They have nothing to do with one another, nor with
Washington, nor with any great purpose which all are to work out
together.
March 14th.--On Friday evening I dined at Mr. T. B. Read's, the poet and
artist, with a party composed of painters and sculptors,--the only
exceptions being the American banker and an American tourist who has
given Mr. Read a commission. Next to me at table sat Mr. Gibson, the
English sculptor, who, I suppose, stands foremost in his profession at
this day. He must be quite an old man now, for it was whispered about
the table that he is known to have been in Rome forty-two years ago, and
he himself spoke to me of spending thirty-seven years here, before he
once returned home. I should hardly take him to be sixty, however,
his hair being more dark than gray, his forehead unwrinkled, his
features unwithered, his eye undimmed, though his beard is somewhat
venerable. . . . .
He has a quiet, self-contained aspect, and, being a bachelor, has
doubtless spent a calm life among his clay and marble, meddling little
with the world, and entangling himself with no cares beyond his studio.
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