That inevitable period has come,--for I have found it inevitable, in regard to all my works,--when I look at what I fancied to be a statue, lacking only breath to make it live, and find it a mere lump of senseless stone, into which I have not really succeeded in moulding the spiritual part of my idea.

I should like, now,--only it would be such shameful treatment for a discrowned queen, and my own offspring too,--I should like to hit poor Cleopatra a bitter blow on her Egyptian nose with this mallet." "That is a blow which all statues seem doomed to receive, sooner or later, though seldom from the hand that sculptured them," said Hilda, laughing.

"But you must not let yourself be too much disheartened by the decay of your faith in what you produce.

I have heard a poet express similar distaste for his own most exquisite poem, and I am afraid that this final despair, and sense of short-coming, must always be the reward and punishment of those who try to grapple with a great or beautiful idea.

It only proves that you have been able to imagine things too high for mortal faculties to execute.