ch, if not great, at least possess some measure
of grace and charm. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his "Italian Note-Book," has
left a vivid impression of Miss Hosmer, whose eccentricity of dress and
manner impressed him deeply, as did also the work which she showed him.
But she never reached any high development.

Which brings us to the present of American art, for the sculptors we
have yet to consider are either yet alive or have died so recently that
they belong to the present rather than the past.

The first and one of the most important of these is John Quincy Adams
Ward, born in 1830 on an Ohio farm. An accident showed the possession of
latent talent, for some good pottery clay happened to be discovered on
his father's farm, and his guardian angel inspired the boy to take a
handful of it and model the grotesque countenance of a negro servant.
The result was striking, and no doubt he felt within himself some of the
stirrings of genius, but not until 1849 did he realize his vocation.
Then, while on a visit to a sister in Brooklyn, he happened to pass the
open door of H. K. Brown's studio. The glimpse he caught of the scene
within fascinated him; he returned again and again, and ended by
entering the studio as a pupil.

He could have found no better master, and for seven years he remained
there, assisting Brown in every detail of his work. His first group,
modelled after long study, was his "Indian Hunter," now placed in
Central Park, New York--a group instinct with vitality--a glimpse of a
forgotten past, evoked with the skill of a master. It was the first of a
long line of statues, many of them portraits of contemporaries, a field
in which Ward has no superior. It is perhaps the highest tribute which
could be paid the man to say that, with all his great production, he has
never done bad work, never produced anything trifling or unworthy.

A fellow student with Ward in Henry Kirke Brown's studio was Larkin G.
Meade, the first indication of whose talent was a unique one. One winter
morning, about the middle of the century, the good people of
Brattleboro, Vermont, were astonished to find set up in one of the
public squares of the town a colossal snow image, in the form of a
majestic angel--crude, no doubt, in execution, but singularly effective.
Inquiry developed that it was the work of young Meade, then only fifteen
years of age. The incident got into the newspapers, magnified
considerably, and attracted the attention of