to us--it is only as it
recedes into the distance that the mountain visibly overtops its
neighboring hills. It is difficult to understand that this man so lately
familiar to us, moving among us as one of ourselves, is of the company
of the immortals. Yet I believe, as we make this study of his works, as
we yield ourselves to the graciousness of his charm or are exalted by
the sweep of his imagination, we shall come to feel an assured
conviction that Augustus Saint-Gaudens was not merely the most
accomplished artist of America, not merely one of the foremost sculptors
of his time--we shall feel that he is one of those great, creative
minds, transcending time and place, not of America or of to-day, but of
the world and forever.

Where, among such minds, he will take his rank we need not ask. It is
enough that he is among them. Such an artist is assuredly a benefactor
of his country, and it is eminently fitting that his gift to us should
be acknowledged by such tribute as we can pay him. By his works in other
lands and by his world-wide fame he sheds a glory upon the name of
America, helping to convince the world that here also are those who
occupy themselves with the things of the spirit, that here also are
other capabilities than those of industrial energy and material success.
In his many minor works he has endowed us with an inexhaustible heritage
of beauty--beauty which is "about the best thing God invents." He is the
educator of our taste and of more than our taste--of our sentiment and
our emotions. In his great monuments he has not only given us fitting
presentments of our national heroes; he has expressed, and in expressing
elevated, our loftiest ideals; he has expressed, and in expressing
deepened, our profoundest feelings. He has become the voice of all that
is best in the American people, and his works are incentives to
patriotism and lessons in devotion to duty.

But the great and true artist is more than a benefactor of his country,
he is a benefactor of the human race. The body of Saint-Gaudens is
ashes, but his mind, his spirit, his character have taken on enduring
forms and are become a part of the inheritance of mankind. And if, in
the lapse of ages, his very name should be forgotten--as are the names
of many great artists who have gone before him--yet his work will
remain; and while any fragment of it is decipherable the world will be
the richer in that he lived.

[Transcriber's Note: In the Ta