The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-05

difference between that rare and won derful gift, Fancy, and the common, not at all wonderful fad of Mysticism. Haw- thorne's imagination, so singularlY free from earthly clogs. has shown new im- perial roads of air to countless imitators but they lack the wings.
 "The Marble Faun' is a palace built of cloud and hang in the clear ether 1t is something started into being by a touch. 4 touch has made it-a touch might have marred it. Until there comes another genius who can look, like him. into the mysterious. gulf that surges soundlessly at our little island refuge of life, and catch the formless, dim shapes that peer at us. without distorting them and without robbing them of their dia- phanous elusiveness, "The Marble FaUn will remain unique. in literature.
 ~ NLY sculptor who dreamed
 poems as he wrought at his O marble eonld have conceived the Faun of Praxiteles. In th.s wonderful statue there is none of the coarseness, the animal lust that others have given 10 the mythical creature. It is that true Faun of the long-vanished groves of old all the innocence and unspolled joy of the creatures of wood and fell mingled with the greater attributes Of the human soul in it's first childhood, be- fore gin or morality and sorrow were known.
 This beautiful creature convinces one that lie must really have existed in long past golden age. Nature needed such Q happy being. standing betwiX man and animal, sympathizng with each comprehending the speech of either.
 Athrlll with the glory of life and un- conscious of it's indignities, he stands, smiling with his full yet delicate lips. The riddle of his animal nature pervades the figure with a mute mystery too sub tie to characterize. There is only one sign visible to the gross senses; this is in the ears of the Faun, which are leaf shaped, terminating in little peaks like those of some animals.
 Four persons stood before the impris oned vision one day in that time half century ago when our artists and seulp tors were beginning to crea,e an Ameri- can art far away from home.
 Kenyon" cried one. a dark-eyed beauty, pointing to the other male mem- Der of the party. See! Our friend Don atello is the very Faun himself!'
 The young man laughed and assumed lltS SdilS pOSllAOii dS lhC oiaNbS+ 5tSiid ing there he needed only the lions skin and the rustic pipe, instead of his ele- gant modern costume, to be- indeed, the Faun of Praxiteles, mraculously softened into flesh and blood.
 "Donatello," cried the dark-eyed beauty shake aside those dark curls and let us see whether this marvellous re- semblance extends to the very tips of the ears. If so. we shall like you all the betteri'
 No. no, dearest signorina," answered Donatello. laughing, but with a certain I earnestness. T entreat you to take the tips of my ears for granted" He leaped aside lightly as a veritable faun. q shall be like a wolf of the Apennnes." he continued If you touch my ears ever so [ lightly. None of my race could endure it. It has always been tender point with my line"
 Almost immediately he came again to the girls side and gazed at her with an appealing air as if soliciting forgiveness. He caught her hand, kissed 1t and looked into her eyes without saying word She smiled and bestowed on him a little, care t less caress that appeared to afford Dona- tello exquisite pleasure. He danced quite :. around the nearby statue of The Dying Gladiator
 ''It is the very step of the Dancing Faun," cried the others, laughing. These friends instinctively allowed for him as for child or some other lawless thing and hardly noticed his eccentricities. His lapses from conventionality were the more readily overlooked since he had | fallen into the unconventional art world of Rome, where few cared about any of the prm rules of society.
 He was a Count of Tuscany who had spent most of his life in the woods and wild passes of the Apennine mountains By chance he met the three artists and 4 at once fell under the charm of the dark beauty, Miriam. From the time of the irst meeting he became her shadow.
 Who Miriam was no one knew. She had appeared suddenly in Rome and showed a very considerable talent as 6 painter. She was not at all reserved, apparently, and made acquaintances free ly; but by some subtle quality she still kept every one at a distance without let ting them realize it at first.
 There were only three exceptions to this rule They were Donatello, Ken yon, the American sculptor, and Hilda, a gentle, lovely New England girl who was copying old masters. These four soon z became bound together by a friendship far deeper than usual.
 Even these friends, however, did not know anything of her past. They were as ignorant of it as the rest of the Ro- man art world, which tried to account for her in many romantic ways, the most popular of which was that she was @ foreign princess who had fled to avoid q marriage of state that was about to be forced on her.
 That the mystery surrounding her was more or less tragic could be inferred by i her friends from her frequent black moods and the glimpses that they ob- tained of her hopeless attitude toward the future. That it still enveloped her and shadowed her life, even in her self f sought obscurity, was made evident one day in a singular way.
 N The four has descended to the eata- comb of Saint Calixtus. After penetrat- ing some distance they had been startled by missing Miriam. The guide burst into exclamations of alarm recalling the fate of a stranger who had strayed only q few months before and had been found