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James, Henry, 1843-1916

"Roderick Hudson"

I have seen intimations of
the type, but Miss Light is the perfection of it. As soon as I saw her I
said to myself, 'By Jove, there 's my statue in the flesh!'"
"What is your subject?" asked Roderick.
"Don't take it ill," said Gloriani. "You know I 'm the very deuce for
observation. She would make a magnificent Herodias!"
If Roderick had taken it ill (which was unlikely, for we know he thought
Gloriani an ass, and expected little of his wisdom), he might have been
soothed by the candid incense of Sam Singleton, who came and sat for an
hour in a sort of mental prostration before both bust and artist.
But Roderick's attitude before his patient little devotee was one
of undisguised though friendly amusement; and, indeed, judged from a
strictly plastic point of view, the poor fellow's diminutive stature,
his enormous mouth, his pimples and his yellow hair were sufficiently
ridiculous. "Nay, don't envy our friend," Rowland said to Singleton
afterwards, on his expressing, with a little groan of depreciation of
his own paltry performances, his sense of the brilliancy of Roderick's
talent.


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