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[] One of America’s finest monumental sculptors, Daniel Chester French received his first art training in Concord from Louisa May Alcott’s sister, May. He studied in Boston and New York before his big break, the commission in 1875 for a statue of the Minute Man in Concord, now an iconographic American figure (which has Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” inscribed on its base). The success of this statue allowed him to study in Italy for a year, after which he spent a decade in Washington, D.C. A neoclassical sculptor, French often traveled to Europe for inspiration, but he is best known for his very American productions, including a bust (1879) and a full-length seated statue of Emerson (1914), both of which are in the Concord Free Public Library, “Mourning Victory” (1908) at the Melvin Memorial in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord, and the seated statue of Abraham Lincoln (1920) at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. His account of Emerson, while containing both a valuable portrait of him in Concord and Emerson’s comments on Nathaniel Hawthorne, is most interesting for being the only extended account we have of someone who captured Emerson ’s image, be it a sculptor or a photographer. Emerson appreciated the bust, commenting to French, as reported by Robert Underwood Johnson in Remembered Yesterdays,† “That’s the face I shave every morning.” Daniel Chester French “A Sculptor’s Reminiscences of Emerson” ( ) [My] impressions of Emerson [carry] me back to the days of my youth, in the quiet little New England town that ever since the April morning when its “embattled farmers” confronted the British at the old North Bridge, has been famous for the performances of her sons. None of them has so impressed his character and personality upon it or upon the world as did this divinely inspired teacher.Of his effect upon the world at large I have no need to speak, but in Concord he stood for what amounted to a sort of community conscience, his high ideals of life creating a standard that made people ashamed to act, or even to think, ignobly. . . . My own acquaintance with Mr. Emerson began when my father took up his abode in Concord in  . Already he was an elderly man. The most vivid impression of him that I have brought away from that time was of a tall emerson in his own time figure, walking the village streets enveloped in a long black cloak or shawl, and looking as I imagined Dante must have looked as he walked the streets of Florence. Young as I was, I was impressed, as every one was, with his dignified, serene presence. We have all had the common experience of disappointment in meeting some celebrity whose works we have long known and esteemed, because the man himself did not realize our ideal of him, but Emerson seemed as great as he really was—this very tall, spare, loosely hung figure with small head and rather large hands and feet, with clothes worn for use and without thought of them. It was none of these things that made all who approached him aware that they were in the presence of a demigod. Perhaps it was the soul that shone out upon you from his face; or the deep, full, beautiful voice with its matchless enunciation and perfect diction; or the clear, piercing eyes; or the courtesy towards man or child, high or lowly, which was unfailing; or a combination of all these and much besides that went to make up the indefinable atmosphere that invested this man, whose presence was a benediction. I have spoken of the influence of Emerson’s personality upon the community . It was one of the evidences of his symmetrically rounded nature that the respect and admiration in which he was held by the outside world were shared by his townsmen, who were, one and all, as proud of him as if he had been their own kin. He was a good citizen and neighbor, exemplary in the common, every-day relations of life, reasonable and just, so that the idle gossip of the village passed him by—a tribute that those may not appreciate who have not lived in a small town. The unaffected simplicity as well as the kindliness of the man may be illustrated by his attitude toward me, a youth of twenty. When spending an evening at his house soon after his return from abroad, he seated...

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