n is) who wants
pictures and statues, not merely from ostentation, but as means of
delight and improvement to himself and his friends, who has a soul to
respect the genius and desire the happiness of the artist, and who,
if he errs, does so from ignorance of the circumstances, I give the
following memorandum, made at my desire by an artist, my neighbor:--

"The rent of a suitable studio for modelling in clay and executing
statues in marble may be estimated at $200 a year.

"The best journeyman carver in marble at Rome receives $60 a month.
Models are paid $1 a day.

"The cost of marble varies according to the size of the block, being
generally sold by the cubic palm, a square of nine inches English.
As a general guide regarding the prices established among the higher
sculptors of Rome, I may mention that for a statue of life-size the
demand is from $1,000 to $5,000, varying according to the composition
of the figure and the number of accessories.

"It is a common belief in the United States, that a student of Art can
live in Italy and pursue his studies on an income of $300 or $400 a
year. This is a lamentable error; the Russian government allows its
pensioners $700, which is scarcely sufficient. $1,000 per annum should
be placed at the disposal of every young artist leaving our country
for Europe."

Let it be remembered, in addition to considerations inevitable
from this memorandum, that an artist may after years and months of
uncheered and difficult toil, after he has gone through the earlier
stages of an education, find it too largely based, and of aim too
high, to finish in this world.

The Prussian artist here on my left hand learned not only his art,
but reading and writing, after he was thirty. A farmer's son, he was
allowed no freedom to learn anything till the death of the head of
the house left him a beggar, but set him free; he walked to Berlin,
distant several hundred miles, attracted by his first works some
attention, and received some assistance in money, earned more by
invention of a ploughshare, walked to Rome, struggled through every
privation, and has now a reputation which has secured him the means of
putting his thoughts into marble. True, at forty-nine years of age he
is still severely poor; he cannot marry, because he cannot maintain a
family; but he is cheerful, because he can work in his own way, trusts
with childlike reliance in God, and is still sustained by the vigorous
health he won l