Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 | Page 5

devoted
to those ghosts of sculpture, allegorical figures; other years wasted in
the elaboration of machinery. Not that his ideal statues are worthless, or
fall short of great beauty and exquisite delicacy; not that his skill as a
mechanician is other than great. But the age cannot afford these things,
nor can the sculptor afford them. A year is too great a sum to give for a
statue of California. Better than that, the several portraits of valued men
which might have been acquired,--one bust, even, like those which
surprised and compelled the reverence of Thorwaldsen. Better the
perfected ability which would have given his country the Webster he
should and might have made than a hundred "Americas."
There are two considerations which may have misled Mr. Powers. One,
a pecuniary one, which he should have disposed of as did Agassiz,
when such was advanced to induce him to give lyceum lectures:--"Sir, I
cannot afford to make money!" The other may have been the weight of
the prevailing error that portrait-sculpture is a less honorable branch of
Art.
Less than what? The historical? What finer history than Titian's Paul
III., Raphael's Leo X., Albert Dürer's head of himself? What finer than
the Pericles, the Marcus Aurelius of the Capitol, the Demosthenes of
the Vatican, Chantrey's Scott, Houdon's Voltaire, Powers's
Jackson?--Heroic? what more heroic than the Lateran Sophocles, the
Venetian Colleoni, or Rauch's statue of Frederick the Great?--Poetical?
What picture more sweetly poetical than Raphael's head of himself in
the Uffizi, or Giotto's Dante in the Bargello? What ideal statue
surpasses in poetical power Michel Angelo's De' Medici in the San
Lorenzo Chapel? What ideal head is more beautiful than the Townley

Clytie of the British Museum, or the Young Augustus of the Vatican?
What grander than Da Vinci's portrait of himself?
No,--when the sculptor has wrought the adequate representation of the
individual in its best estate, he may rest assured that he has achieved
"high Art."
Let us not be unjust to Mr. Powers's ideal works. In the qualities of
chasteness of conception, delicacy of treatment, temperate grace, and
that rarer, finer quality of dignified repose, they have not been
surpassed since the time of Greek Art. When the subject chosen has not
been foreign to the artist's nature, as in the "Eve," nor foreign to the
Art's province, as in the "California," his success has been very like a
triumph.
But the success has not been that which he was entitled to grasp; the
seeming triumph has precluded a real victory. We must believe that the
highest lessons of ancient Art have, in a great measure, been
unrecognized by Mr. Powers. The external has been studied. No man
can talk more justly of that exquisite line of the Venus de' Medici's
temple and cheek, or point out more discriminatingly the beauties of
the Milo statue, or detect more quickly the truths of the antique busts.
He has discovered, also, somewhat of the great secret of repose,--has
perceived that it is essential, in some wise, to all greatness in Art, more
particularly in his own department of sculpture. But beyond that simple
recognition of the fact, what? That repose is dependent on power to act,
and must be great in proportion to mightiness of power? No, he could
not have seen this; else had his Webster come to us less questionable in
intent, less remote in its merits from the massive self-possession of the
man.
For what Mr. Powers became before he left America he cannot be
praised too greatly. He carried with him to Europe just that knowledge
of Nature and that executive power which prepared him to take
advantage of the aid that all great Art was waiting to afford. Had he
won "the large truth," he would have found the scope and purpose of
his genius, as in America he had found that of his talent. He would
have seen his specialty to be worthy of all reverence, for he would have
attained to an appreciation of the high possibilities of portrait-Art.
There would have been developed, under the influence of great
principles, the power to make statues of great men,--colossal, instead of

big,--reposeful, instead of paralyzed,--grand, instead of
arrogant,--statues worthy of the hand that wrought the busts of Calhoun,
Jackson, and Webster, worthy to rank with the few mighty
embodiments of power, the Sophocles, the Aristides, and the
Demosthenes. This he might have done; and this he may yet
accomplish.

THE AMBER GODS.
STORY FIRST.
_Flower o' the Peach._
We've some splendid old point-lace in our family, yellow and fragrant,
loose-meshed. It isn't every one has point at all; and of those who have,
it isn't every one can afford to wear it. I can. Why? Oh, because it's in
character. Besides, I admire point any way,--it's