ing the Sabbath," the schooner proceeded, -the wind freshening during the afternoon, and the Gulf growing choppy, as if it could not quite suffer us to pass with out exhibiting somewhat of that peevish quality for which it has an evil renown. It was but a passing wrinkle of ill-humor, however, — a feeble hint of what it could do, if it chose.

a half months later, it chose!

There is something occult about this art of seeing land. The landsman's eyesight is good; he prides himself a little upon it. He looks; and for him the land is n't there. The seaman's eyesight is no better; he looks, and for him the land is so plainly in view that he cannot understand your failure to see it. He is secretly pleased, though, and may pretend impatience in order to conceal his pleasure. I have sailed in all, perhaps, a distance equal to that around the earth, a good proportion of it along-shore; and I see as far as most men. But once on this very voyage, during a storm, I had occasion to be convinced that nautical optics will assert their advantage. Land was pointed out; it had been some time seen, and we were avoiding it, the weather being thick and our position uncertain. I did my best to descry it, ready to quarrel with my eyes for not doing so, and a little annoyed to find myself but a landsman after all. But see it I could n't. I did indeed, after a while, make out to fancy that I perceived an infinitesimal densening of the mist there; but the illusion was one difficult to sustain.

ery conceivable and inconceivable way. The harbor, too, a snug little hole between islands, was worthy of Labrador. Its shores were all of gray, unbroken rock, not rising in cliffs, but sloping to the sea, and dipping under it in regular decline, like a shore of sand; while not a tree, not a shrub, not a grass-blade, was to be seen. I never beheld a scene so bleak, bare, and hard. Nor did I ever see a shore that seemed so completely "master of the situation." The mightiest cliff confesses the power which it resists. Grand, enduring, awful, it may be; but many a scar on its face and many a fragment at its feet tells of what it endures. But this scarless gray rock, thrusting its hand in a matter-of-course way under the sea, and seeming to hold it as in a cup, suggested a quality so comfortably immitigable that one's eyes grew cold in looking at it.

Suddenly, "I see an inhabitant!" cries

one.

Yes, there he was, moving over the rock. Can you imagine how far away and foreign he looked? The gray gran ite beneath him, the gray cloud above him, seemed nearer akin. Instinctively, one thought of hastening to a book of natural history for some description of the creature. Then came the counterthought, "This is a man!" And the attempt to realize that fact put him yet farther, put him infinitely away. It was like rebounding from a wall. No form is so foreign as the human, if a bar be placed to the sympathy of him who regards it; and for the time this waif of humanity walked in the circle of an unconquerable strangeness.

He came on board, another with

him; for their hut was near by. Canadian French they proved to be; could tatter English a little; and with the passage of speech the flow of sympathy began, and we felt them to be human. Through the Word the worlds were made!

A wilderness of desert islands lies at this point along the coast, extending out, I judged, not less than fifteen miles. Excepting Little Mecatina, which is a number of miles in length, and must be some fifteen hundred feet high, they are not very considerable either in area or elevation, from five to five hundred acres in extent, and from thirty to two hundred feet in height. They are swardless and treeless, though in two places I found a few blades of coarse, tawnygreen grass; and patches of sombre shrubbery, two and a half feet high, were not wanting. Little lichen grows on the rock, though in the depressions and on many of the slopes grows, or at least exists, a boggy greenish-gray moss, over which it breaks your knees-if, indeed, your spine do not choose to monopolize that enjoyment to travel long. The rock is pale granite, disposed in layers, which vary from two to ten or twelve feet in

thickness. These incline at an angle of from ten to twenty degrees, giving to the islands, as a predominant characteristic, a regular slope on one side and a clifflike aspect on the other; though not a few are bent up in the middle, perhaps exhibiting there some sharp ridge or vertical wall, while from this they decline to either side.

As beheld on the day of our arrival, this scenery was of an incomparable desolation. Above was the coldest gray sky I remember to have seen; the sea lay all in pallid, deathly gray beneath; islands in all shades of grimmer and grimmest gray checkered it; vast drifts of gray old snow filled the deeper hollows; and a heartless atmosphere pushed in the sense of this grayness to the very marrow. It was as if all the ruddy and verdurous juices had died in the veins of the world, and from core to surface only gray remained. To credit fully the impression of the scene, one would say that Existence was dead, and that we stood looking on its corpse, which even in death could never decay. Eternal Desolation, Labrador!

But extremes meet.

I HAVE heard so much, lately, about artists who do not do their own work, that I feel disposed to raise the veil upon the mysteries of the studio, and enable those who are interested in the subject to form a just conception of the amount of assistance to which a sculptor is fairly entitled, as well as to correct the false, but very general impression, that the artist, beginning with the crude block, and guided by his imagination only, hews out his statue with his own hands.

So far from this being the case, the first labor of the sculptor is upon a small clay model, in which he carefully studies

the composition of his statue, the propor tions, and the general arrangement of the drapery, without regard to very careful finish of parts. This being accomplished, and the small model cast in plaster, he employs some one to enlarge his work to any size which he may require; and this is done by scale, and with almost as much precision as the full-size and perfectly finished model is afterwards copied in marble.

The first step in this process is to form a skeleton of iron, the size and strength of the iron rods corresponding to the size of the figure to be modelled; and

here, not only strong hands and arms are requisite, but the blacksmith with his forge, many of the irons requiring to be heated and bent upon the anvil to the desired angle. This solid framework being prepared, and the various irons of which it is composed firmly wired and welded together, the next thing is to hang thereon a series of crosses, of ten several hundred in number, formed by two bits of wood, two or three inches in length, fastened together by wire, one end of which is attached to the framework. All this is necessary for the support of the clay, which would otherwise fall by its own weight. (I speak here of Roman clay, the clay obtained in many parts of England and America being more properly potter's clay, and consequently more tenacious.) The clay is then pressed firmly around and upon the irons and crosses with strong hands and a wooden mallet, until, from a clumsy and shapeless mass, it acquires some resemblance to the human form. When the clay is properly prepared, and the work advanced as far as the artist desires, his own work is resumed, and he then laboriously studies every part, corrects his ideal by comparison with living models, copies his drapery from actual drapery arranged upon the lay-figure, and gives to his statue the last refinement of beauty.

It will thus be seen that there is an intermediate stage, even in the clay, when the work passes completely out of the sculptor's hands and is carried forward by his assistant,-the work on which the latter is employed, however, obviously requiring not the least exercise of creative power, which is essentially the attribute of the artist. To perform the part assigned him, it is not necessary that the assistant should be a man of imagination or refined taste,-it is sufficient that he have simply the skill, with the aid of accurate measurements, to construct the framework of iron and to copy the small model before him. But in originating that small model, when the artist had nothing to work from but the image existing in

his own brain, imagination, refined feeling, and a sense of grace were essential, and were called into constant exercise. So, again, when the clay model returns into the sculptor's hands, and the work approaches completion, often after the labor of many months, it is he alone who infuses into the clay that refinement and individuality of beauty which constitute his "style," and which are the test of the greater or less degree of refinement of his mind, as the force and originality of the conception are the test of his intellectual power.

The clay model having at last been rendered as perfect as possible, the sculptor's work upon the statue is virtually ended; for it is then cast in plaster and given into the hands of the marbleworkers, by whom, almost entirely, it is completed, the sculptor merely directing and correcting the work as it proceeds. This disclosure, I am aware, will shock the many, who often ingeniously discover traces of the sculptor's hand where they do not exist. It is true, that, in some cases, the finishing touches are introduced by the artist himself; but I suspect that few who have accomplished and competent workmen give much of their time to the mallet or the chisel, preferring to occupy themselves with some new creation, or considering that these implements may be more advantageously wielded by those who devote themselves exclusively to their use. It is also true, that, although the process of transferring the statue from plaster to marble is reduced to a science so perfect that to err is almost impossible, yet much depends upon the workmen to whom this operation is intrusted. Still, their position in the studio is a subordinate one. They translate the original thought of the sculptor, written in clay, into the language of marble. The translator may do his work well or ill, he may appreciate and preserve the delicacy of sentiment and grace which were stamped upon the clay, or he may render the artist's meaning coarsely and unintelligibly. Then it is that the sculp

tor himself must reproduce his ideal in the marble, and breathe into it that vitality which, many contend, only the artist can inspire. But, whether skilful or not, the relation of these workmen to the artist is precisely the same as that of the mere linguist to the author who, in another tongue, has given, to the world some striking fancy or original thought.

But the question when the clay is "properly prepared" forms the debatable ground, and has already furnished a convenient basis for the charge that it is never" properly prepared" for women - artists until it is ready for the caster. I affirm, from personal knowledge, that this charge is utterly without foundation, and as it would be affectation in me to ignore what has been so freely circulating upon this subject in print, I take this opportunity of stating that I have never yet allowed a statue to leave my studio, upon the clay model of which I had not worked during a period of from four to eight months, — and further, that I should choose to refer all those desirous of ascertaining the truth to Mr. Nucci, who "prepares" my clay for me, rather than to my brothersculptor, in the Via Margutta, who originated the report that I was an impostor. So far, however, as my designs are concerned, I believe even he has not, as yet, found occasion to accuse me of drawing upon other brains than my own.

We women-artists have no objection to its being known that we employ assistants; we merely object to its being supposed that it is a system peculiar to ourselves. When Thorwaldsen was called upon to execute his twelve statues of the Apostles, he designed and furnished the small models, and gave them into the hands of his pupils and assistants, by whom, almost exclusively, they were copied in their present colossal dimensions. The great master rarely put his own hand to the clay; yet we never hear them spoken of except as "Thorwaldsen's statues." When Vogelberg accepted the commission to model

his colossal equestrian statue of Gustavus Adolphus, physical infirmity prevented the artist from even mounting the scaffolding; but he made the small model, and directed the several workmen employed upon the full-size statue in clay, and we never heard it intimated that Vogelberg was not the sculptor of that great work. Even Crawford, than whom none ever possessed a more rapid or facile hand, could never have accomplished half the immense amount of work which pressed upon him in his later years, had he not had more than one pair of hands to aid him in giving outward form to the images in his fertile brain. Nay, not to refer solely to artists who are no longer among us, I could name many studios, both in Rome and England, belonging to our brothers in Art, in which the assistant - modeller forms as necessary a part of studio-"property" as the living model or the marble-workers,-and many more, on a smaller scale, in which he lends a helping hand whenever required. If there are a few instances in which the sculptor himself conducts his clay model through every stage, it is usually because pecuniary considerations prevent his employing a professional modeller.

I do not wish it to be supposed that Thorwaldsen's general practice was such as I have described in the particular case referred to: probably no artist ever studied or worked more carefully upon the clay model than he. What I have stated was only with the view of showing to what extent he felt himself justified in employing assistance. I am quite persuaded, however, that, had Thorwaldsen and Vogelberg been women, and employed one-half the amount of assistance they did in the cases mentioned, we should long since have heard the great merit of their works attributed to the skill of their workmen.

Nor should we forget-to draw for examples upon a kindred art- how largely the painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries relied upon the me

chanical skill of their pupils to assist them in producing the great works which bear their names. All the painters of note of that time, like many of the present day, had their pupils, to whom was intrusted much of the laborious portion of their work, the master furnishing the design and superintending its execution. Raphael, for instance, could never have left one half the treasures of Art which adorn the Vatican and enrich other galleries, had he depended solely upon the rapidity of his own hand; and of the many frescos which exist in the Farnese Palace, and are called "Raphael's frescos," there are but two in which are to be traced the master's hand, the Galatea, and one of the compartments in the series representing the story of Cupid and Psyche.

It will thus be seen how large a portion of the manual labor which is supposed to devolve entirely upon the artist is, and has always been, really performed by other hands than his own. I do not state this fact in a whisper, as if it were a great disclosure which involved the honor of the artist; it is no secret, and there is no reason why it should be so. The disclosure, it is true, will be received by all who regard sculpture as simply a mechanical art with a feeling of disappointment. They will brand the artist who cannot lay claim to the entire manipulation of his statue, whether in clay or marble, as an impostor, - nor will they resign the idea that the truly conscientious sculptor will carve every ornament upon his sandals and polish

every button upon his drapery. But those who look upon sculpture as an intellectual art, requiring the exercise of taste, imagination, and delicate feeling, will never identify the artist who conceives, composes, and completes the design with the workman who simply relieves him from great physical labor, however delicate some portion of that labor may be. It should be a recognized fact, that the sculptor is as fairly entitled to avail himself of mechanical aid in the execution of his work as the architect to call into requisition the services of the stone-mason in the erection of his edifice, or the poet to employ the printer to give his thoughts to the world. Probably the sturdy mason never thinks much about proportion, nor the type-setter much about harmony; but the master- minds which inspire the strong arm and cunning finger with motion think about and study both. It is high time that some distinction should be made between the labor of the hand and the labor of the brain. It is high time, in short, that the public should understand in what the sculptor's work properly consists, and thus render less pernicious the representations of those who, either from thoughtlessness or malice, dwelling upon the fact that assistance has been employed in certain cases, without defining the limits of that assistance, imply the guilt of imposture in the artists, and deprive them, and more particularly women-artists, of the credit to which, by talent or conscientious labor, they are justly entitled.

HARRIET HOSMER.