MR. CONNESS. How was it in the case of Mr. Powell?
MR. SUMNER. I am speaking of the present case. One at a time, if you please. The person that you propose to contract with notoriously has never made a statue. All who have the most moderate acquaintance with art know that it is one thing to make a bust and quite another to make a statue. One may make a bust and yet be entirely unable to make a statue,--just as one may write a poem in the corner of a newspaper and not be able to produce an epic. A statue is art in one of its highest forms. There have been very few artists competent to make a statue. There is as yet but one instance that I recall of a woman reasonably successful in such an undertaking. But the eminent and precocious person to whom I refer had shown a peculiar genius very early in life, had enjoyed the rarest opportunities of culture, and had vindicated her title as artist before she attempted this difficult task. Conversing, as I sometimes have, with sculptors, I remember how they always dwell upon the difficulty of such a work. It is no small labor to set a man on his legs, with proper drapery and accessories, in stone or in bronze. Not many have been able to do it, and all these had already experience in art. Now there is no such experience here. Notoriously this candidate is without it. There is no reason to suppose that she can succeed. Therefore the Senator from Vermont [Mr. EDMUNDS] is wise, when he proposes, that, before the nation pays $5,000 on account, it shall have some assurance that the work is not absolutely a failure. Voltaire was in the habit of exclaiming, in coarse Italian words, that “a woman cannot produce a tragedy.” In the face of what has been accomplished by Miss Hosmer, I do not venture on the remark that a woman cannot produce a statue; but I am sure that in the present case you ought to take every reasonable precaution. Anything for this Capitol must be “above suspicion.”
Sir, I did not intend, when I rose, to say anything except directly upon the motion of the Senator from Vermont; but, as I am on the floor, perhaps I may be pardoned, if I advert for one moment----
MR. HOWE. Will the Senator allow me to ask him one question, for information?