For these long-buried hands immediately disposed themselves in the manner that nature prompts, as the antique artist knew, and as all the world has seen, in the Venus de' Medici.
"What a discovery is here!" thought Kenyon to himself.

"I seek for Hilda, and find a marble woman! Is the omen good or ill ?" In a corner of the excavation lay a small round block of stone, much incrusted with earth that had dried and hardened upon it.

So, at least, you would have described this object, until the sculptor lifted it, turned it hither and thither in his hands, brushed off the clinging soil, and finally placed it on the slender neck of the newly discovered statue.

The effect was magical.

It immediately lighted up and vivified the whole figure, endowing it with personality, soul, and intelligence.
The beautiful Idea at once asserted its immortality, and converted that heap of forlorn fragments into a whole, as perfect to the mind, if not to the eye, as when the new marble gleamed with snowy lustre; nor was the impression marred by the earth that still hung upon the exquisitely graceful limbs, and even filled the lovely crevice of the lips.