Better to aspire and fail than not aspire at all; better to know the dream, and the fever, and the awakening, if it must be, than to pass from the cradle to the grave on the level plane of content with things as they are. There may be aspiration without genius; there can not be genius without aspiration; and where genius is backed by industry and perseverance, the aspiration of one period will meet its realization in another. To go to Rome--to make herself acquainted with all its treasures of art, ancient and modern--to study and work as the masters of both periods had studied and worked before her--this was now our youthful artist’s ambition; and all the while she labored, heart and soul, at Hesper, the first creation of her genius, watching its growth beneath her hand, as a young mother watches, step by step, the progress of her first-born; kneading in with the plastic clay all those thousand hopes and fears which, turn by turn, charm and agitate all who aspire. At length, the clay model finished, a block of marble was sought and found, and brought home to the shed in the garden, hitherto appropriated to dissecting purposes, but now fitted up as a studio. Here, with her own small hands, the youthful maiden, short of stature and delicate in make, any thing but robust in health, with chisel and mallet blocked out the bust, and subsequently, with rasp and file, finished it to the last degree of manipulative perfection. Months and months it took, and hours and days of quiet toil and patience; but those wings of genius, perseverance and industry, were hers, and love lent zest to the work. It was late summer in 1852 before Hesper was fully completed. A critic in the New York Tribune thus wrote of this work: “It has the face of a lovely maiden, gently falling asleep with the sound of distant music. Her hair is gracefully arranged, and intertwined with capsules of the poppy. A star shines on her forehead, and under her breast lies the crescent moon. The hush of evening breathes from the serene countenance and the heavily-drooping eyelids.... The swell of the cheeks and the bust is like pure, young, healthy flesh, and the muscles of the beautiful mouth are so delicately cut, it seems like a thing that breathes. “The poetic conception of the subject is the creation of her own mind, and the embodiment of it is all done by her own hands--even the hard, rough, mechanical portions of the work. She employed a man to chop off some large bits of marble; but, as he was unaccustomed to assist sculptors, she did not venture to have him cut within several inches of the surface she intended to work.” “Now,” said she to her father, “I am ready to go to Rome.” “And you shall go, my child, this very autumn,” was the reply.