He loved to watch the bodily
movements of his fellow-creatures and all the eloquent gestures of
Southern life--the lingering smile, the sullen stare of anger, the firm
or flaccid step. Within this world of humdrum happenings he created a
world of his own, a sculptor's paradise. Colour said little to him. He
was enamoured of form, the lively passion of the flesh, the tremulous
play of nerve and muscle. A connoisseur of pose and expression, he
looked at mankind from the plastic point of view, peering through
accidentals into what was spiritual, pre-ordained, inevitable; striving
to interpret--to waylay and hold fast--that divinity, fair or foul, which
resides within one and all of us. How would this one look, divested of
ephemeral appurtenances and standing there, in bronze or marble; what
were the essential qualities of those features--their aesthetic mission
to men like himself; to what type or relic of the classic age might
they be assimilated? He was for ever disentangling the eternal from
mundane accessories.
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