he grand
duke had resumed their old places. And from that time forward I think
that America has been more numerously represented on the banks of the
Arno than England. Powers had at that time produced various successful
busts, but had not as yet made himself known as an imaginative sculptor.
Nevertheless, the former works had sufficed to give him an amount of
reputation in the United States that ensured constant visits of his
countrymen to the studio in the Via Romana.

Some twelve years had elapsed when I first saw Powers in Florence since
the old days in Cincinnati. In such a space of time, especially at that
period of life which turns a lad into a man, most men change much. But
the change in Powers's face was but small: I should have known him if I
had met him in the street anywhere. But in person he was much changed:
he had become stout and what is called personable, not fat--he never was
that to the end of his life--but neither was he lanky, as he had been as
a youth. He had filled out, as the phrase is, and might be considered in
all respects a decidedly handsome man. There was something specially,
and more than commonly, upright in the carriage of his person and of his
head, which seemed the expression of the uprightness of the man's moral
and intellectual nature and character. He always looked straight at you
with those large, placid and generally grave eyes of his under their
large and bushy brows. They seemed to continue grave, or at least
thoughtful, those eyes, even when there was a pleasant genial smile on
the mouth. And there was this specialty about his smile--a specialty
which may be often observed in subjective natures habituated to original
thought and to live in the inner life: it seemed generally to be
produced more by the movement of his own inward feelings and thoughts
than by what was said by others. Like most dark-haired men, he began to
become gray early in life, and for some few years before his death his
appearance was venerable in no ordinary degree. He then wore his hair,
which had become perfectly white, very long, and a shallow, very
broad-brimmed white hat on the top of it. The latter, indeed, was, I
think, at all times his universal wear. I do not think that I ever saw
him in Florence in that detestable article of apparel called "a
chimney-pot hat." But this is anticipating.

Very shortly after our arrival in Florence and the renewal of our
friendship with Powers--I think not more than