"Carlyle also," I said, "has a peculiar diction." "That is true," he replied, "but one can forgive anything to a writer who has so much to tell us as Carlyle. Besides, he writes prose, and not poetry."
He took up a photograph which was lying on the table and showed it to me, saying, "How do you like Miss Stebbins's 'Satan'?" I told him I hardly knew how to judge of such a subject. Then we both laughed, and Mr. Longfellow said: "I wonder what our artists want to make Satans for. I doubt if there is one of them that believes in the devil's existence."
I noticed on closer examination that the features resembled those of Miss Stebbins herself. Mr. Longfellow looked at it closely, and said, "So it does,--somewhat." Then I told him that I asked Warrington Wood how he obtained the expression for his head of Satan, and that he said he did it by looking in the glass and making up faces. Mr. Longfellow laughed heartily at this, saying, "I suppose Miss Stebbins did the same, and that is how it came about. Our sculptors should be careful how they put themselves in the devil's place. Wood has modelled a fine angel, and his group (Michael and Satan) is altogether an effective one."
Rev. Mr. Longfellow and the ladies now came in, and as it was late I shook hands with them all.
It is reported that when Mr. Longfellow met Cardinal Antonelli he remarked that Rome had changed less in the last fifteen years than other large cities, and that Antonelli replied, "Yes; God be praised for it!"
_Feb._ 25.--The elder Herbert [Footnote: The elder of two brothers, sons of an English artist.] has painted a fine picture, and we all went to look at it this afternoon, as it will be packed up to-morrow for the Royal Exhibition at London. He has chosen for his subject the verse of a Greek poet, otherwise unknown:
"Unyoke your oxen, you fellow, And take the coulter out of your plough; For you are ploughing amid the graves of men, And the dust you turn up is the dust of your ancestors."
Herbert has substituted buffalos for oxen as being more picturesque, though they were not imported into Italy until some time in the Middle Ages. It is generally predicted that Herbert will become an R. A. like his father; but the subject is even more to his credit than his treatment of it. It is discussed at the _Lapre_ whether this verse has been equalled by Tennyson or Longfellow, and the conclusion was: "Not proven."