acter; and partly for the charm of his society, and still more because his work has an invariable attraction for 'man that is born of woman,' I was accustomed to spend some hours a day at his workshop. The quaintness of his remarks, and their not infrequent truth—a truth condensed and pointed by the limited sphere of his view—gave a raciness to his talk, which mere worldliness and general cultivation would at once have destroyed.
Sometimes we would discuss the respective merits of the various qualities of marble, numerous slabs of which were resting against the walls of the shop; or sometimes an hour or two would pass quietly, without a word on either, side, while I watched how neatly his chisel struck out letter after letter of the names of the Nortons, the Mayhews, the Luces, the Daggets, and other immemorial families of the Vineyard. Often, with an artist's pride, the good old sculptor would speak of favorite productions of his skill, which were scattered throughout the village grave-yards of New England. But my chief and most instructive amusement was to witness his interviews with his customers, who held interminable consultations about the form and fashion of the desired monuments, the buried excellence to be commemorated, the anguish to be expressed, and finally, the lowest price in dollars and cents for which a marble transcript of their feelings might be obtained. Really, my mind received many fresh ideas, which, perhaps, may remain in it even longer than Mr. Wigglesworth's hardest marble will retain the deepest strokes of his chisel.
An elderly lady came to bespeak a monument for
