Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885Various
General
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
It was not till fully three months after this outburst that he took
courage to begin again, growling and grumbling at his work, but
determining, he said, not to be beaten either by Sir Charles or myself.
“Poets and architects, and painters and musicians, and novelists,” he
said, “are all difficult subjects for the sculptor. Give me the face
of a soldier,” he added, “such a face as that of the Emperor Napoleon.
There is no mistake about _that_; or, better still, that of Sir Charles
James Napier! If there is not very much immortal soul, so called, in
the faces of such men, there is a very great deal of body.”
Park was commissioned by the late Duke of Hamilton to model a bust
of Napoleon III., and produced, perhaps the very finest of all the
fine portrait-busts which ever proceeded from his chisel. The Emperor
impressed Park in the most favorable manner, and he always spoke of him
in terms of enthusiastic admiration, as well for the innate heroism as
for the tenderness of his character. “All true heroes,” he said, “are
tender-hearted; and the man who can fight most bravely has always the
readiest drop of moisture in his eye when a noble deed is mentioned or
a chord of human sympathy is touched.” The bust of Napoleon was lost
in the wreck of the vessel that conveyed it from Dover to Calais, but
the Duke of Hamilton commissioned the sculptor to execute a second copy
from the clay model, which duly reached its destination.
Patric Park died before he was fifty, and when, to all appearance,
there were many happy and prosperous years before him, when having
surmounted his early difficulties, he might have looked forward to
the design and completion of the many noble works to which he pined
to devote his mature energies, after emancipation from the slavery
of what he called “busting” the effigies of “cheesemongers.” He had
been for some months in Manchester, plying his vocation among the
rich notabilities of that prosperous city, when one day, emerging
from a carriage at the railway station, he observed a porter with a
huge basket of ice upon his head, staggering under the load and ready
to fall. Park rushed forward to the man’s assistance, prevented him
from falling, steadied the load upon his head by a great muscular
exertion, and suddenly found his mouth full of blood. He had broken
a blood-vessel; and stretching forth his hand, took a lump of ice
from the basket, and held it in his mouth to stop the bleeding. He
proceeded to the nearest chemist’s shop for advice and relief, and was
forthwith conveyed to his hotel delirious. A neighboring doctor was
called in, Park beseeching him for brandy. The brandy was refused.
A telegram was sent to his own physician in London. He came down by
the next train, and expressed a strong opinion on seeing the body and
learning all the facts, that the brandy ought to have been given. But
he arrived too late. The noble, the generous, the gifted Park was no
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