
block of marble, and tell them that the figure is imbedded in the stone,
and must be freed from its encumbering superfluities; and, in due time,
without the necessity of his touching the work with his own finger,
he will see before him the statue that is to make him renowned. His
creative power has wrought it with a word.

In no other art, surely, does genius find such effective instruments,
and so happily relieve itself of the drudgery, of actual performance;
doing wonderfully nice things by the hands of other people, when it may
be suspected they could not always be done by the sculptor's own. And
how much of the admiration which our artists get for their buttons
and buttonholes, their shoe-ties, their neckcloths,--and these, at our
present epoch of taste, make a large share of the renown,--would be
abated, if we were generally aware that the sculptor can claim no credit
for such pretty performances, as immortalized in marble! They are not
his work, but that of some nameless machine in human shape.

Miriam stopped an instant in an antechamber, to look at a half-finished
bust, the features of which seemed to be struggling out of the stone;
and, as it were, scattering and dissolving i