They were right, but Roderick was right too, for the success of his statue was not to have been foreseen; it partook, really, of the miraculous.

He never surpassed it afterwards, and a good judge here and there has been known to pronounce it the finest piece of sculpture of our modern era.

To Rowland it seemed to justify superbly his highest hopes of his friend, and he said to himself that if he had invested his happiness in fostering a genius, he ought now to be in possession of a boundless complacency.

There was something especially confident and masterly in the artist's negligence of all such small picturesque accessories as might serve to label his figure to a vulgar apprehension.

If it represented the father of the human race and the primal embodiment of human sensation, it did so in virtue of its look of balanced physical perfection, and deeply, eagerly sentient vitality.