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On coming [[struck out]] He commenced somne spring flowers but they withered before he got them done.  Then he commenced another canvass a wheel barrow, of carrots in the barn yard in the sun but did not ever work on it but the first day. A little dwarf came to the village frightful hideous.  He dressed him up in Venetian costume and commenced painting him and got the head most done I did not touch it after and in a few weeks the dwarf went away. So he didnt get a single thing done in the 8 months at Ecouen. I saw four little things by Gouture [[?]] here lately at Bowles American bankers the most beautiful color I ever saw. But they were very small.  What a grand talent. He is the Phidias of painting and drawing.  Who that has ever looked in a girls' eyes or run his fingers through her soft hair or smoothed her cheek with his hand or kissed her lips or their corners that plexus of all that is beautiful in modelling but must love Gouture for having shown us nature on canvass [[struck out]] again and beauty on canvass. In his Decadence he has far exceeded all every one that could ever [[struck out]] all other painters.  There seemed to be nothing left for him to do.

Transcription Notes:
Phidias was an Ancient Greek sculptor, known best for a statue of Athena that was in the Parthenon and a statue of Zeus in the temple at Olympia.