In the statue the folds of
drapery over the right arm were entirely disarranged, simply rough clay.
The day before they had been apparently finished; but that morning Miss
Hosmer had, as she laughingly told us, "pulled it all to pieces again."
As she said this, she took up a large syringe and showered the statue
from head to foot with water, till it dripped and shone as if it had been
just plunged into a bath. Now it was in condition to be moulded. Many
times a day this process must be repeated, or the clay becomes so dry and
hard that it cannot be worked.
I had known this before; but never did I so realize the significant
symbolism of the act as when I looked at this lifeless yet lifelike thing,
to be made into the beauty of a woman, called by her name, and cherished
after her death,--and saw that only through this chrysalis of the clay, so
cared for, moistened, and moulded, could the marble obtain its soul.
And, as all things I see in life seem to me to have a voice either for or
of children, so did this instantly suggest to me that most of the failures
of mothers come from their not keeping the clay wet.
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