and watching, with his nervous
smile, my father's reception of them; plunging into deep matters, beyond
my comprehension, dwelling there a few minutes, and then emerging again
with a sparkle of wit; he was certainly very witty, and the wit was
native and original, not memorized. When he got into the current of
drollery, he would, as it were, set himself afire by his own sallies,
and soar to astonishing heights, which had an irresistible contagion
for the hearers; and he would sometimes, sitting at a table with pen and
paper at hand, illustrate his whimsicalities with lightning sketches
of immense cleverness, considering their impromptu character. I have
preserved a sheet of letter-paper covered with such drawings. The
conversation had got upon Byron, whom Mr. Story chose to ridicule; as he
talked, he drew a head of "Byron as he thought he was," followed by one
of "Byron as he was," and by another of "Byron as he might have been,"
showing a very pronounced negro type. Then he made a portrait of "Ada,
sole daughter of my house and heart," and wrote under it, "Thy face was
like thy mother's, my fair child!" a hideous, simpering miss, with
a snub nose and a wooden mouth--"A poet's dream!" He also showed the
appearance of the Falls of Terni, "as described by Byron," and
added studies of infant phenomena, mother's darlings, a Presidential
candidate, and other absurdities, accompanying it all with a running
comment and imaginative improvisations which had the charm of genius in
them, and made us ache with laughter, young and old alike. Such a
man, nervous, high-strung, of fine perceptions and sensibilities, must
inevitably pass through rapid and extreme alternations of feeling; and,
no doubt, an hour after that laughing seance of ours, Mr. Story was
plunged deep in melancholy. Yet surely his premonitions of evil were
unfulfilled; Story lived long and was never other than fortunate.
Perhaps he was unable to produce works commensurate with his
conceptions; but unhappiness from such a cause is of a noble sort, and
better than most ordinary felicities.

I remember very well the statue of Cleopatra while yet in the clay.
There she sat in the centre of the large, empty studio, pondering on
Augustus and on the asp. The hue of the clay added a charm to the figure
which even the pure marble has not quite maintained. Story said that he
never was present while the cast of one of his statues was being made;
he could not endure the sight o