When Sir Joshua Reynolds--himself a bachelor--met the sculptor Flaxman shortly after his marriage, he said to him, "So, Flaxman, I am told you are married; if so, sir, I tell you you are ruined for an artist." Flaxman went home, sat down beside his wife, took her hand in his, and said, "Ann, I am ruined for an artist." "How so, John? How has it happened? and who has done it?" "It happened," he replied, "in the church, and Ann Denman has done it." He then told her of Sir Joshua's remark--whose opinion was well known, and had often been expressed, that if students would excel they must bring the whole powers of their mind to bear upon their art, from the moment they rose until they went to bed; and also, that no man could be a _great_ artist unless he studied the grand works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and others, at Rome and Florence. "And I," said Flaxman, drawing up his little figure to its full height, "_I_ would be a great artist." "And a great artist you shall be," said his wife, "and visit Rome, too, if that be really necessary to make you great." "But how?" asked Flaxman. "_Work and economize_," rejoined the brave wife; "I will never have it said that Ann Denman ruined John Flaxman for an artist." And so it was determined by the pair that the journey to Rome was to be made when their means would admit. "I will go to Rome," said Flaxman, "and show the President that wedlock is for a man's good rather than his harm; and you, Ann, shall accompany me." After working for five years, aided by the untiring economy of his wife, Flaxman actually did accomplish his journey. On returning from Rome, where he spent seven years, conscious of his indebtedness to his wife, he devised an original gift as a memorial of his domestic happiness. He caused a little quarto book to be made, containing some score or so of leaves, and with pen and pencil proceeded to fill and embellish it. On the first page is drawn a dove with an olive branch in her mouth; an angel is on the right and an angel on the left, and between is written, "To Ann Flaxman"; below, two hands are clasped as at an altar, two cherubs bear a garland, and there follows an inscription to his wife introducing the subject. Instead of finding his genius maimed by his alliance with Ann Denman, this eminent sculptor was ever ready to acknowledge that his subsequent success was in a great part marriage-made. It was through the eyes of his wife that Huber, the great authority on bees, who was blind from his seventeenth year, conducted his observations and studies. He even went so far as to declare that he should be miserable were he to regain his eyesight. "I should not know," he said, "to what extent a person in my situation could be beloved; besides, to me my wife is always young, fresh, and pretty, which is no light matter."