merica. Well, as that carries me over the
ocean, in my mind's eye, Mrs. Hawthorne, the business clause of my
epistle is suggested--and it is this: I have just had a letter from my
best of friends, Mr. Crow, of St. Louis [she had studied anatomy in St.
Louis before coming to Rome], who has been passing the summer in
New York and Boston, and he writes: 'They are talking in Boston of a
monument to the memory of Mr. Horace Mann, and I have said to one of the
active men engaged in it that if you could have the commission I would
subscribe handsomely towards it.' Now, it occurred to me that perhaps
you or yours might have an opportunity of saying a good word for me, in
which case I would have you know how pleased and grateful I should be.
You may not have the occasion offered you, but if it chances, I commend
myself to you distintamente, and trust to your good-nature not to
consider me pushing for having suggested it. I send this through our
well-beloved Sarah Clarke, and hope it will arrive before 1861. When
you have nothing better to do, pray give me a line, always in care of
Pakenham & Hooker. Good-bye, dear Mrs. Hawthorne--my best love to Mr.
Hawthorne and the chicks--and the best wish I can make is that you are
all as fat as yours always affectionately,

"HARRIET HOSMER."

All the influence which my father and mother possessed was given to Miss
Hosmer's cause, but some other person got the commission. I remember,
too, that my mother, at Mrs. Mann's request, was at great pains to make
drawings for the face of the statue which now confronts from the slopes
of Beacon Hill the culture and intelligence of Boston, which Horace
Mann did so much to promote. But he was not a subject which accommodated
itself readily to the requirements of plastic art. There is a glimpse of
Miss Hosmer in one of my father's diaries, which I will reproduce, for
the sake of indicating his amused and benevolent attitude towards her.
"She had on," says he, "a neat little jacket, a man's shirt-bosom, and
a cravat with a brooch in it; her hair is cut short, and curls jauntily
round her bright and smart little physiognomy; and, sitting opposite
me at table, I never should have imagined that she terminated in a
petticoat any more than in a fish's tail. However, I do not mean to
speak disrespectfully of Miss Hosmer, of whom I think very favorably;
but, it seems to me, her reform of the female dress begins with its
least objectionable part, and is no real