No—not quite. The expression of the mouth in the last finished statue (he has repeated the subject three times) is not so fine as in the model, and the simplicity of the whole bordered on meagreness. This, I think, is a general fault in all Dannecker's works. He has of course avoided nudity, but the flowing robe, which completely envelopes the figure, is so managed as to disclose the exact form of the limbs. One little circumstance will give you an idea of the attention and accuracy with which he seized and embodied every touch of individual character conveyed in Holy Writ. In the original model he had made the beard rather full and thick, and a little curled, expressing the prime of manhood; but recollecting that in the gospel the Saviour is represented as sinking under the weight of the cross, which the first man they met accidentally was able to carry, he immediately altered his first conception, and gave to the beard that soft, flowing, downy texture which is supposed to indicate a feeble and delicate temperament.
I shall not easily forget the countenance of the good and gifted old man, as, leaning on the pedestal, with his cap in his hand, and his long grey hair waving round his face, he looked up at his work with a mixture of reverence and exultation, saying, in his imperfect and scarce intelligible French, "Oui, quand on a fait comme cela, on reste sur la terre!" meaning, I suppose, that this statue had ensured his immortality on earth. He added, "They ask me often where are the models after which I worked? and I answer, here, and here;" laying his hand first on his head, then on his heart.
I remember that when we first entered his room he was at work on one of the figures for the tomb of the late Queen Catherine of Wurtemburg. You perhaps recollect her in England when only Duchess of Oldenburg?
MEDON.
Yes; I remember, as a youngster, joining the mob who shouted before the windows of the Pulteney-hotel, and hailed her and her brother Alexander as if they had been a newly descended Jupiter and Juno! O verily, times are changed!
ALDA.
But in that woman there were the elements of a fine nature. She had the talents, the strength of mind, and far-reaching ambition of her grandmother, Catherine of Russia, but was not so perverted. During her short reign as Queen of Wurtemburg, the influence of her active mind was felt through the whole government. She founded, among other institutions, a school for the daughters of the nobility connected with the court,—in plain English, a charity-school for the nobility of Wurtemburg, who are among the most indigent and most ignorant of Germany. There are a few, very few, brilliant exceptions. One lady of rank said to me, "As to an English governess, that is an advantage I can never hope to have for my daughters. The princesses have an English governess, but we cannot dream of such a thing." The late queen really deserved the regrets of her people. The king, whose sluggish mind she ruled or stimulated, is now devoted to his stables and hunting. He has married another wife, but he has erected to the honour of Catherine a splendid mausoleum, on the peak of a high hill, which can be seen from almost every part of the city; and on the summer evenings when the red sun-set falls upon its white columns it is a beautiful object. The figure on which Dannecker was occupied, represented Prayer, or what he called, "La triomphe de la Prière;" it recalled to my mind Flaxman's lovely statue of the same subject,—the "Our Father which art in Heaven," but suffered by the involuntary comparison. On the rough base of the statue he had tried to spell the name of Chantrey, but not very successfully. I took up a bit of chalk and wrote underneath, in distinct characters, Francis Chantrey.
"I grow old," said he, looking from his work to the bust of the late queen which stood opposite. "I have carved the effigies of three generations of poets, and as many of princes. Twenty years ago I was at work on the tomb of the Duke of Oldenburg, and now I am at work upon her's who gave me that order. All die away: soon I shall be left alone. Of my early friends none remain but Goethe. I shall die before him, and perhaps he will write my epitaph." He spoke with a smile, not foreseeing that he would be the survivor.
Three years afterwards[ 17] I again paid Dannecker a visit, but a change had come over him: his feeble, trembling hand could no longer grasp the mallet, or guide the chisel; his eyes were dim; his fine benevolent countenance wore a childish, vacant smile, now and then crossed by a gleam of awakened memory or thought—and yet he seemed so perfectly happy! He walked backwards and forwards, from his Christ to his bust of Schiller, with an unwearied self-complacency, in which there was something mournful, and yet delightful. While I sat looking at the magnificent head of Schiller, the original of the multifarious casts and copies which are dispersed through all Germany, he sat down beside me, and taking my hands between his own, which trembled with age and nervous emotion, he began to speak of his friend. "Nous etions amis dès l'enfance; aussi j'y ai travaillé avec amour, avec douleur—on ne peut pas plus faire." He then went on—"When Schiller came to Louisberg, he sent to tell me that he was very ill—that he should not live very long, and that he wished me to execute his bust. It was the first wish of my own heart. I went immediately. When I entered the house, I found a lady sitting on the canapé—it was Schiller's wife, and I did not know her; but she knew me. She said, 'Ah! you are Dannecker!—Schiller expects you;'—then she ran into the next room, where Schiller was lying down on a couch, and in a moment after he came in, exclaiming as he entered, 'Where is he? where is Dannecker?' That was the moment—the expression I caught—you see it here—the head raised, the countenance full of inspiration, and affection, and bright hope! I told him that to keep up this expression he must have some of his best friends to converse with him while I took the model, for I could not talk and work too. O if I could but remember what glorious things then fell from those lips! Sometimes I stopped in my work—I could not go on—I could only listen." And here the old man wept; then suddenly changing his mood, he said—"But I must cut off that long hair; he never wore it so; it is not in the fashion, you know!" I begged him for heaven's sake not to touch it; he then, with a sad smile, turned up the sleeve of his coat and showed me his wrist, swelled with the continual use of his implements—"You see I cannot!" And I could not help wishing at the moment, that while his mind was thus enfeebled, no transient return of physical strength might enable him to put his wild threat in execution. What a noble bequest to posterity is the effigy of a great man, when executed in such a spirit as this of Schiller! I assure you I could not look at it, without feeling my heart "overflow in silent worship" of moral and intellectual power, till the deification of great men in the old times appeared to me rather religion than idolatry. I have been affected in the same manner by the busts of Goethe, Scott, Homer, Milton, Howard, Newton;—never by the painted portraits of the same men, however perfect in resemblance and admirable in execution.
MEDON.