eBooks Base 2000

An appropriation of twenty-five thousand
dollars was made, some years ago, for a work of sculpture by him, to be
placed in the Capitol; but the intermediate measures necessary to render
it effective have been delayed; while the above-mentioned Clark Mills--
certainly the greatest bungler that ever botched a block of marble--has
received an order for an equestrian statue of Washington. Not that Mr.
Powers is made bitter or sour by these wrongs, as he considers them; he
talks of them with the frankness of his disposition when the topic comes
in his way, and is pleasant, kindly, and sunny when he has done with it.
His long absence from our country has made him think worse of us than we
deserve; and it is an effect of what I myself am sensible, in my shorter
exile: the most piercing shriek, the wildest yell, and all the ugly
sounds of popular turmoil, inseparable from the life of a republic, being
a million times more audible than the peaceful hum of prosperity and
content which is going on all the while.


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