greatest wonders of the museum being some models in wax of all parts of
the human frame. It is good to have the wholeness and summed-up beauty
of woman in the memory, when looking at the details of her system as here
displayed; for these last, to the natural eye, are by no means beautiful.
But they are what belong only to our mortality. The beauty that makes
them invisible is our immortal type, which we shall take away with us.
Under glass cases, there were some singular and horribly truthful
representations, in small wax figures, of a time of pestilence; the hasty
burial, or tossing into one common sepulchre, of discolored corpses,--a
very ugly piece of work, indeed. I think Murray says that these things
were made for the Grand Duke Cosmo; and if so, they do him no credit,
indicating something dark and morbid in his character.


June 13th.--We called at the Powers's yesterday morning to leave R-----
there for an hour or two to play with the children; and it being not yet
quite time for the Pitti Palace, we stopped into the studio. Soon Mr.
Powers made his appearance, in his dressing-gown and slippers and
sculptor's cap, smoking a cigar. . . . . He was very cordial and
pleasant, as I have always found him, and began immediately to be
communicative about his own works, or any other subject that came up.
There were two casts of the Venus de' Medici in the rooms, which he said
were valuable in a commercial point of view, being genuine casts from the
mould taken from the statue. He then gave us a quite unexpected but most
interesting lecture on the Venus, demonstrating it, as he proceeded, by
reference to the points which he criticised. The figure, he seemed to
allow, was admirable, though I think he hardly classes it so high as his
own Greek Slave or Eva; but the face, he began with saying, was that of
an idiot. Then, leaning on the pedestal of the cast, he continued, "It
is rather a bold thing to say, isn't it, that the sculptor of the Venus