Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/140

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of them was an American sculptor of French extraction, or remotely perhaps of Italian, for he wore like a charm, in the Roman air, his fine name of Gloriani. He was a man of forty, he had been living for years in Paris and in Rome, and he now drove an active trade in sculpture of the ingenious or sophisticated school. In his youth he had had money; but he had spent it recklessly, much of it scandalously, and at twenty-six had found himself obliged to make capital of his talent. This was quite inimitable, and fifteen years of indefatigable exercise had brought it to perfection. Rowland admitted its power, though it gave him very little pleasure; what he relished in the man was the extraordinary vivacity and frankness, not to call it the impudence, of his opinions. He had a definite, practical scheme of art, and he knew at least what he meant. In this sense he was almost too knowing. There were so many of the æsthetic fraternity who were floundering in unknown seas, without a notion of which way their noses were turned, that Gloriani, conscious and compact, unlimitedly intelligent and consummately clever, helpful only as to his own duties, and at once gracefully deferential and profoundly indifferent to those of others, had for Rowland an effect of refreshment quite independent of the character of his works. These were 106