Their judgment is unprejudiced, and more valuable than that of the world generally, from the light which their own art throws on mine.

More valuable, too, than that of my brother sculptors, who never judge me fairly,--nor I them, perhaps." To gratify him, Miriam looked round at the specimens in marble or plaster, of which there were several in the room, comprising originals or casts of most of the designs that Kenyon had thus far produced.

He was still too young to have accumulated a large gallery of such things.
What he had to show were chiefly the attempts and experiments, in various directions, of a beginner in art, acting as a stern tutor to himself, and profiting more by his failures than by any successes of which he was yet capable.

Some of them, however, had great merit; and in the pure, fine glow of the new marble, it may be, they dazzled the judgment into awarding them higher praise than they deserved.

Miriam admired the statue of a beautiful youth, a pearlfisher; who had got entangled in the weeds at the bottom of the sea, and lay dead among the pearl-oysters, the rich shells, and the seaweeds, all of like value to him now.
"The poor young man has perished among the prizes that he sought," remarked she.