The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1891-01-28
A DIFFERENCE IN CLAY.

You may not know, but Clement Scott
was the young American sculptor who
won such distinction abroad last fall,
and over whom during the following
winter society at home with her usual
6ckleness, had come to rave. 1t is some
thing unusual for Philadelphia to arouse
herself over an American, but in Scott's
case it seemed natural enough. The
personal attractions of the man himself,
to say nothing of the distinction Paris
had bestowed upon him, were grounds
sufficient for his being social favorite
Immediately upon his arrival from
abroad he was besieged with invitations
to receptions and balls, teas and dinners,
and the like. Various societies gave pub
lie receptions in his honor; the country
clubs lunched him, and the city clubs
gave him dinners. tt went very well for
a time, but in a time, too, it grew most
tiresome. Scott stood the whole thing
as long as he could; then, breaking a
dozen or more engagements he closed
his rooms and went away to the sea-
shore. He had learned to his own salts
fact1on-to his own Disappointment
how little society knew of his art, how
little she cared, and that it was the gilt
ter of his medal. not himself, that peo-
pie loved.
It was the middle of spring when
Clement Scott came to Hull. He had
lived there during the summers previous
to his going abroad. The sea, the cliffs,
the stretches of white sand, the grass
covered hills, were all very dear to him,
and he smiled as he found the memories
of these coming back to him. There was
one memory, though, which seemed to
crowd all the beauties of sea and shore
from his thoughts, and then of q sudden
to bring them all trooping back again,
and in the light of his boyhood love.
That love was something which had
never gone from his memory. In his
studio in Paris he had often caught him
self shaping in the soft clay the features
of that che face. He was good at model
ing, but however truly his hands might
follow his memory, he could never seem
to catch the spirit of the image in his
mind; he could never put life into the
face ut is not she" he would say at
does not love me-" And then he would
crush the clay into shapeless mass and
try his hand at other work.
It was very natural that Scott should
feel as he did about the face he had
loved in his boyhood. The circumstan-
ces were peculiar. He had saved the
girls life at the risk of his own. In
oalr oh 1nA Co l.
foot in switch, and must have been
killed had not Scott rescued her. AS it
was she had not escaped without in
jury; her arm had been run over. Some
one said the child's name was Mildred
Boday. Scott knew the beautiful place
the Bodays had been building on the hill
near his own home, and there he had
carried her, with her dress torn from
the shoulder, and her little white arm,
cruelty crushed and bleeding, hanging
at his side.
The injury was severe one. 1t be-
came necessary to amputate the childs
arm close to the shoulder, and it was
during this period of her confinement
that Scott came to know Mildred Boday
we'll. Young as he was, he loved the
beautiful well enough to take joy in
watching Mildred's sweet face, with the
wealth of golden hair which hung about
it, or in looking into Mildreds blue eyes,
wide open with wonder or joy at his
tales. When Mildred got about again
Clement was her right hand man. The
functions of the arm she had lost were
supplied by an artificial arm of French
mechanism-an arm that could be moved
at will, or even taken off altogether.
That arm was source of great amuse-
ment to them. Sometimes its joints
would stick, and Clement would have to
rescue Mildred from some awkward
position, and then they would laugh and
think it great joke.
at the close of his sixteenth year Scott
went abroad and took up his sculpturing
under an Italian master, first in Rome
and then in Paris. Eight years after
ward he received his medal, and with it
the praise of the whole Of Europe Then
he returned to America.
Then it was that the young sculptor,
with all the glamor of q triumph abroad
and in the midst of an ovation at home,
left the prattles and insincerities of New
York society for the quiet and for the
girl in the little sea town Of Hull.
He found the sea, the cliffs, the
stretches of white sand all unchanged.
Mildred Boday had changed. She was
woman. But she was just the same to
him. There was little formality at
first, but formality could not live when
they were together, and soon they came
to be the same boy and girl they had
been when they parted.
Scott fixed up his old studio and the
workshop where he had modelled his first
head. Mildred helped him to drape his
walls and to place his belongings, and
when they had finished it was a pretty
study. Scott had ordered block Of
marble from Paris. and when 1t came he
set to work upon it ts try the expert
ment Of cutting an image directly in the
marble and without tho aid of the clay
model. The image he ~as to follow was
the Venus of Milo he was doing it
solely for pleasure, he said, and 80
worked only when he felt like it. Mil
bred was frequently by his side in the
studio. Now and then she would pose
her head to give him an idea of curve
or line, and always it was more in fun
than in seriousness that the work went
ON.
In a few weeks, however, the head Of