after all, he handles club, and, judging by the specimens I have seen
here, is apt to be clay, not of the finest, himself. Mr. ------ is
sensible, shrewd, keen, clever; an ingenious workman, no doubt; with tact
enough, and not destitute of taste; very agreeable and lively in his
conversation, talking as fast and as naturally as a brook runs, without
the slightest affectation. His naturalness is, in fact, a rather
striking characteristic, in view of his lack of culture, while yet his
life has been concerned with idealities and a beautiful art. What degree
of taste he pretends to, he seems really to possess, nor did I hear a
single idea from him that struck me as otherwise than sensible.

He called to see us last evening, and talked for about two hours in a
very amusing and interesting style, his topics being taken from his own
personal experience, and shrewdly treated. He spoke much of Greenough,
whom he described as an excellent critic of art, but possessed of not the
slightest inventive genius. His statue of Washington, at the Capitol, is
taken precisely from the Plodian Jupiter; his Chanting Cherubs are copied
in marble from two figures in a picture by Raphael. He did nothing that
was original with himself To-day we took R-----, and went to see Miss
------, and as her studio seems to be mixed up with Gibson's, we had an
opportunity of glancing at some of his beautiful works. We saw a Venus
and a Cupid, both of them tinted; and, side by side with them, other
statues identical with these, except that the marble was left in its pure
whiteness.

We found Miss ------ in a little upper room. She has a small, brisk,
wide-awake figure, not ungraceful; frank, simple, straightforward, and
downright. She had on a robe, I think, but I did not look so low, my
attention being chiefly drawn to a sort of man's sack of purple or
plum-colored broadcloth, into the side-pockets of which her hands were