Half covered by the hem of the robe were seen a tomahawk, an axe, a
printer's stick, a calumet, and various other emblems of American life,
civilized and barbarous.
A secret which Stanton did not impart to the public and which, with a
boldness allied to impudence, he trusted to their never discovering,
was the fact that his figure had been stolen bodily from an antique.
There exists in the museum of the Vatican a statuette representing a
work by Eutychides of Sikyon. Bas-reliefs of the same figure exist also
on certain coins of Antioch still extant. The figure represented the
city goddess _Tyche_ resting her foot upon the shoulder of the river
god _Orontes_, who seems to swim from beneath the rock upon which she
is seated. Stanton had a sketch of the statuette which he had made in
Rome, and from this he had modelled his _America_, replacing the god
_Orontes_ by a ballot-box, changing the accessories and adding as many
symbolical articles as he could crowd around the feet. He was not
wholly untroubled by an inward dread lest the source of his inspiration
should be discovered; but when he had been complimented by Peter Calvin
upon the marked originality of the design, he threw his fear to the
winds and delivered himself up to the enjoyment of receiving the
praises of his visitors.
There was a strange mixture of people present.
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