THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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martyred President in the Capitol, it never occurred to me, with my youth and my inexperience, to compete for that great honor; but I was induced to place my likeness of him before the committee having the matter under consideration, and, together with many other artists—competitors for this work—I was called before this committee. I shall never forget the fear that fell upon me, as the chairman (the Hon. John H. Rice, of Maine, who had a kind heart, but a very stern manner) looked up through his glasses, from his seat at the head of the table, and questioned and cross-questioned me until I was so frightened that I could hardly reply to his questions: “How long had I been studying art?” and had I “ever made a marble statue?” My knees trembled and I shook like an aspen, and I had not enough presence of mind even to tell him that I had made the bust from sittings from life. Seeing my dire confusion, and not being able to hear my incoherent replies, he dismissed me with a wave of his hand, and a request to Judge Marshall, of Illinois, to kindly see the young artist home! Once there, in the privacy of my own room, I wept bitter tears that I had been such an idiot as to try to compete with men, and remembering the appearance before that stern committee as a terrible ordeal before unmerciful judges, I promised myself it should be my last experience of that kind.

Judge then of my surprise and delight when I learned that, guided by the opin­ion of Judge David Davis, Senator Trumbull, Marshal Lamon, Sec. O. H. Browning, Judge Dickey, and many others of President Lincoln’s old friends, that I had pro­duced the most faithful likeness of him, they had awarded the commission to me—the little western sculptor. The Committee on Mines and Mining tendered me their room in the Capitol, in which to model my statue, because it was next to the room of Judge David Davis, and he could come in daily and aid me with his friendly criticisms. His comfortable chair was kept in readiness. He came daily, and suggesting “ a little more here—a little on there—more inclining of the bended head—more angularity of the long limbs,” he aided me in my sacred work by his encouraging words and generous sympathy. I had approached it with reverence, and with trembling hands had taken the proportions of the figure from the blood-stained garments President Lincoln had worn on that last and fearful night; and Judge Davis, a man whose heart was as great as his stature, v/as deeply interested in the statue of Lincoln, whose memory he loved. Friends flocked around Judge Davis. He was the lode-star that drew them to my studio. During those years which I spent in the Capitol, modeling the statue, I was thus thrown constantly with men prominent in public life. With Judge Davis as the central figure, many were the brilliant and gifted men who clustered around. Senators McDougall, Trumbull, Yates, Conness, Nesmith, Morton (of Indi­ana), Proctor Knott, Ebon C. Ingersoll, Samuel J. Randall, Mr. Windom, and indeed almost all of the senators and members were deeply interested in the statue of Lin­coln, and were constant visitors at the studio. Friend and foe gathered there with a common interest—the success of the work. Old feuds were forgotten, and they met on neutral ground—some on friendly terms who had not spoken to each other for years. What good friends they were to me! How true! Only for their sympathetic kindness, I would never have had the heart to take up and carry on the work, which was herculean for my fragile shoulders. Time has not dimmed the memory of their kindness, and I lay this tribute of gratitude at their feet.

In the bright and rambling discussions of men and things which took place in my studio there were told many tales of the war—its privations, its hardships and suffer­ings—by the gallant soldiers who came to see how the statue was developing. Some came on crutches, and told of how father and son, brother and brother, had met upon the battle-field, only to die in each other’s arms. I heard stories of prison life, of men who were shot to the heart at Shiloh or perished in the Wilderness; of men who went down at Antietam, fell at Winchester, or marched with Sherman “ from Atlanta to the Sea.” Gettysburgh was often mentioned, and then, like a sacred poem intoned upon the organ, came the memory of Lincoln’s inspired words upon that blood-stained field. The studio, with its circular walls and high arched ceilings, was lighted up by a