After annihilating the poor visage, Powers showed us his two busts of
Proserpine and Psyche, and continued his lecture by showing the truth to
nature with which these are modelled. I freely acknowledge the fact;
there is no sort of comparison to be made between the beauty,
intelligence, feeling, and accuracy of representation in these two faces
and in that of the Venus de' Medici. A light--the light of a soul proper
to each individual character--seems to shine from the interior of the
marble, and beam forth from the features, chiefly from the eyes. Still
insisting upon the eye, and hitting the poor Venus another and another
and still another blow on that unhappy feature, Mr. Powers turned up and
turned inward and turned outward his own Titanic orb,--the biggest, by
far, that ever I saw in mortal head,--and made us see and confess that
there was nothing right in the Venus and everything right in Psyche and
Proserpine. To say the truth, their marble eyes have life, and, placing
yourself in the proper position towards them, you can meet their glances,
and feel them mingle with your own. Powers is a great man, and also a
tender and delicate one, massive and rude of surface as he looks; and it
is rather absurd to feel how he impressed his auditor, for the time
being, with his own evident idea that nobody else is worthy to touch
marble. Mr. B------ told me that Powers has had many difficulties on
professional grounds, as I understood him, and with his brother artists.
No wonder! He has said enough in my hearing to put him at swords' points
with sculptors of every epoch and every degree between the two inclusive
extremes of Phidias and Clark Mills.

He has a bust of the reigning Grand Duchess of Tuscany, who sat to him
for it. The bust is that of a noble-looking lady; and Powers remarked
that royal personages have a certain look that distinguishes them from
other people, and is seen in individuals of no lower rank. They all have
it; the Queen of England and Prince Albert have it; and so likewise has