she
has found this crucifix, which the early Catholic missionaries were wont
to attach to the forest trees, and having heard from some of these
zealous teachers an exposition of Christ's mission, the better life has
already begun to dawn in her soul, and her whole aspect tells that this
mysterious influence is upon her.

The features are Indian, fair and comely--we do not say beautiful,
because this term expresses the highest excellence, and ought as a
descriptive phrase to be more sparingly used. The face is idealized, as
the rules of true art always require, but still preserves its fidelity
to the natural type. The form is nude to the waist, the drapery arranged
with unrivalled grace, the hair is clubbed so as to reveal the neck and
shoulders, while the perfection of contour and the completeness of
development satisfy the most critical eye for the study of detail. The
'Indian Girl' forms one of the landmarks in the history of American
sculpture.

But Palmer's grand, characteristic work, in which his genius seems to
have reached its noblest expression, is the 'White Captive,' which we
believe to be one of the most perfect creations of ancient or modern
art. It is something more than the nude figure of a surpassingly
beautiful woman, bound to the stake, and defying the gaze of her
barbarous captors--it is not merely an exciting incident in pioneer
life, but it has a grand symbolical meaning that reaches beyond a
literal interpretation of the situation.

We see in this statue the contact of civilization with savage instinct,
and in the expression of the 'White Captive,' peering through maiden
timidity, and rising triumphant above physical fear in a look of
intellectual and religious strength, before which the swarthy warrior
feels himself in the presence of a superior power--a ruler! As we gaze
on in mute admiration, we behold the race of the red man receding
westward before that same power pictured in this wonderful face: now the
Indian tribes pass the Rocky mountains, they come within the roar of the
Pacific, and, growing less and less, they at last vanish away into the
uncertain mists of the ocean--a lost people, who have served the purpose
for which they were created, and disappeared from our continent to make
room for a nobler humanity. It is this melancholy fate, this glorious
triumph, that Palmer has recorded in a language more forcible than
history, more eloquent than song, more ravishing than the lyre! To
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