The Quiet Corner
November 24, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 85 THE QUIET CORNER I counsel th.ee, shut not thy heart nor thy library.—C. Lamb. "I," said Miss Brynmarian, drowsily regarding the steady November rain...
...Much over-rated things," grumbled the Doctor, sorting a pile of manuscripts on his desk, "and far too important in the lives of most young women...
...Angelicus read: "Leonidas, the sculptor, knew well what he wanted, but he couldn't for the life of him work it out...
...Eagerly Leonidas 86 THE COMMONWEAL November 24, 1926 stepped forward to meet them...
...Now if it hadn't been for his dream!—" "Kxactly," said the Doctor...
...Poor Leonidas," she said...
...Well, he seems to have been one of the first to advocate and practise disarmament," declared Miss Brynmarian...
...I can't get the arms!' "And he smote them, fiercely—first right, then left...
...but the arms—click, click, click—he must hew and hack and chip and scrape them over—over and over—before they should be right: too much of strength in this sinew, the vigor of his right arm going into her right arm—the delicacy and tenderness which he intended so strenuously being translated in the marble as ponderous strenuosity and nought besides...
...Day in and day out, from Leonidas's workshop sounded the steel on stone—click, click, click—chipping and scraping away...
...instead they enfolded him more fervently, more and more firmly, until their tender fervor was intensified to a sinewy fierceness—a tigerish ferocity which there was no resisting—pulling him forward and dragging him down...
...He felt the water wash about his sandaled feet, but he didn't care—forward and forward, on he went, until, breast deep in the waves, he felt those cool white arms entwined lovingly about his neck...
...Ye gods,' he would then complain, 'why do you keep putting me off...
...And presently this moon-mist came floating down to him, and out of the mist, two arms—moon-white twins of fragmentary loveliness— never had he seen them so wonderful as they appeared tonight —and they were beckoning him, summoning him, as they approached toward the dark margin of the sea...
...asked the Doctor...
...I," said Miss Brynmarian, drowsily regarding the steady November rain beating on the window, and pulling her chair closer to the open fire, "I am in the mood for a story...
...Much later, on a certain April 1, toward the middle of the twentieth century, 'his despatch appeared in all the papers: " 'Athens, Greece: A remarkable statue of Diana has been found in a cellar of the Corinthian suburbs . . . pronounced by art connoisseurs to be the most beautiful in the world . . . Numerous exploration parties have already formed to search for the missing arms, which—to judge by the other proportions—must be incomparable.' " Miss Brynmarian sighed as the story came to an end...
...Is not this a pious work...
...and only occasionally would Leonidas sit himself down beside the unfinished work to bewail his continual frustration...
...but the lovely arms would not give...
...There came a night, after long and discouraging toil, when Leonidas threw himself down on his couch beside the statue to sleep and dream—a most distracting dream...
...Yet hope—high hope—kept him spurred on, day in and day out, and sometimes through the long night...
...The head was right, the torso and the legs were right: he defied Praxiteles or Phidias to do better...
...Nevertheless...
...and once more his palms would itch for the grasp of the mallet and chisel...
...Will it not reflect credit on the high heavens...
...How do you mean...
...And always the head and the torso and the legs were perfection...
...The Librarian...
...Wherein does it earn your disfavor...
...Then one coaxing step backward he took...
...but the arms—ah, what was wrong with the arms...
...Too much effort, too little art—click, click, click—and yet how was one going to be able to right the work without the effort...
...and every so often—crash!—the demolition of one Diana, and the beginning of another anew...
...pulling him forward and dragging him down into the dark waters of oblivion, deeper and deeper...
...The arms, the arms!' he sobbed...
...Miss Brynmarian settled back with a contented sigh, and Dr...
...And it must be a story about dreams, Angelicus...
...replied Miss Brynmarian, "you will have to admit that Leonidas was far in advance of his time...
...It proves that dreams are as bad for sculptors as they arc for young ladies...
...and he pitched the rest of his dream into the scrap heap...
...That happened a century before Christ...
...He awoke, crying out as his hands alternately dutched and pulled away from his neck: " 'Those arms—those arms—those beautiful arms—those damnable arms!' "He awoke, and his eyes were opened wide...
...Oh, if I could only form those arms as they are modeled in my fancy—or even as they are molded in the clay—there would be a marble here that would melt the hardest heart, delight the dullest eye, ravish the keenest intellect!' "Then again he would visualize, vividly, his Diana of dreams...
...Possibly the ideal which he had set himself was unattain-ably high: To carve this Diana of Corinth, to shape spiritual beauty that should express itself in, but above, physical beauty—was not this truly a shooting at the moon...
...He couldn't for all his skill, contrive them to his liking...
...What a pity he could not form those arms...
...Nevertheless, anything to oblige a lady, and, as luck will have it, here is such a story, written by our friend, Cyril B. Egan, which has just reached me...
...With a wild cry, I^eonidas leaped from the bed, grabbed up his mallet, and once more stood face to face with his work...
...Click, click, click...
...but still the dazzling white beauty of the vision provoked him, even as his waking glance rested on the statue beside him, with all its torturous agony of effort, all its stony-sinewed crudities painfully apparent in the relentless light of dawn...
...He dreamed that he was standing near the edge of a dark sea, gazing up at a wreath of mist that hovered about the moon...
Vol. 5 • November 1926 • No. 3
