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Kenyon, it will be remembered, had asked Donatello's permission to ress, and necessarily
kept the sculptor's thoughts brooding much and often upon his host's
personal characteristics These it was his difficult office to bring out
fro them what they
could not discern for thelance, on the surface of a block of ave him so much trouble
as Donatello's; not that there was any special difficulty in hitting
the likeness, though even in this respect the grace and harmony of
the features seemed inconsistent with a prominent expression of
individuality; but he was chiefly perplexed how to enial and
kind type of countenance the index of the mind within His acuteness and
his sympathies, indeed, were both sohten hih which the Count was now
passing If at one sitting he caught a glienuine and permanent trait, it would probably be less perceptible on
a second occasion, and perhaps have vanished entirely at a third So
evanescent a show of character threw the sculptor into despair; not
marble or clay, but cloud and vapor, was the ht to be represented Even the ponderous depression which constantly
weighed upon Donatello's heart could not compel him into the kind of
repose which the plastic art requires