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Some days afterwards, and early in the morning, I went to call upon him, and found him as a friend who had wondered at not having seen me earlier. In honor of Thorwaldsen a musical-poetic academy was established, and the poets, who were invited to do so by Heiberg, wrote and read each one a poem in praise of him who had returned home.
"Is it your brother that has gained the medal?" inquired the dean. "It is myself," said Albert, and the clergyman looked kindly on him, placed him first among all the boys, and from that time always called him Monsieur Thorwaldsen. Oh! how deeply did that "Monsieur" then sound in his mind!
On March 1 he writes jubilantly to the secretary, J.L. Morton, that he has succeeded in obtaining by gift a number of casts of ancient and modern sculpture which he will send home by the first opportunity. Among the generous donors he mentions Thorwaldsen, Daniel Coit, Esq., Richard Wyatt, Esq., Signor Trentanove, and George Washington Lee, Esq. He adds at the end of the letter:
Casaubon, seeing Dorothea look earnestly towards him, could not but ask her if she would be interested in such visits: he was now at her service during the whole day; and it was agreed that Will should come on the morrow and drive with them. Will could not omit Thorwaldsen, a living celebrity about whom even Mr.
There is also a kneeling Magdalen, lovely in her woe, by the same sculptor, and a very touching work of Schadow, representing a shepherd boy tenderly binding his sash around a lamb which he has accidentally wounded with his arrow. We have since seen in the St. Michael's Church, the monument to Eugene Beauharnois, from the chisel of Thorwaldsen.
But here in this jubilant crowd, where thousands noticed every movement of his, where I too by all these should be observed and criticised yes, criticised as a vain man who now only wished to show that he too was acquainted with Thorwaldsen, and that this great man was kind and friendly towards him here, in this dense crowd, I drew myself back, and avoided being recognized by him.
The Lion, I suppose is Lucerne's most distinctive curiosity. As you will see by the card, it is a large figure of a lion carved out of the solid rock in the hillside. Thorwaldsen furnished the model. It was made to commemorate the bravery of the Swiss guards who fought in the service of Louis XVI at the outbreak of the French Revolution. Switzerland is sometimes called the playground of Europe.
There is, however, one place more that the stranger will visit, the little spot at Nysöe where his atelier stands, and where the tree bends its branches over the canal to the solitary swan which he fed. The name of Thorwaldsen will be remembered in England by his statues of Jason and Byron; in Switzerland, by his "recumbent lion;" in Roeskilde, by his figure of Christian the Fourth.
He walked into the atelier where the sculptor was at work one day and hung around his neck by a gold chain the "Cross of the Commander," a decoration never before given to any but great military commanders. King Louis had a very unkinglike way of doing things, and used to go by the studio and whistle for Thorwaldsen and call to him to come out and walk, or drive, ride or dine.
He built on Winckelmann, Mengs and Canova, inspired by a classic environment, and examples of work done by men turned to dust centuries before. In many instances Thorwaldsen followed the letter and failed to catch the spirit of Greece; this is not to his discredit who has completely succeeded in revitalizing the breath of ancient art? Thorwaldsen won everything but immortality.
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