I could not fall in love with a statue, as the
poor girl in Procter's poem did with the Apollo Belvidere, though I
think I could with a fine portrait: how could one fall in love with
what had no eyes! Was it not Thorwaldsen who said that the three
materials in which sculptors worked--clay, plaster, and
marble--were like life, death, and immortality? I thought my own
bust (the one Macdonald executed in Edinburgh, you know) very good;
the marble is beautiful, and I really think my friend did wonders
with his impracticable subject; the shape of the head and shoulders
is very pretty. I wonder what Sappho was like! An ugly woman, it is
said; I do not know upon what authority, unless her own; but I
wonder what kind of ugliness she enjoyed! Among other heads, we saw
one of Brougham's mother, a venerable and striking countenance,
very becoming the mother of the Chancellor of England. There was a
bust, too, of poor Mr. Huskisson, taken after death. I heard a
curious thing of him to-day: it seems that on the night before the
opening of the railroad, as he was sitting with some friends, he
said, "I cannot tell what ails me; I have a strange weight on my
spirits; I am sure something dreadful will happen to-morrow; I wish
it were over;" and that, when they recapitulated all the
precautions, and all the means that had been taken for security,
comfort, and pleasure, all he replied was, "I wish to God it were
over!" There is something awful in these stories of presentiments
that always impresses me deeply--this warning shadow, projected by
no perceptible object, falling darkly and chilly over one; this
indistinct whisper of destiny, of which one hears the sound,
without distinguishing the sense; this muffled tread of Fate
approaching us!
Did you read Horace Twiss's speech on the Reform Bill? Every one
seems to think it was excellent, whether they agree with his
opinions and sentiments or not.
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