Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
There are some things we desire to possess, and other things we desire
to produce; the former is the feeling of the connoisseur and collector:
the latter, of the artist. The first requires taste and money; the
latter--we won't say what it requires, or what it evinces, for enough
has been said on the subject already. Johan Schmit had no money; taste
he must have had, or he could not have admired the angel; he was no
artist, certainly; he had never drawn a line, or cut any thing but a
stone in his life; and yet he felt he must do something about that
angel. He saw it so plainly and so constantly before him, that he felt
he could copy it, if he only knew how. Now, as he could not draw, he
could not copy it in that manner; but as he could cut stone, no matter
how hard, he did not see why he might not attempt to cut the angel upon
a large stone, which he procured, and brought quietly up to a small
garret at the top of his house for that purpose.
It was at this time that the general, the statesman, the diplomatist,
and the admiral, all severally planned their great undertakings; and it
was at this time that a strange thought passed through the brain of
Johan Schmit, as he sate looking at the great rough stone before him.
Johan was, as we have seen, quite an uneducated man; he hardly knew
enough of writing to spell his own name; and as to reading, he had never
looked into a book since he left school, at the age of twelve; he
therefore hardly knew the nature of his own ideas. His thoughts, never
arranged, were but like vague sensations passing through his mind, which
he could not define; but if he could have defined them they would have
taken something like the following expression:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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