Standing in one of the many studii of Carrara, that afternoon--for
it is a great workshop, full of beautifully-finished copies in
marble, of almost every figure, group, and bust, we know--it
seemed, at first, so strange to me that those exquisite shapes,
replete with grace, and thought, and delicate repose, should grow
out of all this toil, and sweat, and torture! But I soon found a
parallel to it, and an explanation of it, in every virtue that
springs up in miserable ground, and every good thing that has its
birth in sorrow and distress. And, looking out of the sculptor's
great window, upon the marble mountains, all red and glowing in the
decline of day, but stern and solemn to the last, I thought, my
God! how many quarries of human hearts and souls, capable of far
more beautiful results, are left shut up and mouldering away:
while pleasure-travellers through life, avert their faces, as they
pass, and shudder at the gloom and ruggedness that conceal them!
The then reigning Duke of Modena, to whom this territory in part
belonged, claimed the proud distinction of being the only sovereign
in Europe who had not recognised Louis-Philippe as King of the
French! He was not a wag, but quite in earnest.
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