HARRIET G. HOSHER.
BY REV. R. B. THURSTON.
The number of women who have acquired celebrity in tBe art of painting is large ; but half a score would prob« ably include all the names of those who have achieved great- ness in sculpture. Without raising the question whether women are intellectually the equals of men, or the other question, which some affirm and some deny, whether there is
- ^sex of the soul,*' they differ; and there are manifest reasons
of the hand, the eye, and the taste, for which it should be anticipated that they would generally neglect the one depart- ment of 86sthetic pursuits, and cultivate the other with dis- tinguished success. The palette, the pencil, and colors fall naturally to their hands ; but mallets and chisels are weighty and painful implements, and masses of wet clay, blocks of marble, and castings of bronze are rude and intractable mate- rials for feminine labors. Sculpture has special hindrances for woman, — though not for any lack of power in her concep- tion and invention, yet in the manual difficulties of the art itself. But genius and earnestness overcome all obstacles, and supply untiring strength ; and the world give honorable recognition to those women who have, with a spirit of vigor and heroism, challenged a place by the side of their brothers as statuaries, and have with real success brought out the form of beauty and the expression of life and passion which sleep in the shapeless and silent stone.
