n apparent
disgust. "But there has come a light into my mind. I know what you know
as well, that the one touch which you speak of as deficient is the only
one that would be truly valuable, and that without it these works of
mine are no better than worthless abortions. There is the same
difference between them and the works of an inspired artist as between
a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures."

"This is strange," cried Copley, looking him in the face, which now, as
the painter fancied, had a singular depth of intelligence, though
hitherto it had not given him greatly the advantage over his own family
of wooden images. "What has come over you? How is it that, possessing
the idea which you have now uttered, you should produce only such works
as these?"

The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley turned again to the
images, conceiving that the sense of deficiency which Drowne had just
expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must
surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had heretofore been
overlooked. But no; there was not a trace of it. He was about to
withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a half-developed figure
which lay in a corner of the workshop, surrounded by scattered chips of
oak. It arrested him at once.

"What is here? Who has done this?" he broke out, after contemplating it
in speechless astonishment for an instant. "Here is the divine, the
lifegiving touch. What inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise
and live? Whose work is this?"

"No man's work," replied Drowne. "The figure lies within that block of
oak, and it is my business to find it."

"Drowne," said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the
hand, "you are a man of genius!"

As Copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he
beheld Drowne bending over the half-created shape, and stretching forth
his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart; while,
had such a miracle been possible, his countenance expressed passion
enough to communicate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless oak.

"Strange enough!" said the artist to himself. "Who would have looked
for a modern Pygmalion in the person of a Yankee mechanic!"

As yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as
in the cloud shapes around the western sun, the observer rather felt,
or was led to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. Day by
day, however, the work ass