ndred I reserved for my own immediate necessities: the
rest I mailed inside of the week to my father at Muskegon, where they
came in time to pay his funeral expenses.

The news of his death was scarcely a surprise and scarce a grief to me.
I could not conceive my father a poor man. He had led too long a life of
thoughtless and generous profusion to endure the change; and though I
grieved for myself, I was able to rejoice that my father had been taken
from the battle. I grieved, I say, for myself; and it is probable there
were at the same date many thousands of persons grieving with less
cause. I had lost my father; I had lost the allowance; my whole fortune
(including what had been returned from Muskegon) scarce amounted to a
thousand francs; and, to crown my sorrows, the statuary contract had
changed hands. The new contractor had a son of his own, or else a
nephew; and it was signified to me, with business-like plainness, that I
must find another market for my pigs. In the meanwhile I had given up my
room, and slept on a truckle-bed in the corner of the studio, where, as
I read myself to sleep at night, and when I awoke in the morning, that
now useless bulk, the Genius of Muskegon, was ever present to my eyes.
Poor stone lady! born to be enthroned under the gilded, echoing dome of
the new capitol, whither was she now to drift? for what base purposes be
ultimately broken up, like an unseaworthy ship? and what should befall
her ill-starred artificer, standing with his thousand francs on the
threshold of a life so hard as that of the unbefriended sculptor?

It was a subject often and earnestly debated by myself and Pinkerton. In
his opinion I should instantly discard my profession. "Just drop it,
here and now," he would say. "Come back home with me, and let's throw
our whole soul into business. I have the capital; you bring the culture.
_Dodd and Pinkerton_--I never saw a better name for an advertisement;
and you can't think, Loudon, how much depends upon a name." On my side I
would admit that a sculptor should possess one of three things--capital,
influence, or an energy only to be qualified as hellish. The first two I
had now lost; to the third I never had the smallest claim; and yet I
wanted the cowardice (or, perhaps it was the courage) to turn my back on
my career without a fight. I told him, besides, that however poor my
chances were in sculpture, I was convinced they were yet worse in
business, for which I equally