"At least," said the sculptor, "tell me whether you recognize this
bust?"
He pointed to a bust of Donatello. It was not the one which Kenyon had
begun to model at Monte Beni, but a reminiscence of the Count's face,
wrought under the influence of all the sculptor's knowledge of his
history, and of his personal and hereditary character. It stood on a
wooden pedestal, not nearly finished, but with fine white dust and small
chips of marble scattered about it, and itself incrusted all round with
the white, shapeless substance of the block. In the midst appeared
the features, lacking sharpness, and very much resembling a fossil
countenance,--but we have already used this simile, in reference to
Cleopatra, with the accumulations of long-past ages clinging to it.
And yet, strange to say, the face had an expression, and a more
recognizable one than Kenyon had succeeded in putting into the
clay model at Monte Beni. The reader is probably acquainted with
Thorwaldsen's three-fold analogy,--the clay model, the Life; the plaster
cast, the Death; and the sculptured marble, the Resurrection,--and
it seemed to be made good by the spirit that was kindling up these
imperfect features, like a lambent flame.
"I was not quite sure, at first glance, that I knew the face," observed
Hilda; "the likeness surely is not a striking one. There is a good
deal of external resemblance, still, to the features of the Faun of
Praxiteles, between whom and Donatello, you know, we once insisted that
there was a perfect twin-brotherhood. But the expression is now so very
different!"
"What do you take it to be?" asked the sculptor.
"I hardly know how to define it," she answered. "But it has an effect
as if I could see this countenance gradually brightening while I look
at it. It gives the impression of a growing intellectual power and
moral sense. Donatello's face used to evince little more than a genial,
pleasurable sort of vivacity, and capability of enjoyment. But here, a
soul is being breathed into him; it is the Faun, but advancing towards a
state of higher development."
"Hilda, do you see all this?" exclaimed Kenyon, in considerable
surprise. "I may have had such an idea in my mind, but was quite unaware
that I had succeeded in conveying it into the marble."
"Forgive me," said Hilda, "but I question whether this striking effect
has been brought about by any skill or purpose on the sculptor's part.
Is it not, perhaps, the chance result of the bust being just so far
shaped out, in the marble, as the process of moral growth had advanced
in the original? A few more strokes of the chisel might change the whole
expression, and so spoil it for what it is now worth."
"I believe you are right," answered Kenyon, thoughtfully examining his
work; "and, strangely enough, it was the very expression that I tried
unsuccessfully to produce in the clay model. Well; not another chip
shall be struck from the marble."