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But the captain of the craft left him a recommendation to the effect that "The young fellow Thorwaldsen is the laziest man I ever saw." The ship was on a trading tour, and lingered along various coasts and put into many harbors; so nine months went by before Bertel Thorwaldsen found himself in the Eternal City. "I was born March Eighth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-seven," Thorwaldsen used to say.
And Alfred and Kala were betrothed, which was natural enough, and the betrothal was announced in the little newspaper of the town. Mamma purchased thirty copies of the paper, that she might cut out the paragraph and send it to friends and acquaintances. And the betrothed pair were happy, and the mother-in-law elect was happy too; for it seemed like connecting herself with Thorwaldsen.
"And from the formless clay, the cold, the dead," Cried Thorwaldsen, "shall Holberg live once more." One morning, when he had just modelled in clay his great bas-relief of the Procession to Golgotha, I entered his study. "Tell me," said he, "does it seem to you that I have dressed Pilate properly?"
"Oh, that the chickens may be nicely done!" was the incessant master-thought of Elise's soul; and it prevailed over the Pope, the Church of St. Peter's, Thorwaldsen and Pasta, and over every subject on which they talked. The hour of dinner was come, and yet the dinner kept the company waiting.
I also became acquainted with the sculptor David. There was a something in his demeanor and in his straightforward manner that reminded me of Thorwaldsen and Bissen, especially of the latter. We did not meet till towards the conclusion of my residence in Paris. He lamented it, and said that he would execute a bust of me if I would remain there longer.
"For you are a continuation of Thorwaldsen," she said to Alfred. And it seemed to Alfred that mamma had in this instance said a clever thing. Kala said nothing; but her eyes shone, her lips smiled, her every movement was graceful: yes, she was beautiful; that cannot be too often repeated. Alfred undertook to take a bust of Kala and of his mother-in-law.
I was justified in feeling repelled by many empty allegorical pieces on public monuments, but during the first weeks I lacked perception for such good sculpture as is to be found in the foyer of the Theatre Francais. "You reel at every step," I wrote immediately after my arrival, "that France has never had a Thorwaldsen, and that Denmark possesses an indescribable treasure in him.
It was the home of the Hopes, its late owner, H. T. Hope, having been the author of the novel Anastasius. He was a zealous patron of art, and first brought Thorwaldsen into public notice by commissioning him to execute his "Jason" in marble. The house contains many rare gems of sculpture, including Canova's "Venus Rising from the Bath," with paintings by Raphael, Paul Veronese, and others.
But a few years and we see Thorwaldsen occupying the studio of Flaxman, and more than filling that strong man's place. For specimens of Flaxman's work examine your "Wedgwood"; and then to see Thorwaldsen's product, multiply Flaxman by one hundred. One worked in the delicate and exquisite; the other had a taste for the heroic: both found inspiration in the Greek.
Our aunt was sometimes ill, but however unwell she might feel, she never missed the play. The doctor prescribed one day that she should put her feet in a bran bath, and she followed his advice; but she drove to the theatre all the same, and sat with her feet in bran there. If she had died there, she would have been very glad. Thorwaldsen died in the theatre, and she called that a happy death.
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