I, in thought, Have seen the capability Which lies within yon ivory: This rough, black husk, charred by long age, Unmarked by man since, in his rage, A warring mammoth shed it: Lo! Whiter than heaven-sifted snow Enclosed within its ugly mask Lies a world’s wonder: and the task Of slow development shall be Man’s labor and man’s glory. See! His foot-tip touched it; the rude bone Glowed through translucent, widely shone A morning lustre on the palm Which arched above it. The angel then summons an attendant, and bids him bear this shapeless tusk to some mortal capable of bringing from it by slow pain and toil the glorious beauty which had shone forth instantaneously at the angelic touch. Spirit, bear This ivory to the soul that dare Work out, through joy, and care, and pain, The thought which lies within the grain, Hid like a dim and clouded sun. The prologue, which thus introduces us to the studio of the “Ivory Carver,” may be deemed by some far-fetched and metaphysical. To us it seems a most beautiful preparation for what follows. It attunes the mind to a just appreciation of that self-sacrificing devotion with which the artist, year by year, in silence, in want, toils away to work out of the solid ivory the divine thought which haunts him. The moral of the prologue, as we understand it, is to connect the inspirations of genius with their true source. It prepares us to look at the toiling “ivory carver,” not as he appeared to his family and neighbors, a madman or a fool, but as he might have appeared to some celestial visitant, who knew the secrets of his heaven-touched soul.