old Nicholas Longworth, of
Cincinnati, who, on more than one occasion, had himself appeared as
angel to struggling artists.

It was so in this case. Mr. Longworth wrote to Brattleboro, making some
inquiries as to the essential truth of the story, and having satisfied
himself on that point, offered to help the boy to get an artistic
education. The offer was accepted, and young Meade was placed in Brown's
studio, going afterwards to Italy. While there, he heard of the
assassination of President Lincoln, and prepared an elaborate design in
plaster for a national monument to the martyred President's memory. As
soon as this was completed, he started for home with it, arriving at
precisely the right moment. The rage for monument building was sweeping
up and down the land. Councils, legislatures, all sorts of public and
private bodies, were making appropriations to commemorate some
particular hero of the Civil War, which was just ended; Meade's design
appealed to the popular imagination, and the commission was awarded him.

The monument, which was destined to cost a quarter of a million dollars,
was by far the most important that had ever been erected in this
country, and the inexperienced young sculptor sailed back to Italy to
begin work. Not until 1874 was it sufficiently completed to dedicate,
and the last group of statuary was not put in place until ten years
later. All this time, the sculptor had spent quietly in his studio at
Florence, quite apart from the world of progress or of new ideas in art,
and long before his work was finished, public taste had outgrown it and
found it uninspired and commonplace.

Much more important to American art is the work of Olin Levi Warner, the
son of an itinerant Methodist preacher, whose wanderings prevented the
boy getting any regular schooling. During his childhood, he had shown
considerable talent for carving statuettes in chalk, and he finally
decided to immortalize his father by carving a portrait bust of him. For
a stone, he "set" a barrel of plaster in one solid mass and then,
breaking off the staves, began hacking away at it with such poor
implements as he could command. It was a well-nigh endless task, but
"it's dogged that does it," and the boy worked doggedly away until the
bust was completed. It was considered such a success that young Warner,
convinced of his vocation, set to work to earn enough money to go
abroad. For six years he worked as a telegrapher, and it was not