But on the wall of the room in
which we dined was a sketch by Raffaele, and the dinner, chiefly cooked
by Mr. Gilbert himself,--the Savoy at its best!
Some people regret that he has "buried" himself in Bruges, and that
England has practically lost her best sculptor. I think that he will do
some of the finest work of his life there, and meanwhile England should
be proud of Alfred Gilbert.
In a city which can boast of some of the ugliest and weakest statues in
the world, he has, in the fountain erected to the memory of the good
Lord Shaftesbury in Piccadilly Circus, created a thing of beauty which
will be a joy to future generations of Londoners.
The other day Mr. Frampton, one of the leaders of the younger school of
English sculptors, said of the Gilbert fountain that it could hold its
own with the finest work of the same kind done by the masters of the
past. "They tell me," he said, "that it is inappropriate to its
surroundings. It is. That's the fault of the surroundings. In a more
enlightened age than this, Piccadilly Circus will be destroyed and
rebuilt merely as a setting for Gilbert's jewel."
"The name of Gilbert is honored in this house," went on Mr. Frampton. We
were at the time looking at Henry Irving's death-mask which Mr.
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