Thomas Wolfe: Look Homeward Angel

In the novel, Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolfe described the stone statue of an angel, which stood for years on the porch of his father''s tombstone shop at 28 Park Square in Asheville.

No one knew how fond he was of the angel. Publicly he called it his White Elephant. He cursed it and said he had been a fool to order it. For six years it had stood on the porch, weathering, in all the wind and the rain. It was now brown and fly-specked. But it came from Carrara in Italy, and it held a stone lily delicately in one hand. The other hand was lifted in benediction, it was poised clumsily upon t...