This machinery is chiefly to facilitate the process of modelling his
works, for--except in portrait-busts--he makes no clay model as other
sculptors do, but models directly in the plaster; so that instead of
being crumbled, like clay, the original model remains a permanent
possession. He has also invented a certain open file, which is of great
use in finishing the surface of the marble; and likewise a machine for
making these files and for punching holes through iron, and he
demonstrated its efficiency by punching a hole through an iron bar, with
a force equivalent to ten thousand pounds, by the mere application of a
part of his own weight. These inventions, he says, are his amusement,
and the bent of his nature towards sculpture must indeed have been
strong, to counteract, in an American, such a capacity for the
contrivance of steam-engines. . . . .

I had no idea of filling so many pages of this journal with the sayings
and characteristics of Mr. Powers, but the man and his talk are fresh,
original, and full of bone and muscle, and I enjoy him much.

We now proceeded to the Pitti Palace, and spent several hours pleasantly
in its saloons of pictures. I never enjoyed pictures anywhere else as I
do in Florence. There is an admirable Judith in this gallery by Allori;
a face of great beauty and depth, and her hand clutches the head of
Holofernes by the hair in a way that startles the spectator. There are
two peasant Madonnas by Murillo; simple women, yet with a thoughtful
sense of some high mystery connected with the baby in their arms.

Raphael grows upon me; several other famous painters--Guido, for
instance--are fading out of my mind. Salvator Rosa has two really
wonderful landscapes, looking from the shore seaward; and Rubens too,