a year--there arrived in
Florence, bringing a letter of introduction to my mother, an English
gentleman of fortune, Mr. Grant. He was a noted lover and patron of art,
and my mother proposed to him a visit to the Studio Powers. The sculptor
had then just completed his first imaginative work, the "Greek Slave,"
which numerous _replicas_ have since made so well known on both
sides of the Atlantic. This work had greatly excited my mother's
admiration, and it was that he might have an opportunity of seeing the
"Greek Slave" that my mother was desirous of taking Mr. Grant to the
sculptor's studio. But it was not altogether easy to induce Mr. Grant to
accept the proposal. "If there is anything very good, that is the very
reason why I must not go there. Lead me not into temptation! I have been
spending all my money, and more than I meant to spend, on sculpture in
Rome. Don't show me any more statues, for I cannot buy any more." But
this confession of fearing temptation was calculated to produce a
stronger determination to expose him to it. Mr. Grant was persuaded to
visit the studio in the Via Romana: he was as much charmed with the
beauty of the conception of the statue as with the conscientious
perfection of its execution, and he became the purchaser of it. And it
speedily acquired a reputation which led to the execution of as many, I
think, as four or five replicas at the request of other lovers of art;
and the sculptor's reputation was made.

The practice of the greatest sculptors as regards the degree in which it
has seemed desirable to them to take part in that mechanical portion of
the business of producing a statue which consists in the manipulation of
the marble, has always been very different. Some have subjected the
marble to the touching of their own hands more, some less. The work of
reproducing a copy of the clay model in marble is a purely mechanical
one, and may or may not be in the artist's judgment best brought to
perfection by the labor of his own hands. It will readily be believed,
however, from what has been already said of the tendencies of Powers's
talent and idiosyncrasy, that he was among those who have contributed
most of their personal labor to the perfecting of their works. Powers
was one of those men whose hands have faculty in them. He was a master
in the use of them, and accordingly he loved to use them. It was his
practice to go over with his own hand the surface of the marble of every
work which