The prologue, which thus introduces us to the studio of the “Ivory Carver,” may be deemed by some far-fetched and metaphysical. To us it seems a most beautiful preparation for what follows. It attunes the mind to a just appreciation of that self-sacrificing devotion with which the artist, year by year, in silence, in want, toils away to work out of the solid ivory the divine thought which haunts him. The moral of the prologue, as we understand it, is to connect the inspirations of genius with their true source. It prepares us to look at the toiling “ivory carver,” not as he appeared to his family and neighbors, a madman or a fool, but as he might have appeared to some celestial visitant, who knew the secrets of his heaven-touched soul.
Silently sat the artist alone,
Carving a Christ from the ivory bone.
Little by little, with toil and pain,
He won his way through the sightless grain,
That held and yet hid the thing he sought,
Till the work stood up, a growing thought.
And all around him, unseen yet felt,
A mystic presence forever dwelt,
A formless spirit of subtle flame,