A Commonplace Book

A year of so ago, on the cover of the New York Herald Tribune Sunday magazine, I saw a picture of the Statue of Liberty... taken from a helicopter, and it showed the top of the statue's head. I was amazed to see the detail there. The sculptor had done a painstaking job with the lady's coiffure, and yet he must have been pretty sure that the only eyes that would see this detail would be the uncritical eyes of seagulls. He could not have dreamed that any man would ever fly over this head. He was artist enough, however, to finish off this part of the statue with as much care as he had devoted to her face and her arms and the torch and everything that people can see as they sail up the bay...