Nevertheless, I made no greater progress in molding than in sketching. I made my hands very sticky; I used up several pounds of clay; then I relinquished my hopes of becoming a sculptor. I found it more to my taste to follow Mr. Hart around the rooms, to chatter with the workmen, to ask innumerable questions about the “Invention.”
It has been suggested that it was to this invention of Mr. Hart’s that Mrs. Browning referred when she wrote of—
“Just a shadow on a wall,”
from which could be taken—
“The measure of a man,
Which is the measure of an angel, saith
The apostle.”
Mr. Hart wore the apron and the cap that sculptors affect, as a protection from the fine, white dust that the marble sheds: generally, too, an ancient dressing-gown. Costumes in Bohemia, the native land of artists, are apt to be unconventional.
MICHAEL ANGELO.