Often, too, it would reappear
within an hour after it was rubbed out. The man was infinitely annoyed,
and made all possible efforts to discover the unknown artist, but in
vain; and finally concluded, I suppose, that the likeness broke out upon
the door of its own accord, like the nettle-rash. Some years afterwards,
the proprietor of the museum engaged Powers himself as an assistant; and
one day Powers asked him if he remembered this mysterious profile.
"Yes," said he, "did you know who drew them?" Powers took a piece of
chalk, and touched off the very profile again, before the man's eyes.
"Ah," said he, "if I had known it at the time, I would have broken every
bone in your body!"
Before he began to work in marble, Powers had greater practice and
success in making wax figures, and he produced a work of this kind called
"The Infernal Regions," which he seemed to imply had been very famous.
He said he once wrought a face in wax which was life itself, having made
the eyes on purpose for it, and put in every hair in the eyebrows
individually, and finished the whole with similar minuteness; so that,
within the distance of a foot or two, it was impossible to tell that the
face did not live.
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