ITALY
Hawthorne went to Italy as naturally as the salmon ascends the rivers in
spring. His artistic instinct drew him thither as the original home of
modern art and literature, and perhaps also his interest in the Latin
language, the single study which he cared for in boyhood. Does not
romance come originally from Roma,--as well as Romulus? He wished to
stand where Cæsar stood, to behold the snowy Soracte of Horace, and to
read Virgil’s description of an Italian night on Italian ground. It is
noticeable that he cared little or nothing for the splendors of Paris,
the glittering peaks of Switzerland, medical-musical Vienna, or the
grand scholarship and homely sweetness of old Germany.
Of all the Anglo-Saxon writers who have celebrated Italy, Byron,
Shelley, Rogers, Ruskin and the two Brownings, none were more admirably
equipped for it than Hawthorne. We cannot read “The Romance of
Monte Beni” without recognizing a decidedly Italian element in his
composition,--not the light-hearted, subtle, elastic, fiery Italian,
such as we are accustomed to think them, but the tenderly feeling,
terribly earnest Tuscan, like Dante and Savonarola. The myrtle and the
cypress are both emblematic of Italian character, and there was more of
the latter than the former, though something of either, in Hawthorne’s
own make-up.
The Hawthornes left London on January 6, and, reaching Paris the
following day, they made themselves comfortable at the Hotel du Louvre.
However, they only remained there one week, during which it was so cold
that they saw little and enjoyed little. They went to Notre Dame, the
Louvre, the Madeleine, and the Champs Elysees, but without being greatly
impressed by what they beheld. Hawthorne does not mention a single
painting or statue among the art treasures of the Louvre, which if
rivalled elsewhere are certainly unsurpassed; but Hawthorne began
his studies in this line by an examination of the drawings of the
old masters, and confesses that he was afterward too much fatigued to
appreciate their finished paintings.
On January 19 they reached Marseilles, and two days later they embarked
on that dreary winter voyage, so pleasant at an earlier season, for
Civita Vecchia; and on the 20th they rolled into the Eternal City, with
such sensations as one may imagine. On the 24th they located themselves
for the season in the Palazzo Larazani, Via Porta Pinciana. [Footnote.
Italian Note-book.]
_Nemo similis Homeri_.--There is nothing like the charm of a first visit
to Rome. The first sight of the Forum, with its single pathetic column,
brings us back to our school-days, to the study of Cæsar and the reading
of Plutarch; and the intervening period drops out of our lives, taking
all our care and anxiety with it. In England, France, Germany, we feel
the weight of the present, but in Rome the present is like a glass
window through which we view the grand procession of past events. What
_is_, becomes of less importance than what was, and for the first time
we feel the true sense of our indebtedness to the ages that have gone
before. We bathe deep in the spirit of classical antiquity, and we come
out refreshed, enlarged and purified. We return to the actualities of
to-day with a clearer understanding, and better prepared to act our part
in them.
Hawthorne did not feel this at first. He arrived in inclement weather,
and it was some weeks before he became accustomed to the climatic
conditions--so different from any northern atmosphere. He hated the
filth of the much-neglected city, the squalor of its lower classes, the
narrowness of its streets, and the peculiar pavement, which, as he says
makes walking in Rome a penitential pilgrimage. He goes to the carnival,
and his penetrating glance proves it to be a sham entertainment.
But in due course he emerges from this mood; he rejoices in the
atmospheric immensity of St. Peter’s; he looks out from the Pincian
hill, and sees _Nivea Soracte_ as Horace beheld it; and he is overawed
(if Hawthorne could be) by the Forum of Trajan and the Column of
Antoninus. He makes a great discovery, or rediscovery, that Phidias’s
colossal statues of Castor and Pollux on the Monte Cavallo are the
finest figures in Rome. They are late Roman copies, but probably from
Phidias,--not by Lysippus or Praxiteles; and he felt the presence of
Michel Angelo in the Baths of Diocletian. It is not long before he goes
to the Pincian in the afternoon to play at jack-stones with his youngest
daughter.
William W. Story, the American sculptor, would seem to have been a
former acquaintance. His father, the famous law lecturer, lived in Salem
during Hawthorne’s youth, but afterward removed to Cambridge, where the
younger Story was educated, and there married an intimate friend of Mrs.
James Russell Lowell. This brought him into close relations with Lowell,
Longfellow, and their most intimate friends. He was something of a
poet, and more of a sculptor, but, inheriting an independent fortune
and living in the Barberini Palace, he soon became more of an Englishman
than an American, a tendency which was visibly increased by a patent of
nobility bestowed on him by the King of Naples.
Hawthorne soon renewed William Story’s acquaintance, and found him
modelling the statue of Cleopatra, of which Hawthorne has given a
somewhat idealized description in “The Marble Faun.” This may have
interested him the more from the fact that he witnessed its development
under the sculptor’s hands, and saw that distinguished historical person
emerge as it were out of the clay, like a second Eve; but he makes
a mental reservation that it would be better if English and American
sculptors would make a freer use of their chisels--of which more
hereafter. Story was a light-hearted, discursive person, with a large
amount of bric-à-brac information, who could appreciate Hawthorne
either as a genius or as a celebrity. He soon became Hawthorne’s chief
companion and social mainstay in Rome, literally a _vade mecum_, and we
may believe that he exercised more or less influence over Hawthorne’s
judgment in matters of art.
Hawthorne listened to Story, and read Mrs. Jameson, although Edward
Silsbee had warned him against her as an uncertain authority; but
Hawthorne depended chiefly on his own investigations. He and his wife
declined an invitation to Mrs. Story’s masquerade, and lived very
quietly during this first winter in Rome, making few acquaintances, but
seeing a good deal of the city. They went together to all the principal
churches and the princely galleries; and beside this Hawthorne traversed
Rome from one end to the other, and across in every direction, sometimes
alone, or in company with Julian, investigating everything from the
Mamartine prison, in which Jugurtha was starved, to the catacombs of St.
Calixtus and the buffaloes on the Campagna. The impression which Conway
gives, that he went about sight-seeing and drinking sour wine with Story
and Lothrop Motley, is not quite correct, for Motley did not come to
Rome until the following December, and then only met Hawthorne a few
times, according to his own confession. [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 406.]
We must not forget, however, that excellent lady and skilful astronomer,
Miss Maria Mitchell, who joined the Hawthorne party in Paris, and became
an indispensable accompaniment to them the rest of the winter.
Hawthorne also became acquainted with Buchanan Read, who afterward
painted that stirring picture of General Sheridan galloping to the
battle of Cedar Run; and on March 12 Mr. Read gave a party, at his Roman
dwelling, of painters and sculptors, which Hawthorne attended, and has
entered in full, with the moonlight excursion afterward, in “The
Marble Faun.” There Hawthorne met Gibson, to whom he refers as the most
distinguished sculptor of the time. So he was, in England, but
there were much better sculptors in France and in Germany. Gibson’s
personality interested Hawthorne, as it well might, but he saw clearly
that Gibson was merely a skilful imitator of the antique, or, as he
calls him, a pagan idealist. He also made acquaintance with two American
sculptors, a Yankee and a girlish young woman, whose names are prudently
withheld; for he afterward visited their studios, and readily discovered
that they had no real talent for their profession.
If we feel inclined to quarrel with Hawthorne anywhere, it is in his
disparagement of Crawford. There might be two opinions in regard to the
slavery question, but there never has been but one as to the greatest of
American artists. It was a pity that his friend Hillard could not have
been with Hawthorne at this time to counteract the jealous influences to
which he was exposed. He writes no word of regret at the untimely death
of Crawford, but goes into his studio after that sad event and condemns
his work. Only the _genre_ figure of a boy playing marbles, gives him
any satisfaction there; although a plea of extenuation might be entered
in Hawthorne’s favor, for statues of heroic size could not be seen to
greater disadvantage than when packed together in a studio. The immense
buttons on the waistcoats of our revolutionary heroes seem to have
startled him on his first entrance, and this may be accepted as an
indication of the rest. Yet the tone of his criticism, both in the
“Note-book” and in “The Marble Faun,” is far from friendly to Crawford.
He does not refer to the statue of Beethoven, which was Crawford’s
masterpiece, nor to the statue of Liberty, which now poses on the
lantern of the Capitol at Washington,--much too beautiful, as Hartmann
says, for its elevated position, and superior in every respect to the
French statue of Liberty in New York harbor.
Hawthorne had already come to the conclusion that there was a certain
degree of poison in the Roman atmosphere, and in April he found the
climate decidedly languid, but he had fallen in love with this pagan
capital and he hated to leave it. Mrs. Anna Jameson arrived late in
April; a sturdy, warm-hearted Englishwoman greatly devoted to art,
for which her books served as elementary treatises and pioneers to
the English and Americans of those days. She was so anxious to meet
Hawthorne that she persuaded William Story to bring him and his wife
to her lodgings when she was too ill to go forth. They had read each
other’s writings and could compliment each other in all sincerity, for
Mrs. Jameson had also an excellent narrative style; but Hawthorne found
her rather didactic, and although she professed to be able “to read a
picture like a book,” her conversation was by no means brilliant. She
had contracted an unhappy marriage early in life, and found an escape
from her sorrows and regrets in this elevated interest.
It was just before leaving Rome that Hawthorne conceived the idea of a
romance in which the “Faun” of Praxiteles should come to life, and play
a characteristic part in the modern world; the catastrophe naturally
resulting from his coming into conflict with a social organization for
which he was unfitted. This portion of Hawthorne’s diary is intensely
interesting to those who have walked on classic ground.
On May 24 Hawthorne commenced his journey to Florence with a _vetturino_
by easy stages, and one can cordially envy him this portion of his
Italian sojourn; with his devoted wife and three happy children;
travelling through some of the most beautiful scenery in the
world,--nearly if not quite equal to the Rhineland--without even the
smallest cloud of care and anxiety upon his sky, his mind stored with
mighty memories, and looking forward with equal expectations to the
prospect before him,--_bella Firenze_, the treasure-house of Italian
cities; through sunny valleys, with their streams and hill-sides winding
seaward; up the precipitous spurs of the Apennines, with their old
baronial castles perched like vultures’ nests on inaccessible crags;
passing through gloomy, tortuous defiles, guarded by Roman strongholds;
and then drawn up by white bullocks over Monte Somma, and to the
mountain cities of Assisi and Perugia, older than Rome itself; by Lake
Trasimenus, still ominous of the name of Hannibal; over hill-sides
silver-gray with olive orchards; always a fresh view and a new panorama,
bounded by the purple peaks on the horizon; and over all, the tender
blue of the Italian sky. Hawthorne may have felt that his whole
previous life, all he had struggled, lived and suffered for, was but a
preparation for this one week of perfectly harmonious existence. Such
vacations from earthly troubles come but rarely in the most fortunate
lives, and are never of long duration.
When they reached Florence, they found it, as Rose Hawthorne says,
very hot--much too hot to enjoy the city as it should be enjoyed. Her
reminiscences of their life at Florence, and especially of the Villa
Manteüto, have a charming freshness and virginal simplicity, although
written in a somewhat high-flown manner. She succeeds, in spite of her
peculiar style, in giving a distinct impression of the old chateau, its
surroundings, the life her family led there, and of the wonderful view
from Bellosguardo. One feels that beneath the disguise of a fashionable
dress there is an innocent, sympathetic, and pure-spirited nature.
The Hawthornes arrived in Florence on the afternoon of June 3, and spent
the first night at the Albergo della Fontano, and the next day obtained
apartments in the Casa del Bello, opposite Hiram Powers’ studio,
and just outside of the Porta Romana. Hawthorne made Mr. Powers’
acquaintance even before he entered the city, and Powers soon became
to him what Story had been in Rome. The Brownings were already at Casa
Guidi,--still noted in the annals of English poesy,--and called upon the
Hawthornes at the first notice of their arrival. Alacrity or
readiness would seem to have been one of Robert Browning’s prominent
characteristics. Elizabeth Browning’s mind was as much occupied with
spiritism as when Hawthorne met her two years previously at Monckton
Milnes’s breakfast; an unfortunate proclivity for a person of frail
physique and delicate nerves. Neither did she live very long after this.
Her husband and Hawthorne both cordially disapproved of these mesmeric
practices; but Mrs. Browning could not be prevented from talking on the
subject, and this evidently produced an ecstatic and febrile condition
of mind in her, very wearing to a poetic temperament. Hawthorne heartily
liked Browning himself, and always speaks well of him; but there must
also have been an undercurrent of disagreement between him and so ardent
an admirer of Louis Napoleon, and he recalls little or nothing of what
Browning said to him. This continued till the last of June, when Robert
and Elizabeth left Florence for cooler regions.
Meanwhile Hawthorne occupied himself seriously with seeing Florence and
studying art, like a man who intends to get at the root of the matter.
Florence afforded better advantages than Rome for the study of art,
not only from the superiority of its collections, but because there the
development of mediaeval art can be traced to its fountain-source. He
had no textbooks to guide him,--at least he does not refer to any,--and
his investigations were consequently of rather an irregular kind, but it
was evidently the subject which interested him most deeply at this time.
His Note-book is full of it, and also of discussions on sculpture
with Hiram Powers, in which Hawthorne has frequently the best of the
argument.
In fact Powers looked upon his art from much too literal a stand-point.
He agreed with Hawthorne as to the fine expression of the face of Michel
Angelo’s “Giuliano dé Medici,” [Footnote: As Hawthorne did not prepare
his diary for publication, it would not be fair to hold him responsible
for the many instances of bad Italian in the Note-book, which ought to
have been edited by some one who knew the language.] but affirmed that
it was owing to a trick of overshadowing the face by the projecting
visor of Giuliano’s helmet. Hawthorne did not see why such a device did
not come within the range of legitimate art, the truth of the matter
being that Michel Angelo left the face unfinished; but the expression of
the statue is not in its face, but in the inclination of the head, the
position of the arms, the heavy droop of the armor, and in fact in the
whole figure. Powers’ “Greek Slave,” on the contrary, though finely
modelled and sufficiently modern in type, has no definite expression
whatever.
Hawthorne found an exceptional interest in the “Venus dé Medici,” now
supposed to have been the work of one of the sons of Praxiteles, and
its wonderful symmetry gives it a radiance like that of the sun behind a
summer cloud; but Powers cooled down his enthusiasm by objecting to the
position of the ears, the vacancy of the face, the misrepresentation
of the inner surface of the lips, and by condemning particularly the
structure of the eyes, which he declared were such as no human being
could see with. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, June 13, 1858.] Hawthorne
was somewhat puzzled by these subtleties of criticism, which he did not
know very well how to answer, but he still held fast to the opinion that
he was fundamentally right, and retaliated by criticising Powers’ own
statues in his diary.
The Greeks, in the best period of their favorite art, never attempted
a literal reproduction of the human figure. Certain features, like the
nostrils, were merely indicated; others, like the eyelashes, often so
expressive in woman, were omitted altogether; hair and drapery were
treated in a schematic manner. In order to give an expression to the
eyes, various devices were resorted to. The eyelids of the bust of
Pericles on the Acropolis had bevelled edges, and the eyeballs of the
“Apollo Belvedere” are exceptionally convex, to produce the effect
of looking to a distance, although the human eye when gazing afar off
becomes slightly contracted. The head of the “Venus dé Medici” is finely
shaped, but small, and her features are pretty, rather than beautiful;
but her eyes are exceptional among all feminine statues for their
tenderness of expression--swimming, as it were, with love; and it is
the manner in which this effect is produced that Powers mistook for bad
sculpture. Hiram Powers’ most exceptional proposition was to the effect
that the busts of the Roman emperors were not characteristic portraits.
Hawthorne strongly dissented from this; and he was in the right, for
if the character of a man can be read from marble, it is from those old
blocks. Hawthorne has some admirable remarks on this point.
Such was Hawthorne’s internal life during his first month at Florence.
He was full of admiration for the cathedral, the equestrian statue of
Cosmo dé Medici, the “David” of Michel Angelo, the Loggia dé Lanzi,
Raphael’s portrait of Julius II., the “Fates” of Michel Angelo, and many
others; yet he confesses that the Dutch, French, and English paintings
gave him a more simple, natural pleasure,--probably because their
subjects came closer to his own experience.
A strange figure of an old man, with “a Palmer-like beard,” continually
crossed Hawthorne’s path, both in Rome and in Florence, where he dines
with him at the Brownings’. His name is withheld, but Hawthorne informs
us that he is an American editor, a poet; that he voted for Buchanan,
and was rejoicing in the defeat of the Free-soilers,--“a man to whom
the world lacks substance because he has not sufficiently cultivated his
emotional nature;” and “his personal intercourse, though kindly, does
not stir one’s blood in the least.” Yet Hawthorne finds him to be
good-hearted, intelligent, and sensible. This can be no other than
William Cullen Bryant. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, ii. 15.]
In the evening of June 27 the Hawthornes went to call on a Miss Blagden,
who occupied a villa on Bellosguardo, and where they met the Brownings,
and a Mr. Trollope, a brother of the novelist. It could not have been
the Villa Manteüto, which Miss Blagden rented, for we hear of her at
Bellosguardo again in August, when Hawthorne was living there himself;
and after this we do not hear of the Brownings again.
Hawthorne’s remark on Browning’s poetry is one of the rare instances in
which he criticises a contemporary author:
“I am rather surprised that Browning’s conversation should be so clear,
and so much to the purpose at the moment, since his poetry can seldom
proceed far, without running into the high grass of latent meanings and
obscure allusions.”
It is precisely this which has prevented Browning from achieving the
reputation that his genius deserves. We wish that Hawthorne could have
favored us with as much literary criticism as he has given us of
art criticism, and we almost lose patience with him for his
repeated canonization of General Jackson--St. Hickory--united with a
disparagement of Washington and Sumner; but although Hawthorne’s insight
into human nature was wonderful in its way, it would seem to have been
confined within narrow boundaries. At least he seems to have possessed
little insight into grand characters and magnanimous natures. He wishes
now that Raphael could have painted Jackson’s portrait. So, conversely,
Shakespeare belittles Cæsar in order to suit the purpose of his play.
Which of Shakespeare’s male characters can be measured beside George
Washington? There is not one of them, unless Kent in “King Lear.”
Strong, resolute natures, like Washington, Hamilton, Sumner, are not
adapted to dramatic fiction, either in prose or in verse.
A Florentine summer is about equal to one in South Carolina, and
now, when Switzerland can be reached by rail in twenty-four hours, no
American or Englishman thinks of spending July and August there; but in
Hawthorne’s time it was a long and expensive journey over the Pennine
Alps; Hawthorne’s physique was as well attempered to heat as to cold;
and he continued to frequent the picture-galleries and museums after all
others had ceased to do so; although he complains in his diary that he
had never known it so hot before, and that the flagstones in the street
reflect the sun’s rays upon him like the open doors of a furnace.
At length, in an entry of July 27, he says:
“I seldom go out nowadays, having already seen Florence tolerably
well, and the streets being very hot, and myself having been engaged in
sketching out a romance, [Footnote: “The Marble Faun.”] which whether it
will ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided. At any rate, it
leaves me little heart for journalizing, and describing new things; and
six months of uninterrupted monotony would be more valuable to me just
now, than the most brilliant succession of novelties.”
This is the second instance in which we hear of a romance based on the
“Faun” of Praxiteles, and now at last he appears to be in earnest.
It may be suspected that his entertaining friend, Hiram Powers, was the
chief obstacle to the progress of his new plot, and it is rather amusing
to believe that it was through the agency of Mr. Powers, who cared
for nothing so much as Hawthorne’s welfare, that this impediment was
removed. Five days later, Hawthorne and his household gods, which were
chiefly his wife and children, left the Casa del Bello for the Villa
Manteüto where they remained in peaceful retirement until the first of
October.
On the tower of the Villa he could enjoy whatever enlivening breezes
came across to Florence from the mountains to the north and east. When
the _tramontana_ blew, he was comfortable enough. Thunder-storms also
came frequently, with the roar of heaven’s artillery reverberating from
peak to peak, and enveloping Bellosguardo in a dense vapor, like the
smoke from Napoleon’s cannon; after which they would career down the
valley of the Arno to Pisa, flashing and cannonading like a victorious
army in pursuit of the enemy.
The beauty of the summer nights at Florence amply compensates for the
sultriness of the days,--especially if they be moonlight nights,--and
the bright starlight of the Mediterranean is little less beautiful.
Travellers who only see Italy in winter, know not what they miss.
Hawthorne noticed that the Italian sky had a softer blue than that of
England and America, and that there was a peculiar luminous quality in
the atmosphere, as well as a more decided difference between sunshine
and shadow, than in countries north of the Alps. The atmosphere
of Italy, Spain, and Greece is not like any American air that I am
acquainted with. During the summer season, all Italians whose occupation
will permit them, sleep at noon,--the laborers in the shadows of the
walls,--and sit up late at night, enjoying the fine air and the pleasant
conversation which it inspires. Hawthorne found the atmosphere of
Tuscany favorable for literary work, even in August.
On the 4th of that month he looked out from his castle wall late at
night and noticed the brilliancy of the stars,--also that the Great
Dipper exactly overhung the valley of the Arno. At that same hour the
astronomer Donati was sweeping the heavens with his telescope at the
Florentine observatory, and it may have been ten days later that he
discovered in the handle of the Dipper the great comet which will
always bear his name,--the most magnificent comet of modern times, only
excepting that of 1680, which could be seen at noonday. It first became
visible to the naked eye during the last week of August, as a small star
with a smaller tail, near the second star from the end of the handle of
the Dipper; after which it grew apace until it extended nearly from the
horizon to the zenith, with a tail millions of miles in length. This,
however, did not take place until near the time of Hawthorne’s departure
from Florence. In his case it proved sorrowfully enough a harbinger of
calamity.
Hawthorne blocked out his sketch of “The Romance of Monte Beni” in a
single month, and then returned to the churches and picture-galleries.
He could not expect to revisit Italy in this life, and prudently
concluded to make the most of it while the opportunity lasted. He
notices the peculiar fatigue which sight-seeing causes in deep natures,
and becomes unspeakably weary of it, yet returns to it again next day
with an interest as fresh as before.
Neither did he lack for society. William Story came over to see him from
Siena, where he was spending the summer, exactly as Hawthorne describes
the visit of Kenyon to Donatello in his romance. Mr. and Mrs. Powers
came frequently up the hill in the cool of the evening, and Miss Blagden
also proved an excellent neighbor. Early in September the “spirits”
appeared again in great force. Mrs. Hawthorne discovered a medium in her
English governess; table-rappings and table-tippings were the order of
the evening; and some rather surprising results were obtained through
Miss Shepard’s fingers. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 31.] Powers related
a still more surprising performance [Footnote: Italian Note-book.]
that he had witnessed, which was conducted by D. D. Home, an American
mountebank, who hoaxed more crowned heads, princes, princesses, and
especially English duchesses than Cagliostro himself. Hawthorne felt the
repugnance of the true artist to this uncanny business, and his thorough
detestation of the subject commends itself to every sensible reader.
He came to the conclusion that the supposed revelations of spirits
were nothing more than the mental vagaries of persons in the same
room, conveyed in some occult manner to the brain of the medium. The
governess, Miss Shepard, agreed with him in this, but she could give no
explanation as to the manner in which the response came to her. Twenty
years of scientific investigations have added little or nothing to this
diagnosis of Hawthorne’s, nor are we any nearer to an explanation of the
simple fact; which is wonderful enough in its way. Hawthorne compares
the revelations of mediums to dreams, but they are not exactly like
them, for they are at the same time more rational and less original or
spontaneous than dreams. In my dreams my old friends often come back
to me and speak in their characteristic manner,--more characteristic
perhaps than I could represent them when awake,--but the responses
of mediums are either evasive or too highly generalized to be of any
particular value. The story of Mary Runnel, or Rondel, which Julian
Hawthorne narrates, is an excellent case in point. Hawthorne had
probably heard of that flirtation of his grandfather some time in his
youth, and the fact was unconsciously latent in his mind; but nothing
that Mary divulged at Bellosguardo was of real interest to him or to
the others concerned. The practice of spiritism, hypnotism, or Christian
Science opens a wide door for superstition and imposture to walk in and
seat themselves by our firesides.
About a year before this, Congress had given Hiram Powers a commission
to model a colossal statue of _America_ for the Capitol at
Washington. This he had done, and the committee in charge accepted
his design,--Hawthorne also writes admiringly of it,--but it was also
necessary to receive the approval of the President, and this Buchanan
with his peculiar obstinacy refused to give. Powers was left without
compensation for a whole year of arduous labor, and Hawthorne for once
was thoroughly indignant. He wrote in his diary:
“I wish our great Republic had the spirit to do as much, according to
its vast means, as Florence did for sculpture and architecture when it
was a republic.... And yet the less we attempt to do for art the better,
if our future attempts are to have no better result than such brazen
troopers as the equestrian statue of General Jackson, or even such naked
respectabilities as Greeneough’s Washington.”
Perhaps Powers’ “America” was a fortunate escape, and yet it does not
seem right that any enlightened government should set such a pitfall
for honest men to stumble into. There certainly ought to be some
compensation in such cases. The experience of history hitherto has been
that, whereas painting and literature have nourished under all forms
of government, sculpture has only attained its highest excellence in
republics like Athens, Rhodes, Florence, and Nuremberg; so that upon
this line of argument there is good hope for America in the future.