Mrs. S---- invited us to her fancy
ball, but we declined.
On the staircase ascending to their piano we saw the ancient Greek
bas-relief of a lion, whence Canova is supposed to have taken the idea of
his lions on the monument in St. Peter's. Afterwards we made two or
three calls in the neighborhood of the Piazza de' Spagna, finding only
Mr. Hamilton Fish and family, at the Hotel d'Europe, at home, and next
visited the studio of Mr. C. G. Thompson, whom I knew in Boston. He has
very greatly improved since those days, and, being always a man of
delicate mind, and earnestly desiring excellence for its own sake, he has
won himself the power of doing beautiful and elevated works. He is now
meditating a series of pictures from Shakespeare's "Tempest," the
sketches of one or two of which he showed us, likewise a copy of a small
Madonna, by Raphael, wrought with a minute faithfulness which it makes
one a better man to observe. . . . . Mr. Thompson is a true artist, and
whatever his pictures have of beauty comes from very far beneath the
surface; and this, I suppose, is one weighty reason why he has but
moderate success.
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