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180
COPENHAGEN.
Chap. XI.
you are on almost sacred ground. You may imagine
yourself in the salon of the artist himself. Here are
arranged his furniture, his pictures as they existed in
his lifetime, his tables, chairs, his very inkstand.
Fifteen years have elapsed since his spirit fled; it seems
as though he left them yesterday. Protected by a
glasscase stands the model of a head of Luther, unfinished,
on which the sculptor worked the very day of his death.
Against the walls hangs his last sketch, an ébauche in
crayon—the Genius of Sculpture seated on the shoulder
of the statue of Jupiter; among the portraits is a family
group of his daughter, her husband Colonel Paulsen, and
her children, boy and girl. The latter was not destined
to reach woman’s estate—she died not long since: of
the boy I know nothing.
There is something solemn and touching in this finale
to our wanderings : it brings the sculptor home to your
mind, and I have always observed that visitors leave
this chamber somewhat quiet and subdued, speak little
when there, and in a voice half whisper. Before quitting
the building let us pay a short visit to his old servant
Wilkens, now custode of the museum.
I did so early one morning before the crowd arrived,
expressly to see some sketches from the hand of
Thorvaldsen. After inspecting several, the old man’s heart
warmed on the subject, and, unlocking drawer after
drawer, he displayed to me various relics of his beloved
master. There was the heavy uncouth silver watch—
his property when he first left his native city for the
South; a better one, purchased in later and more
prosperous days; and lastly, a gold chronometer, the gift
of an English friend. Then there were his spectacles
with broad silver rims, implements of various kinds,
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