But they
are crudely executed, and are posthumous sketches largely depending on
the artist's memory. The sculptor would be compelled to work in the
spirit of the historian, who recreates a past event from the
indication given him by an illiterate or fragmentary chronicle or
inscription. He would be bound to endow with artistic life those
features in which the authentic portraits agree, but the highest
effort of the imagination would be needed to create an impression of
artistic truth.
The success of a Shakespeare memorial will ultimately depend on the
pecuniary support that the public accord it. But in the initial stage
of the movement all rests on the discovery of a sculptor capable of
realising the significance of a national commemoration of the greatest
of the nation's, or indeed of the worlds, heroes. It would be well to
settle satisfactorily the question of such an artist's existence
before anything else. The first step that any organising committee of
a Shakespeare memorial should therefore take, in my view, would be to
invite sculptors of every country to propose a design. The monument
should be the best that artistic genius could contrive--the artistic
genius of the world.
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