I fancy he reaps a pretty fair harvest, and
no doubt leads as contented and as interesting a life as most people,
sitting there all day on those sunny steps, looking at the world, and
making his profit out of it. It must be pretty much such an occupation
as fishing, in its effect upon the hopes and apprehensions; and probably
he suffers no more from the many refusals he meets with than the angler
does, when he sees a fish smell at his bait and swim away. One success
pays for a hundred disappointments, and the game is all the better for
not being entirely in his own favor.
Walking onward, I found the Pincian thronged with promenaders, as also
with carriages, which drove round the verge of the gardens in an unbroken
ring.
To-day has been very rainy. I went out in the forenoon, and took a
sitting for my bust in one of a suite of rooms formerly occupied by
Canova. It was large, high, and dreary from the want of a carpet,
furniture, or anything but clay and plaster. A sculptor's studio has not
the picturesque charm of that of a painter, where there is color, warmth,
and cheerfulness, and where the artist continually turns towards you the
glow of some picture, which is resting against the wall.
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