The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-12
HIS STUDIO is HAUNTED.
The Nightly Visitant That
Camps in Marion Wells
Quarters.
The Ghost of the Kamakura
Buddha Comes to
Town.


sculptor has been engaged in modelling in
clay the big statue for the City Hall. The
sculptor found an abandoned church at
2523 Howard street best adapted for his
colossal art work. Here the graceful and
majestic figure which is to crown the dome
and for centuries keep watch and ward
over the portal of the West was fashioned
from toena1 to tresses, until she now
wears the proportions of perfect woman.
But the once-ruddy cheeks of the Califor-
MIA sculptor have lost their glow, and the
eye that could sight three-pronged buck
over the barrel of Winchester at 500
yards is now subdued and lusterless.
Mr.. Wells is mostly reticent on the
causes which have wrought the change,
and why IN the full tide of success he
should look anything but iubilant Occa--
sionalIy, however, his over burdened soul
/ finds relief in imparting the secret to his
intimate friends.
The trouble is the sculptors studio is
haunted. He has been brought face to
| face with the supernatural, the veil OF ISIS
has been rent, he has looked upon shape
which has no part or dealing with the al
| fairs of mortality. A page has been DIS,
closed to his startled gaze and he Is hlled
with wonder and awe to the lmpalrlng OF
his adipose tissue.
Two summers ago Marion Wells was en-
gagged by the Bohemian CLUB, OF Whlcn ne
is worthy member to reproduce IN the
redwoods, back of Mill Valley, the Kama
kura Buddha. 1t was TO be the exact coun-
| terpart of the great bronze goa tnat LOOKS
over the Japan Sea, and who is worshlped
by hosts OF devout pilgrims For 1000
years, when Egypt was in the zenith OF her
glory, and Thebes fourished, and Jeremiah
Lynch and his Egyptian sketches were yet
in the womb of time, the great Buddha has
sat drowsily upon his pedestal, the apo
theosis of contemplation, the perfect type
of perfect philosophic thought. The grand
parents of the towering redwoods, where
his California statue now stands, were not
in the cone when piouS hands fashioned
this magnificent idol.
The sculptor had the exact measure
ments and good photographs of the god
and the result was copy OF marvellous
precision, with the same lines and the
same expression as the original. The most
lighthearted and giddiest member of the
Bohemian Club was awe stricken by the
great beauty and power OF the statue.
When the rays of the harvest moon, CLINT
ing through the canopy of leaves, fell
upon its massive features they wore bale
fui expression, as if the god deemed these
forest revels within the very shadow he
cast an unseemly and sacrilegious proceed
ing. The summer jinks came to an end
and the idol was deserted. The winter
storms beat down upon him and the ocean
fogs enveloped him as a garment, and the
wild deer bounded away from him as an
uncanny apparition wearing the semblance
of its ferocious enemy, man. The annual
revels were held in other forests and the
Kamakura Buddha became a thing of the
past. But the creator of the god has not
been allowed to forget the image that grew
under his def hands. The Kamakura
Buddha haunts Marion Wells studio.
The specter is seen but by the sculptor
himself and then only at the full of the
moon. Gigantically and awfully it towers
to the top of the old church, its hands
resting, with thumbs touching, across its
great frame, and its dull eyes fixed in
sleepy admiration upon the clay statue of
the woman. To imagine for moment
that any sentiment of human passion
could permeate that passionless symbol of
wisdom would be an outrageous and in
famous presumption. To hope that its
intentions toward Mr.. Wells were of an
amicable nature would likewise be an alb
surd endowment of the god with those
qualities which, in its high stoicism. it
cannot but despise. But there it is. an un-
welcome guest in temple where Christian
worshipers once assem- bled, to harass and
perplex the artist who made its mightiness
familiar to the people of the West. It is
as impalpable as a shadow, and when Mr..
Wells has conjured it to speak the ex-
preston on its stolid features has been
one OF annoyance at being disturbed in its
contemplation of the clay lady. 1t is
luminous, yet rounded; transparent. vet
preserving all the characteristics of the
idol.
A century ago the sculptor would have
appealed to the ecclesiastic authorities to
help him in this his sore strait But now
he must wait until the woman is moved to
the summit of the City Hall, and even
then ne fears that the Buddha will perch
upon the opposite tower and keep the lady
in condition of perpetual embarrassment.