size. Most interesting of all to the general observer are, perhaps, the
two figures of the grizzly bear. These were designed from a grizzly which
Mr. Kemeys fought and killed in the autumn of 1881 in the Rocky Mountains,
and the mounted head of which grins upon the wall overhead, a grisly
trophy indeed. The impression of enormous strength, massive yet elastic,
ponderous yet alert, impregnable for defence as irresistible in attack; a
strength which knows no obstacles, and which never meets its match,--this
impression is as fully conveyed in these figures, which are not over a
foot in height, as if the animal were before us in its natural size. You
see the vast limbs, crooked with power, bound about with huge ropes and
plates of muscle, and clothed in shaggy depths of fur; the vast breadth of
the head, with its thick, low ears, dull, small eyes, and long up-curving
snout; the roll and lunge of the gait, like the motion of a vessel
plunging forward before the wind; the rounded immensity of the trunk, and
the huge bluntness of the posteriors; and all these features are combined
with such masterly unity of conception and plastic vigor, that the
diminutive model insensibly grows mighty beneath your gaze, until you
realize the monster as if he stood stupendous and grim before you. In the
first of the figures the bear has paused in his great stride to paw over
and snuff at the horned head of a mountain sheep, half buried in the soil.
The action of the right arm and shoulder, and the burly slouch of the
arrested stride, are of themselves worth a gallery of pseudo-classic
Venuses and Roman senators. The other bear is lolling back on his
haunches, with all four paws in the air, munching some grapes from a vine
which he has torn from its support. The contrast between the savage
character of the beast and his absurdly peaceful employment gives a touch
of terrific comedy to this design. After studying these figures, one
cannot help thinking what a noble embellishment either of them would be,
put in bronze, of colossal size, in the public grounds of one of our great
Western cities. And inasmuch as the rich citizens of the West not only