BRONZE BUST OF EMERSON PRESENTED TO THE COLLEGE

At the opening reception of the Cornish Art Exhibition held in Robinson Hall on the evening of January 8 President Nichols read a letter from Daniel Chester French (Honorary A.M. '98), the noted American sculptor, announcing his presentation to the college of a bronze bust of Ralph Waldo Emerson. A full account of the exhibition will be given in a later number of the MAGAZINE.

The bust of Emerson which has been so generously donated is one of the famous works of Mr. French. It was made from life sittings in the spring of 1879, three years before the death of the Concord philosopher. The following quotation from the Memoir ofRalph Waldo Emerson by J. E. Cabot will be of interest:

"It was in the spring of this year that the bust of Emerson by Mr. French, the sculptor of the Minute-Man, was made; the best likeness of him, I think, by any artist (except the sun), though unhappily so late in his life. Mr. French writes to me: 'I think it is very seldom that a face combines such vigor and strength in the general form and plan with such exceeding delicacy and sensitiveness in the details. Henry James somewhere speaks of "the over-modelled American face." No face was ever more modelled than was Mr. Emerson's ; there was nothing slurred, nothing accidental; but it was like the perfection of detail in great sculpture; it did not interfere with the grand scheme. Neither did it interfere with an almost child-like mobility that admitted of an infinite variety of expression, and made possible that wonderful "lighting-up" of the face, so often spoken of by those who knew him. It was the attempt to catch that glorifying expression that made me despair of my bust. At the time I made it, as you know, Mr. Emerson had failed somewhat, and it was only now and then that I could see, even for an instant, the expression I sought. As is not uncommon, there was more movement in one side of Mr. Emerson's face than in the other (the left side), and there was a great difference in the formation of the two sides; more, probably, at the time I made the bust than earlier. When the bust was nearing completion he looked at it after one of the sittings, and said, "The trouble is, the more it resembles me, the worse it looks." ' "