By a strange freak of human nature, by which we sometimes do our most humorous work when we are saddest, Miss Hosmer produced now in her sorrow her fun-loving “Puck.”  It represents a child about four years old seated on a toadstool which breaks beneath him.  The left hand confines a lizard, while the right holds a beetle.  The legs are crossed, and the great toe of the right foot turns up.  The whole is full of merriment.  The Crown Princess of Germany, on seeing it, exclaimed, “Oh, Miss Hosmer, you have such a talent for toes!” Very true, for this statue, with the several copies made from it, brought her thirty thousand dollars!  The Prince of Wales has a copy, the Duke of Hamilton also, and it has gone even to Australia and the West Indies.  A companion piece is the “Will-o’-the-wisp.”

About this time the lovely sixteen-year-old daughter of Madam Falconnet died at Rome, and for her monument in the Catholic church of San Andrea del Fratte, Miss Hosmer produced an exquisite figure resting upon a sarcophagus.  Layard, the explorer of Babylon and Nineveh, wrote to Madam Falconnet:  “I scarcely remember to have seen a monument which more completely commanded my sympathy and more deeply interested me.  I really know of none, of modern days, which I would rather have placed over the remains of one who had been dear to me.”

Miss Hosmer also modeled a fountain from the story of Hylas.  The lower basin contains dolphins spouting jets, while in the upper basin, supported by swans, the youth Hylas stands, surrounded by the nymphs who admire his beauty, and who eventually draw him into the water, where he is drowned.

Miss Hosmer returned to America in 1857, five years after her departure.  She was still young, twenty-seven, vivacious, hopeful, not wearied from her hard work, and famous.  While here she determined upon a statue of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and read much concerning her and her times.  She had touched fiction and poetry; now she would attempt history.  She could scarcely have chosen a more heroic or pathetic subject.  The brave leader of a brave people, a skilful warrior, marching at the head of her troops, now on foot, and now on horseback, beautiful in face, and cultured in mind, acquainted with Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Egyptian, finally captured by Aurelian, and borne through the streets of Rome, adorning his triumphal procession.

After Miss Hosmer’s return to Rome, she worked on “Zenobia” with energy and enthusiasm, as she molded the clay, and then the plaster.  When brought to this country, it awakened the greatest interest; crowds gathered to see it.  In Chicago it was exhibited at the Sanitary Fair in behalf of the soldiers.  Whittier said:  “It very fully expresses my conception of what historical sculpture should be.  It tells its whole proud and melancholy story.  In looking at it, I felt that the artist had been as truly serving her country while working out her magnificent design abroad, as our soldiers in the field, and our public officers in their departments.”  From its exhibition Miss Hosmer received five thousand dollars.  It was purchased by Mr. A.W.  Griswold, of New York.  So great a work was the statue considered in London, that some of the papers declared Gibson to be its author.  Miss Hosmer at once began suits for libel, and retractions were speedily made.