There were also several portrait-busts, comprising those of two or three
of the illustrious men of our own country, whom Kenyon, before he left
America, had asked permission to model. He had done so, because he
sincerely believed that, whether he wrought the busts in marble or
bronze, the one would corrode and the other crumble in the long lapse
of time, beneath these great men's immortality. Possibly, however, the
young artist may have underestimated the durability of his material.
Other faces there were, too, of men who (if the brevity of their
remembrance, after death, can be augured from their little value in
life) should have been represented in snow rather than marble. Posterity
will be puzzled what to do with busts like these, the concretions and
petrifactions of a vain self-estimate; but will find, no doubt, that they
serve to build into stone walls, or burn into quicklime, as well as if
the marble had never been blocked into the guise of human heads.
But it is an awful thing, indeed, this endless endurance, this almost
indestructibility, of a marble bust! Whether in our own case, or that of
other men, it bids us sadly measure the little, little time during which
our lineaments are likely to be of interest to any human being. It
is especially singular that Americans should care about perpetuating
themselves in this mode. The brief duration of our families, as
a hereditary household, renders it next to a certainty that the
great-grandchildren will not know their father's grandfather, and that
half a century hence at furthest, the hammer of the auctioneer will
thump its knock-down blow against his blockhead, sold at so much for the
pound of stone! And it ought to make us shiver, the idea of leaving
our features to be a dusty-white ghost among strangers of another
generation, who will take our nose between their thumb and fingers (as
we have seen men do by Caesar's), and infallibly break it off if they
can do so without detection!
"Yes," said Miriam, who had been revolving some such thoughts as the
above, "it is a good state of mind for mortal man, when he is content to
leave no more definite memorial than the grass, which will sprout kindly
and speedily over his grave, if we do not make the spot barren with
marble. Methinks, too, it will be a fresher and better world, when it
flings off this great burden of stony memories, which the ages have
deemed it a piety to heap upon its back."
"What you say," remarked Kenyon, "goes against my whole art. Sculpture,
and the delight which men naturally take in it, appear to me a proof
that it is good to work with all time before our view."
"Well, well," answered Miriam, "I must not quarrel with you for flinging
your heavy stones at poor Posterity; and, to say the truth, I think you
are as likely to hit the mark as anybody. These busts, now, much as I
seem to scorn them, make me feel as if you were a magician.. You turn
feverish men into cool, quiet marble. What a blessed change for them!
Would you could do as much for me!"