This moral
infirmity is a part of his nature, and I suggested that perhaps if he
were of a firmer and healthier moral make, if his character were
sufficiently sound and dense to be capable of steadfast principle, he
would not have possessed the impressibility that fits him for the
so-called spiritual influences. Mr. ------ says that Louis Napoleon is
literally one of the most skilful jugglers in the world, and that
probably the interest he has taken in Mr. Home was caused partly by a
wish to acquire his art.
This morning Mr. Powers invited me to go with him to the Grand Duke's new
foundry, to see the bronze statue of Webster which has just been cast
from his model. It is the second cast of the statue, the first having
been shipped some months ago on board of a vessel which was lost; and, as
Powers observed, the statue now lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
somewhere in the vicinity of the telegraphic cable.
We were received with much courtesy and emphasis by the director of the
foundry, and conducted into a large room walled with bare, new brick,
where the statue was standing in front of the extinct furnace: a majestic
Webster indeed, eight feet high, and looking even more colossal than
that.
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