"Had we only the photographs which he shows us--whether of his Peter Cooper, his President Lincoln, the noble and serious allegorical figure for a tomb, called the Peace of God, or the charming caryatid for the Vanderbilt house--we could already perceive the grasp of composition, the decision of the contours, the depth of the sentiment expressed without any splurge or noise. This sculpture, in its acceptance, or ingenious re-shaping, of traditions from ancient sources, as well as in its modern inventiveness, imparts a savor of intimate charm, of dignity without parade, which are rare indeed in our day. "The actual work exhibited simply confirms the impression of the photographs. To say nothing of the placques and medallions, models of a fine funeral bas-relief, and the highly entertaining and picturesque statue of a Puritan, the large high-relief dedicated to the memory of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw may well be esteemed as a model of intelligent decoration. "The idea of representing, not the death scene itself, but the moment preceding it, and of showing the army of blacks, led by the white officer, filing by as if in a march to death, grave of mien, solemn, and heroic, is as novel as it is boldly treated. While presenting prodigies of skill (absolutely without triviality or pettiness in matters of detail), and modeled with a great freedom and understanding of how to arrange the various groups of lines in perspective,--which all men of his profession will admire,--everything is kept subordinate to the ensemble and to the predetermined unity of motion. Upon each of the faces one feels more or less the reflection of the motto of self-sacrifice and enthusiastic faith inscribed on a flat surface in the background (Omnia relinquit servare rem publicam), and the superb figure of a woman with flying drapery, symbolical of glory or of death, comparable to the loveliest creations in this style by Watts or Gustave Moreau, succeeds in giving to this very sculpturesque composition a distinguished moral significance." Two months later the critic Léonce Benedite, in his article on the salons of 1898, wrote, in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_: