These sentiments, which would seem to narrow down a sculptor to the severest and least graceful form of art, were uttered by Crispin in approval of that bare barn attached to the Grange which Maurice called his studio. But then Crispin knew nothing about art, and a painter or a sculptor reading the above views of their profession will probably laugh to scorn such fanciful notions. Yet it is true that the sculptor by his art is shut off from the world of color, unless, like the old Greeks,—according to some critics,—he tints his statues, and thereby turns them into wax figures. But doubtless those Hellenic sculptors who wrought nude gods and draped goddesses from the marbles of Paros and Pentelicus, did not fail to notice how the background of the blue Attic sky enhanced the beauty of their creations, and therefore must have concluded that the world of color, to which they were strangers, could accentuate the fairness and beauty of their statues. Again these are the artistic sentiments of Crispin the poet, delivered to Maurice with much daring, seeing the speaker was ignorant of the world of art, and but promulgated his ideas in a purely poetical fashion. But Crispin’s crude view of art and artists may doubtless fail to interest many people; therefore, to come back in a circle to the starting-point of the disquisition, Maurice’s studio was a very workmanlike apartment.
The floor consisted merely of bare boards, although at one end, in front of the fireplace, there was an oasis of carpet, on which rested a table for pipes and tobacco, together with two comfortable arm-chairs. Scattered here and there were statues finished and unfinished, some completed in marble, others incomplete in clay. Maurice had gratified his artistic desires for the perfection of sculpture by surrounding himself with copies in marble of some famous statues, for now, as he was wealthy, he could afford to do so. Here danced the Faun with his grotesque visage and lissome pose; there smiled Hebe, holding her cup for the banquet of the gods; Bacchus with his crown of vine-leaves gazed serenely on the sad face of the draped Ariadne in the distance; Apollo watched the lizard crawling up the tree-trunk; and Hermes, with winged feet, poised himself on his pedestal as if for flight. The whole studio was filled with the fair and gracious forms of Greek art, and no wonder at times Maurice despaired of producing anything worth looking at beside these immortal productions of the Hellenic brain and hands. The great necessity now is, not to know what one can do, but what one cannot do; and if these complacent artists, poets, sculptors, novelists, only abode by this rule, the world would be spared the perpetration of many an atrocity in marble, verse, or on canvas, which the conceited creators think perfection. Maurice Roylands had a pretty taste for chipping marble, but he was by no means a genius, and his statues, while perfectly wrought in accordance with the canons of art, yet lacked that soul which only the true sculptor can give to his creations. It was a fortunate thing for him that he was a rich man, for assuredly he would never have become a great sculptor. His ideas were excellent, but he could not carry them out in accordance with the figment of his brain, as he lacked the divine spark of genius which alone can fully accomplish what it conceives.
At present, clad in a blouse, he was standing in front of a mass of wet clay, manipulating the soft material with dexterous fingers into a semblance of the fanciful Endymion of his brain and the real Endymion of Caliphronas. That gentleman was posed on the model’s platform in the distance, and was beguiling the time by incessant chattering of this, that, and the other thing.
The artist had based his conception of this statue of Endymion on these lines of Keats, poet laureate to Dian herself,—
“What is there in the Moon that thou shouldst move
My heart so potently?”
He intended to represent the shepherd sitting on Latmos top, chin on hand, gazing at the moon with dreamy eyes, his mortal heart thrilling at the thought that he would see the inviolate Artemis incarnate in the flesh. In accordance with the Greek ideas of nudity, Maurice did not drape his statue; but the shepherd sat on his chlamys, which was lightly thrown over a rock, while beside him lay scrip, and flask, and pastoral crook. Caliphronas was seated thus,—with his elbow resting on his knee and his chin on his hand, gazing presumably at the moon, in reality at Maurice, while the other hand lightly hung down by his side, and his right leg was drawn back so that the foot bent in a delicate curve calculated to show its full beauty. This pose showed all the perfect lines of his figure, and with his nude body, his clean-shaven face, and dreaming eyes, he looked the veritable Endymion who was waiting the descent of the goddess from high Olympus. Though it was a warm day, a fire burned in the grate, for the Greek was very susceptible to cold, and after working for some time Maurice was fain to rest, so great was the heat; whereupon Caliphronas flung himself back on the chlamys, placed his hands behind his head, and began to talk.
“Will you be long at your work to-day, Mr. Maurice?” he asked with a yawn.
“No, not if you are tired,” replied Roylands, throwing a cloak over the Count. “You had better wrap yourself up, or you will catch cold. If you don’t care to sit any more to-day, we can leave off now.”
“Well, I have some letters to write, but I will wait another half-hour.”