"Felice,
Che almen tu vivi alla febea fatica,
Nè sei di quelli che una nuova Italia
Tentando improvvisar, guastan l'antica."
"Happy you live in your Phœbean toils,
Not one of those that our new Italy
Striving to improvise, the antique spoils."
And, placing his signature at the bottom of it, he presented it to Chiarini, whose face, when he had read it and seen by whom it was signed, assumed an expression of admiration mingled with regret touching to behold.
REPLICA OF THE ABEL.
The evening passed gaily. Prati also improvised, encouraged (which is saying a great deal) and accompanied by Chiarini, and, despite his puffing and blowing, said some very fine things. At last we separated, engaging our improvisatore for another evening in another place; but this I shall omit.
This symposium of artists was one of the few pleasures of those days, when my interest and enthusiasm for Art were relaxed, and I had no opportunity to work, as I have before said, because, except retouching in wax the Abel and Cain, and some few portraits, I had absolutely nothing to do. In connection with these statues that the Grand Duke had ordered in bronze, let me say that, having finished in marble the Abel, the Grand Duke saw it, regretted that he had not ordered it himself, and that it was to go away from Florence. I proposed, to satisfy his wishes, to make a replica; but he was set upon having the original. It was in vain I said that any replica made by him who had originally made the model is always and substantially original, the artist in finishing it always introducing modifications and changes which make it an original and not a copy. His Highness was not satisfied with this reasoning, and preferred that it should be cast in bronze, making the mould upon that which was already finished in marble.
I answered, "In order to do that, I must have the permission of the owner."
CAST OF ABEL FOR THE GRAND DUKE.
"Right," he said to me; "and if, as you assure me, the marble is not injured by making the mould, I am certain that permission will be given."
I wrote to the Imperial household of Russia that his Highness the Grand Duke wished to have a cast in bronze of the Abel, taking the mould from the finished marble that I was making for his Imperial Majesty (the Grand Duchess Marie having presented both this statue and the Cain to her father the Emperor Nicholas). The answer was precisely this: "If the Abel is finished, have it boxed up and sent immediately."