eBooks Base 2000

He certainly is sensible of something deeper in his art
than merely to make beautiful nudities and baptize them by classic names.
By the by, he told me several queer stories of American visitors to his
studio: one of them, after long inspecting Cleopatra, into which he has
put all possible characteristics of her time and nation and of her own
individuality, asked, "Have you baptized your statue yet?" as if the
sculptor were waiting till his statue were finished before he chose the
subject of it,--as, indeed, I should think many sculptors do. Another
remarked of a statue of Hero, who is seeking Leander by torchlight, and
in momentary expectation of finding his drowned body, "Is not the face a
little sad?" Another time a whole party of Americans filed into his
studio, and ranged themselves round his father's statue, and, after much
silent examination, the spokesman of the party inquired, "Well, sir, what
is this intended to represent?" William Story, in telling these little
anecdotes, gave the Yankee twang to perfection.


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