Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned using Xerox software and equipment at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCITT Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornell * s replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. The production of this volume was supported in part by the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials and the Xerox Corporation. Digital file copyright by Cornell University Library 1994./ LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT By HENRY WARE SPRAGUELARS G. SELLSTEDT, AS PAINTED BY HIMSELF. FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THE POSSESSION OF THE BUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY.I LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT READ AT A MEETING OF THE BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY ON TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 30, igi2. By HENRY WARE SPRAGUE We come together tonight to celebrate the ninety-third birthday of Lars Gustav Sellstedt—who, born in Sweden April 30, 1819, after many years of wandering up and down the earth, in 1845 made Buffalo his home, and from that time until his death, on the 4th of last June, dwelt among us one of our most distinguished, honored and beloved citizens, and dedicated his high talents to develop in this community a love of the things of the spirit as exemplified in art. I say “celebrate,” for surely this is not the hour for mourning. Rather let us rejoice that fate bestowed upon us this fine life, to be with us and to enrich our lives for so many years, and to implant so much of the ideal into the materialism of a crude American frontier town. This man, in bodily presence and outward seeming, has left us forever. His interesting, unique and charming personality has ceased to be. Never again shall we clasp that warm hand and look into those bright eyes and hear that rich voice which met us with such cordial and affectionate greeting. That hand has vanished and the sound of that voice is stilled. A void and an irreparable loss are the 39.40 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. result; and yet, somehow, there is more of joy than sorrow in the retrospect. Death is so inevitable that when it comes, in due course of nature, we learn to bow to it with a stoical submission; so at this hour, while facing this solemn fact, still, remembering, as we do, that bright, interesting and fruitful life, how to it was allotted over four score years and ten, how that life was the very embodiment of light- hearted joy and happiness, and filled to the brim and flowing over with the zest and enjoyment of living, surely the picture left upon the memory is a pleasant and cheerful one. He of all men loved the gay, the festive and the joyous. Noth- ing gave him more pleasure than to celebrate an anniversary and upon all such occasions to make good cheer. So, surely, it would be his wish that as his friends join here to pay tribute to his memory, the note we should strike should be pitched to a psean rather than a dirge. Now my pleasant task is to attempt, by a pen picture, to bring our friend back to us as he lived and moved and had his being among us; to describe his outward and visible seeming, and those traits of mind, heart and character which distinguished him and made him what he was; to tell of his position and what he stood for in the intellectual, social and artistic life of Buffalo; what he accomplished as a painter and his great work for the furtherance of art in our midst; and to interweave just enough of the story of his life to portray the effect of his inheritance and sur- roundings in molding and fashioning his mind and char- acter. His history has been related by himself in that extraor- dinary autobiography, “From Forecastle to Studio.,, I say extraordinary advisedly, for to my mind this book, in cer- tain respects, is unique in the annals of biography. The world has been looking for years for some man's honestLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 41 account of his own life. Rousseau’s was hailed as such, but when reading him you feel that he is posing in his very attempt to be frank. So, as you peruse tale after tale of the lives of noted men, as related by themselves, you are conscious that they are putting the best foot foremost and are eager that the record of their lives should be freed from stain and blemish or that there is an evident and conscious effort toward frankness. Constantly is it apparent that fhese writers have continually the thought, what will be the effect of their chronicle upon the reader. Now Mr. Sell- stedt’s story of his life, his early years at home, his family and friends and particularly his fourteen years of voyages on the high seas and the great lakes as a sailor before the mast, starting as a lad of twelve, his adventures, his ambi- tions, hopes and aims, the temptations to which he yielded and those he overcame, is told with a frankness so complete, and at times almost brutal, that, as you read some para- graphs it is hard to believe that he is actually talking about himself. All this grew out of certain traits of character which are seldom met with in our intercourse with our fellowmen. He had about him what Matthew Arnold has described as 4 “The freshness of the early world-.” With a perfectly normal and healthy physique there was united an equally strong normal and healthy mind, which thought straight and saw clear, and was utterly devoid of any morbid or pedantic tendencies. Always, in every thought and action, he was incapable of any indirection. Great and tender-hearted, sympathetic, loyal and kind, the frankness and bluntness with which he spoke his mind im- pressed you with the fact that here was a man whose speech was the perfect record of his thought.42 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. Sundsvall, his native place, is a seaport of the Gulf of Bothnia on the east coast of Sweden. The gulf lets out on to the Baltic and from thence the ships may pass to the North Sea, the Atlantic, and so on over the waters of the world. From time immemorial until the invention of the steam locomotive the dwellers by the sea have had means of access to and communication with the entire planet unknown to their inland brothers. This gave them a greater knowledge of Cities of men and manners, climates, councils, governments, and with it a breadth of thought and a range of vision not readily attained by those living far away from the coast. So it was at Sundsvall. Ships from that port car- ried the famous pine lumber to lands scattered all over the world and returned laden with the natural and manufac- tured products of every clime. You can imagine the little boy Lars, like Amy as Leigh at Biddeford, listening to the strange tales of these sailormen of all they had seen and done in distant countries and having his infant soul fired with ambition to “Sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars” into the great unknown. His childhood was passed in most propitious surround- ings. His . paternal grandfather was a manufacturer of wealth and distinction. His mother, a clergyman's daugh- ter, was a woman of great force of character, somewhat stern in discipline, but affectionately devoted to her children and ambitious for their education and progress. Our friend says of her, “Notwithstanding her uncompromising code of right and wrong, even in the smallest matters, I loved her intensely. She was of a kind disposition, benevolent, hos- pitable and deeply pious, nor was her piety at all gloomy;LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 43 in her younger days she greatly loved all innocent amuse- ment, was a member of an amateur club, where her fine voice in ballad singing was highly esteemed; she also danced, read novels, and in short enjoyed life in every way comformable with respectable society.” He speaks of his father as being a “worldly, good natured man, whose prin- cipal amusement was fishing.” “Our family life,” he says, “was, as I remember, happy and harmonious. The house was large and commodious; the lower story contained our business room, kitchen and living room, while the great rooms in the upper story were devoted almost exclusively to festal occasions. One of these was never used, except for balls or large parties, while the other was the usual place where our great dinners were given. Though habitually frugal in our family life, no expense was spared then, and it was far from uncommon to have thirty or forty guests for dinner.” Much care was bestowed upon the boy’s education, and his attitude toward “book learning” was that of most hearty, healthy, bright youngsters. He studied Latin, Greek, French, German, grammar, mathematics, geography, etc. At times he was attentive, diligent, and a model scholar, and at other times, according to his own account, he was just the reverse. With his quick mind and retentive memory, he readily learned his tasks, and when the subjects attracted him made fine progress.. If, however, the matter in hand failed to interest him, it received his scornful neglect. So he scrambled along through his classes and his childhood days, a hearty, happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, enterprising, mischievous lad. In 1828 his father died and two years afterwards, when the boy was eleven years of age, his mother married a second time. This stepfather, according to his stepson’s account, possessed a hard and tyrannical44 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. disposition and a mutual dislike and antagonism sprang up between them. The boy felt that the man was an interloper and usurper of the goodly heritage of the family. The culmination of the trouble is thus described: “In the spring of 1831, I was ill-treated beyond endurance by my step- father for what he was pleased to call an offence, though I never in my mature life could see that it was an offence to cut a sapling growing from the root of a mountain ash to make a fish pole for a small boy. He took the sapling and wore it out on my back. As I considered the property mine, and him a usurper, my anger and indignation overcame my pain and I recall no humiliating appeals for mercy; but the injury having been afflicted, I immediately went to my mother and informed her of my resolution to go to sea, and in less than a month I was on board a small schooner bound for Stockholm.” Shortly before his death, when time had reduced that strong frame to the extremity of emaciation and feebleness, but had left untouched his powerful memory and all his tender emotions, he described this encounter with his stepfather with a flushed face and with such energy that it was evident that the lapse of eighty years had not served to weaken his resentment for the bitter wrong he had suffered at that time. And now begins the “Wanderjahre” and “Lehrjahre” of this, our Wilhelm Meister. After his first voyage to Egypt, which lasted eighteen months, he spent the winter of 1834 at home and went to school; but with that exception, beginning as a child only eleven years of age, for fifteen years he was a wanderer on the face of the waters of the world. Think of this child, so tender, so warm hearted, so sensitive, sympathetic and responsive to love and affection, so devoted to his home, his mother and his sister, cast adrift to roam friendless over the earth with no one to care forLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 45 him, no one to guide and counsel him, no one to whom he could appeal for help, comfort, sympathy and tender love and care. Thus, before his childhood had ceased, and dur- ing the formative period of youth and adolescence and until he had reached mature manhood, he went through a most strange and unusual educational process, and graduated with a great fund of accumulated knowledge, a wealth of experience, and with a character in complete accord with “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report.” First let me briefly sketch the course of these wanderings and then try to portray the stern and bitter school of experience through which he passed. His first voyage was for a month only, to Stockholm and return. Next, in the autumn of 1831, the twelve year old youngster shipped as cabin boy for a stormy winter’s cruise on a vessel laden with lumber bound for Alexandria. He endured seasickness, wet, cold, beatings, and abuse of every kind. He managed, as cabin boy, to smash enough crockery to consume his munificent wages of $1.25 a month. The ship passed from Alexandria to Leghorn and Riga, and so home after an absence of eighteen months. In June, 1831, he sailed again as cabin boy on the bark Prudent bound from Stockholm for New York. From the latter port the Prudent sailed to Savanna, and there the lad made his first acquaintance with slavery. From Savanna, the bark took a load of cotton to Marseilles, and then returned to New York. The next voyage was also on the Prudent by way of Malta to Palermo, and so back by way of Bermuda to New York, which was reached December, 1835. The boy then left the Prudent and as he could find no other work, spent some months at a sailor boarding house in New York City.46 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. In March, 1836, although seventeen years of age only, he managed to pass himself off as an able seaman and ever thereafter sailed as such. Then came a voyage to the West Indies, and then employment on a pilot boat off Phila- delphia; then a voyage to Port au Prince and Trinidad, de Cuba; then one to Pernambuco in Brazil, where he landed in January, 1837. At Pernambuco he says: “There was at that time a slaver fitting out, and my spirit of adventure prompted me to try for a berth on her, but fortunately the place had been filled before I applied. When I think from how great danger I was saved, both to soul and body, by this failure of my foolish love of romance, I feel that in gratitude to Providence it would be doubly criminal.,, Next he had a curious five months’ voyage on the brig Helen Mar, which sailed from Pernambuco, he shipping as cook and steward. The brig sailed to the west coast of Africa on a fishing voyage, bringing the salted fish back to the market of Pernambuco. This voyage was rendered somewhat eventful and rather unpleasant by a too scanty supply of provisions, a too plentiful supply of rum, and a mutiny. Upon his return to Pernambuco he stayed for some time at that port doing odd jobs at sail making, etc. Finally he shipped on a Norwegian bark bound for Rio de Jeneiro. The crew spent the entire voyage at the pumps, as the only method of keeping the old hulk upon the surface of the deep. The day after he reachd Rio he took a stroll on the beach. He saw a United States man of war just getting under way, and the sudden impulse seized him to try a cruise in a warship. He thus described his sudden and un- premeditated plunge into a new sphere of activity: “The market boat of the Falmouth sloop of war, that I saw getting ready to sail, was at the landing. I asked the crew if they thought I could ship in her. They informed me thatLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 47 two men had run away the night before and it was likely that I would be received. Just then the midshipman in charge came along. Going up to him, I asked if he thought I could get on board. He said he did not doubt it, but that he could not take me in the boat. If I could get a shore boat to take me off no doubt all would be well. Unfortun- ately I had no money and I told him so. 'Here/ he said, ‘hold your hat; here is a lot of copper that I can do nothing with/ and with that he flung into it a millrais in two-vintine pieces (about sixty cents).” Thus he boarded the Fal- mouth, and with no further thought, consideration, or delib- eration, joined the U. S. Navy on a cruise which lasted three years. He sailed around Cape Horn, with the usual rough experiences of that tempestuous voyage. Then on to Valparaiso and Callao. Two years and until 1840 were spent along the coast, once sailing to the island of Juan Fernandez. The homeward voyage was begun in the spring of that year and in June he was paid off at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. After divers and sundry adven- tures in New York, he shipped for Liverpool, and in the fall reappeared in his native city after an absence of six years. He was then barely twenty-one years old. There he spent the winter, recounting to his relatives and friends the tale of his adventures and having the best of good times. In June of the next year he sailed on a brig from Elsinor to Boston, and while waiting at Boston for a ship worked in a rigging loft. Finally he shipped on a small, low-deck schooner for St. Pierre, Martinique, and again spent most of his time at the pumps in a desperate effort to stay above water. He found his way to Havanna. From that port he shipped as mate to New York, and still was constantly at the pumps, which belched forth a mixture of salt water and molasses from the leaky barrels with which48 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. the ship was laden. In New York he concluded he would try his luck upon the great inland seas, and journeyed to Buffalo by boat and rail in 48 hours. He first saw the city which was to be his future home May 12, 1842. He was then twenty-three years of age. With the exception of one trip to Havana he spent the greater part of the next three years sailing upon the lakes and in December, 1845, in his twenty-sixth year, he closed his life as a sailor and settled in Buffalo which was his home for the remaining sixty-five years of his life. So ended his wanderings. His student days were over. Now, what had he acquired in the way of knowledge, cul- ture and character building at this, his Oxford and his Cambridge, his Harvard and his Yale? Why, he emerged from these twelve years as a common sailor an educated, cultivated man and with the fine attributes of self-knowl- edge, self-reverence and self-control. Surely an extraor- dinary result from such a life and such a training. How was it accomplished? Simply by the constant exercise and development of a mind endowed by nature with the quali- ties of a student. Scholars are born, not made. Take for instance Andrew D. White. As you read his life, you are convinced that he was a scholar by nature as well as by training. So it was with Mr. Sellstedt. It was as natural for him to absorb knowledge as to breathe. He went about the world with his eyes wide open, and with every faculty of his intellect keenly alive, “To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.” / All was grist to his mill. His acquisitive mind took in infor- mation at every pore. He learned from books, which he read with avidity and never forgot, from contact and con- versation with men, and from the close observation andLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 49 study of the manners, customs and morals of divers races in various parts of the world. He learned to be a first-class sailor and a skillful navigator, and most of all he acquired the habit of learning and of mental concentration, so that he continued to be a student for life. Always was he reading, studying, observing, and filling his mind with rich stores of information and with delightful images, the result of the “shaping power of the imagination” which was so highly developed in him. The painstaking care with which he studied is best illustrated by the way he learned English. It is the rule that absolute proficiency in a foreign- tongue can be acquired only by familiar intercourse with it from infancy. There are, however, a few exceptions to this rule. Carl Shurz, one of the great masters of English, of our time, was nearly of age before he learned a word of the language; and Mr. Sellstedt, who acquired a mastery of the tongue exceptional with a native born, began its study when he was fifteen and from that time during his long life he never ceased his arduous, painstaking pursuit of English. As he acquired facility in its use, he learned to love the language and its rich literature, and few among us were so conversant with the great writers in the English tongue, both in poetry and in prose. His early attempts to learn English show the same laborious, painstaking care with which he continued this study during his entire life. It was a queer beginning and not at all in accordance with the prescribed methods of our primary schools. It was upon his first voyage to America under the tutelage of the kind Captain Moriarity and his fine wife, both of whom were so helpful to him in many ways, that he spent all his spare time conning lessons in English. “I remember,” he says, “having asked the second mate how to ask the name of things in English, and he told me to say, 'Wat you call datun?’ ” his50 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. own English being lame to that extent. So I went on, boring my friend Put (a Yankee boy from Salem, Mass.) with the question till I knew the name of everything I could see to point to. I made me a little memorandum book by folding and sticking together a few sheets of writing paper, in which I wrote down phonetically the answers to my ques- tions, memorizing at night on retiring what I had written during the day. The captain’s wife was my only pre- ceptor. The mulatto cook took me in his particular charge and devoted his spare time to giving me private lessons. In truth I owe much to him, for his zeal was indefatigable and his patience without bounds. He was fond of telling stories and I was a willing listener, the only drawback being that I understood so little of what he said, but this would only redouble his efforts to make me understand. The task of learning a new language without dictionary, grammar, or any other book of instruction is not an easy one, and almost every night, when I retired to my lonely bunk I felt ashamed of my progress. Shall I ever learn to speak Eng- lish? was the burden of my thought.” I have dwelt so long upon these first efforts to speak English to show the diffi- culties under which the boy "‘labored and which he com- pletely overcame. The average school boy learns his daily task and then gives it no further thought. This boy never had the pursuit of English off his mind during his waking hour. He read book after book and firmly fixed in his retentive memory the script as well as the thought and story; he talked with anybody who would listen to him; he haunted the theater when he was ashore and had the admission fee, both for love of the plays and to perfect his English; and he steeped himself so completely in the Eng- lish tongue that when, after an absence of six years, he spent the winter at home, he says that “For the life of me,LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 51 I could not tell the story of my travels in any intelligible way for lack of use of my native tongue. However, I managed to make myself partly understood, nor was it many weeks before I spoke it quite fluently, though with a strong English accent.” So much for the mental development and training ac- quired by the youth Sellstedt in this strange school of experience. What were the results in moral training and the development of character ? Here, indeed, the problem of obtaining a satisfactory result would seem to be more difficult and complex. The story of Jack Tar ashore is proverbially a tale of reckless extravagance, drunkenness and debauchery. This lad of fifteen, with no one to advise him, no one to admonish him, no one to restrain him, was thrown headlong into the sailor life with all its lights and shadows. He had not been raised in the New England school of Puritanism and he was far from being ascetic in his tastes and inclinations. On the contrary, with his bright, sunny nature and with the largest possible capacity for drinking “life to the lees,” he grasped the cup of pleasure with eager hand and enjoyed to the full all good things that came in his way. At home in Sweden the flowing bowl was on the table at every festive occasion, and young and old alike partook, so that drink, the besetting sin of sailors, was not unfamiliar to him. Perhaps this was his greatest safe- guard, for he learned thus early the use and not the abuse of the cup that cheers and too often inebriates. Not that things always went right with him morally. He had his hours of temptation. He was full of life, good spirits, love of fun and adventure, and a boon companion in any merry crowd. And yet, with all this, you see the tendencies which left his moral nature intrinsically sweet and pure. Within him dwelt a deep admiration, respect and reverence for all52 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. that was delicate and refined in women. This is made evident by every reference to them in what he wrote, and from our knowledge of his many years of social life in our midst. We know that he was happiest when in the society of women of the highest intelligence, the broadest culture, and the most perfect refinement. His nature was so whole- some that he was immune from any perverted or morbid tendencies. To his dying day there was a certain freshness and simplicity about him which was most beautiful, and which could never have remained with him if his character had been warped or atrophied by vicious tendencies. Then what a splendid schooling it was to develop all the manly virtues,—courage, patience, self-reliance, hardihood, endurance, self-control, faith, hope and charity ? He suf- fered hunger, arctic cold, tropical heat, bodily abuse, and every privation and peril known to the seafaring man. With him in those days of early youth and manhood it was always a feast or a famine. At times his pocket was full and he rejoiced thereat and celebrated with reckless extrava- gance and shared his good luck with others with open- handed, lavish generosity. At other times he was penni- less and knew not where to seek his next meal. Curiously enough he seemed to enjoy the latter situation about as much as the other. He had two qualities which made existence always welcome, no matter whether it turned towards him its bright or shady side—absolutely perfect health and absolutely perfect spirits. He appeared to regard life as an amusing game and played it for all it was worth, and was equally entertained whether the dice went against him or whether they turned up double sixes. He took, with a “frolic welcome” not only the thunder and the sunshine but every good or ill, happiness or sorrow, that fate had in store for him.LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 53 So, with this long and remarkable training which had developed in him these fine traits of mind, heart and char- acter for which he was always admired, respected and loved, in 1845 Mr. Sellstedt made Buffalo his home and lived here for the remaining sixty-six years of his life. This period almost fills the space of time allotted to men on earth by the psalmist and thus it is true that he spent a life- time among us. I shall not undertake to chronicle that period, but rather to bring back to your minds a picture of our friend as he lived and worked in our midst, and par- ticularly what he accomplished in his adopted profession as an artist, and what he did to cultivate and maintain a knowledge and appreciation of and love for art in this com- munity. This sailorman, who had roamed the world in search of a living and to gratify his love of romance and adventure, had a very high and noble side to his nature. His temperament was essentially poetic and romantic. He had fine ideals and aspirations. Without knowing pre- cisely how it was to be accomplished, he felt that he should never be content until his mode of life permitted the devel- opment of the artistic side of his nature. “It is true,” he says, “that I had not adopted the life of a sailor because I loved the sea, but rather as a means of getting away from a home that had been rendered unbearable to me from its domestic infelicity, and that my ambition had no higher aim than that of being the best of my class; yet there lurked a hope within my inner consciousness that sometime in the uncertain feature I might find a way to spend a part of my life on shore in some congenial occupation.” Surely a modest wish, and how completely it was fulfilled! Indeed, I think that one of the most engaging and lovable traits of our friend was the spirit of thankfulness and keen zest and appreciation with which he accepted all good things which54 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. came to him in this world, no matter how modest or unpre- tentious they might be. Never did an artist enter upon his career with less instruction. He describes how, as a little lad at school, “It was found that I showed a love of art, and my mother persuaded a beautiful young lady, the daughter of a lector in the gymnasium, to give me some lessons in drawing. How well I remember the elegance and taste that pervaded her perfumed boudoir and my blushes when she spoke to me or leaned over me to guide my hand. Well, I don’t recall how many lessons I received, but I remember about a dozen sheets of the finest of drawing paper covered with flowers, a landscape with a big spruce and one head with abundance of curly hair all done in the neatest manner possible, of pencilling. This was the only regular instruc- tion in art I ever had.” It was soon after he became of age, while in the American Navy off the Pacific coast of South America, that his ambitions for an artistic career were awakened. “It was while on this coast that I began to have my attention called in a serious way to art. It had always been my pleasure, and in early youth the occupation of my spare hours; but nothing practical had ever come of it,—no idea of making it my life work, nor did it at this time occur to me that such a thing was possible. Yet I can now trace to the things I did on board this ship, insignificant as they were, the first dawnings of the art idea within me. Still what I did was in itself nothing. I saw that some of my comrades were scratching sperm whales’ teeth, making rude pictures on them. I too tried my hand, and being more experienced in drawing than others, I made better work; nay, in a short time I produced some things which were really clever imitations of steel engravings on the polishedLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 55 ivory.” He continued these feeble attempts at artistic ex- pression during his many years at sea. Buffalo, however, which was to be his home during his entire career as an artist, saw his first earnest and persistent endeavors to acquire the art of the painter. It is surprising that one so uninstructed in this the most delicate and diffi- cult of the arts should have dared to attempt it. However, his was a sanguine temperament and he knew not the diffi- culties in his way. It was a case where ignorance was bliss, and he was undaunted by any fore-knowledge of the long, intricate and toilsome road he was to follow. He possessed, as aids to the accomplishment of his arduous task, courage, industry, abiding faith that he could succeed, the keenest of perceptive faculties, a natural love and appreciation of color and form and a natural aptitude for the work, and more than all, a firm determination that he would become an artist in the best sense of that much abused word. It is interesting to watch his crude beginnings and how he had to grope his way to a knowledge even of the rudiments of his art and how it all finally resulted in his large measure of success. By reason of lack of employment on the lakes, he spent the summer of 1842 in Buffalo and there he was thrown upon his love of drawing for recreation. He describes how his friend, Captain Black, “had been in his youth a student of art and he possessed two portraits, one of himself by Stuart and the other of his wife by himself. It occurred to me that I might be able to paint a portrait too, and I told him so, whereupon he suggested that I try it. He went with me and assisted me to purchase my first materials, and gave me an unfurnished garret room for a studio. A board with pegs in, set against the wall, served for an easel and thus I was ready to commence. I did not expect then to limit my talents to mere portrait painting.56 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. Visions of competition with the great masters haunted me day and night.” His first attempt was certainly sufficiently ambitious. It was a life size death bed scene illustrating a passage from Pollock's poem, “The Course of Time.” He made up his mind that the result was not quite perfec- tion, when two accomplished women, whc> were invited to a private view, with kind delicacy damned the attempt not with faint praise but with utter silence, and advised him to make the acquaintance of Wilgus, an accomplished portrait painter then working in Buffalo. He describes his admira- tion of Wilgus: “A young man nearly my own age, with coal black hair, smooth and silky, large lustrous black eyes, with clear but pale cheeks, slightly tinged with that delicate rose of which I have since learned to know the sad signif- icance; a straight and beautifully formed nose, a classic mouth seriously smiling—to me he seemed Apollo clad in summer blouse with palette for lyre and a rest stick for bow.” “I had been greatly taken with Mr. Wilgus' coloring and technique, and in reply to my question he informed me of what his palette consisted. Very simple it was, and I lost no time in placing the same pigments on my own. I found that they produced improvements in my efforts, and then, too, I made another discovery; by the use of a ‘badger' I could get a smooth surface—to me a great desideratum, and I began to flatter myself that I had not much more to learn. I had got a commission to paint a lady's portrait, life size, for two dollars. I succeeded in making a smooth picture which her friends could recognize, and what more could art accomplish? In my joy and pride at having suc- ceeded, I invited the friend who had introduced me to Mr. Wilgus to come and see my work. He came, but said noth- ing. I imputed his silence to astonishment, and there wasLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 57 even a lurking suspicion in my mind that jealousy was at the bottom of his heart. However, I was determined that he should openly acknowledge my genius, so I asked him what he thought of it; it seemed to embarrass him, but I pressed him for an answer. ‘Do you wish me to tell you just what I think?’ ‘Certainly.’ ‘Well, then, your picture is good for nothing, not even worth the canvas on which it is painted.’ All my pride was gone, for I felt that he had reluctantly told the truth, and I knew that I was not born to obscure the fame of Rafael. ‘But,’ I said, ‘I have used the same colors as Wilgus.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but that’s not the way to paint.’ ‘What, then, is the way to paint?’ I gasped. ‘You must study to get your tints so as to resemble the place on the face where they are to go, then put them on boldly and don’t touch them again if you can help it.’ This was^ the first and only oral lesson I have had in handling colors, but it holds good to this very day. But I did not then quite understand it, and my next picture assumed the appearance of a very poorly executed mosaic. This was a large canvas upon which I painted a full-length portrait of my friend, the Bethel minister, holding a young sailor by the hand in friendly grasp.” From these beginnings he kept steadily on, working through endless doubt and discouragement, trials and tribu- lations, sometimes having glimpses of success and then again mortified by failure. Surely he went at it and kept at it in the right spirit. “The true artist,” he says, “fights no rival but himself. Excelsior is his motto; having done his utmost, he must still strain every nerve to do still better. The very effort often defeats his aim; he fails and even seems to lose ground, but he perseveres and later finds his strength has grown by what it fed on; the goal may be unattainable, but he ceases his efforts with age, infirmity or58 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. death.” After a further period on the lakes, he came back to his work. “What would I not have given for a single lesson?” he exclaims. He tried a forecastle scene; then Joseph and Potipher’s wife (a favorite subject apparently of all ambitious young artists of that day). 'He painted five portraits of cabinet size of Mr. Charles Bellows and his family for the nominal price of $15 paid for in the shape of a gold fob chain, which he traded for a “bull’s eye” watch and afterwards disposed of the watch for a dollar and fifty cents. We are reminded of Moses and the gross of green spectacles. We have already related how in 1845 he left the sea and settled in Buffalo. “I found,” he says, “I could no longer lead a dual life, but that a choice must be made between the laborious and often dangerous occupa- tion, which hitherto had been my certain refuge from want, and the easy and pleasant work of the art student, which I already knew would bring with it, by way of balance, to aggregate happiness, all sorts of mental unquiet, disappoint- ment and mortifications. Actual want I did not fear, for I was prepared for the utmost frugality, both in food and clothing. But I must have a place to work in. I had not got so far as to call it a studio. With all these drawbacks, I chose to trust my future life to art, hoping that by hard study I would at least succeed in making pictures which would bring me sufficient for my modest wants.” Those were hard times which followed, and for a decade he passed through a bitter struggle to perfect him- self in his art and at the same time to live. He painted pictures to pay for his board, slept in his studio, spent his evenings reading books on art, and took orders for portraits with trifling remuneration. At one time, when his situation became desperate, he learned that Mr. Wilgus had spent a winter in Porto Rico and had made six thousand dollarsLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 59 painting portraits. Thinking he could go and do likewise, in February, 1849, he started for the West Indies and spent some months among the islands, painting where he could for any price he could command, but unfortunately with no measure of the pecuniary success achieved by Wilgus. However, the tide finally turned for him. By 1852 he had become so proficient as a portrait painter that he was much in demand and from that time until extreme old age dimmed his sight and deprived his hand of its vigor and skill, he carried on his profession with flattering success. Long is the list of able portraits of prominent Buffalonians executed by him. Among them were Fillmore and Cleveland, two Presidents of the United States. A complete catalogue of his works, unfortunately, does not exist, but from the best sources obtainable apparently they were over seventy in number and included such noted men as Judge Clinton, E. G. Spaulding, Albert H. Tracy, Benjamin H. Austin, Solomon G. Haven, Dr. Scott, Dennis Bowen, Sherman S. Rogers, William P. Letchworth, Dr. Shelton, William G. Fargo, Judge Verplanck, Franklin D. Locke, George S. Hazard, E. C. Sprague, Joseph Warren, S. V. R. Watson, Judge Smith, James O. Putnam, Judge Masten, Judge Wilkeson, William Wilkeson, Dr. Daboll, Judge Hall, Judge Walden, General Peter A. Porter, Dr. Hubbell, Dr. Mynter and J. N. Larned. Perhaps the finest work produced by his brush is a portrait of himself, which is present with us this evening, and which, fortunately and most appropriately, has a permanent home in the great Albright Art Gallery of our city. This beautiful gallery is the culmination of Mr. Sell- stedt’s work for art in the City of Buffalo, and it is most fitting that his fine portrait of himself, which made so much for his name and fame as an artist, should have there its permanent resting place. The picture was exhibited at the60 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. Academy of Design in New York. It received, as it de- served, high praise from the critics and the press. Mr. Sellstedt was elected an associate member of the Academy and in 1875 “received the honors of a full-fledged Academi- cian.” A great change has taken place in pictorial art since this portrait was painted forty years ago and it is interesting to hear what was said of it by a cotemporary art critic of the time it was painted and the criticism of an expert of our day. The first says: “His picture is a portrait of himself in his studio. His attitude is one of deep dreaming. His eyes have a far off look, as if he could see perfections in portraiture to which he had not, but to which he was stire he could, sometime attain. The color is rich, yet clear. The texture of flesh is sensitive and so real that a friend might be pardoned for stretching out his palm to touch that of the artist in anticipation of a responsive action.” One who is an expert critic of present day works of art speaks of the picture as follows: “The self portrait of Mr. Sellstedt painted in 1871 is without doubt his masterpiece. It represents him at work in his studio, seated before one of his unfinished canvases, palette in hand and in a charac- teristic pose. The rapt, intense expression of the artist is not only most lifelike, but reveals at a glance the great force and strength of character combined with that rare artistic, poetical soul—the influence of which is still felt in our midst —which was and is such a vital inspiration in all art and literary circles in Buffalo. In color and drawing, the por- trait of Mr. Sellstedt is worthy the brush of an Old Master; the flesh tones are glowing, and the painting of the black coat against the brown background is most effective and well done.” As soon as our friend by years of strenuous effort had acquired fair fame as an artist, he determined, to devote hisLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 61 spare time and surplus energy to a great undertaking which he had in mind for the benefit of his adopted city. In 1861 he, with a group of prominent men, most of whom were his intimate friends and companions, organized the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, an outgrowth of the Young Men’s Association. As we turn over the leaves of Mr. Chapin’s history of the academy, the name Sellstedt appears on every page. The first regular art exhibition was held Dec. 24, 1861. It was, indeed, a great occasion, and how momentous it would have seemed if those who undertook the work could have looked into the future and had a vision of the splendid consummation of their feeble efforts after the lapse of more than four decades; Let us listen to a few words from Mr. Joseph Warren’s account of that evening: “American Hall was engaged, draped and somewhat inartistically extemporized into an art gallery. A confiding gas fitter was discovered, who engaged to put in the pipe and fixtures and remove them at the close of the exhibition at a merely nominal expense. The secretary of the Gas Company, Mr. O. G. Steele, with characteristic liberality, contracted to make no charge for the lighting of the hall; and the Hon. William G. Fargo neglected to collect the express bills for bringing pictures from New York and returning them to their owners. Members of the committee waited on those of our citizens who were the owners of paintings and begged them for the exhibition. Portraits of old citizens were borrowed, artists at home and abroad were asked to contribute, and as a result the hall was strewn with a collection of works of art. The days preceding the opening were busy and anxious ones. Members of the com- mittee, organized by the indefatigable Sellstedt, who adds to artistic genius the rare ambition to work for the public without compensation, brought order out of chaos and the pictures were at last hung. Would anyone come to see them ? Men of influence were quietly smuggled in and requested to say a kind word for the exhibition. Ladies of taste were asked to lend the light of their countenances62 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. to the doubtful enterprise. So fearful was the committee of failure that, on the evening previous to the opening, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Edward S. Rich, gave a modest spread in the hall, to which eighty ladies and gentle- men were privately invited. They came, admired the pictures, tasted the sandwiches and punch and voted the art exhibition a success, and so it proved.” This was Mr. Sellstedt’s foster child, and a very weak, anaemic infant it proved to be. At times it gave evidences of strength and vigor and then it would wane and die away to the point of dissolution. Nothing but the indefatigable zeal, energy and enterprise of its foster parent kept it alive. For twenty-eight years he was the superintendent. That meant that every detail of its maintenance and management was chiefly upon his shoulders. Happily he was most fitted for the work. He had in his mind an idea of artistic accom- plishment towards which he was always striving, but com- bined with this he had the strong manly qualities, the vigor, energy and push rarely found accompanying the artistic temperament. He was thoroughly a man among men. He was what, in modern slang is called “a good mixer.” He was intimate with the strong men of the town. They valued his friendship, courted his companionship, and with implicit faith in his good sense and judgment were ready to follow his lead into that strange and unknown world of the Fine Arts, and to assist him with their money and influence. During his long period of superintendentship his devotion to the cause knew no bounds. He arranged the exhibitions and often hung the pictures with his own hands. It is not chronicled whether he swept the gallery floor, but doubtless if it would have contributed one iota to the success of his darling enterprise he would have done this with the same thoroughness with which as a sailor he holystoned the deck and scraped the cable. He went to New York and beggedLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 63 pictures for loan exhibitions of unwilling artists who ob- jected that the transfer of their works to Buffalo rarely resulted in sales. When the financial stringency became desperate he organized entertainments to raise funds. He importuned the Buffalo dames gifted with poetic fire to write verses for such occasions. He made the wealthy of the city lend their wonderful paintings, consisting for the greater part of copies of the Old Masters, to grace the walls of special exhibitions, which were heralded with much blare of trumpets and newspaper notoriety. So he and his co- workers, who were inspired with his enthusiasm and who yearly grew in number, competency and importance, kept the thing alive and gradually in the course of years they reached their goal. He and the good men who worked with him had their high ideals towards which they were striving, but never in their brightest dreams could they have hoped for the frui- tion which finally crowned their labor. The man came, who, with noble generosity took hold of the struggling enterprise and brought it out of darkness into light; and now the beautiful marble temple on the hill overlooking the Park Lake, with its background of green foliage and blue sky, glistening in the sunshine and bathed by the pale moon- light, and filled with statuary, paintings and engravings of worth and merit, stands a brilliant monument to the patient and enduring zeal and labor of Lars Gustav Sellstedt and his associates, and to the splendid munificence and wise public spirit of John J. Albright. The story of Mr. Sellstedt’s life in Buffalo would be most incomplete without some account of his friendships and his social and family circle; and, in the few words I shall add on these themes, I feel at liberty to indulge in a little gossip about the good folks of his day and generation.64 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. He, certainly, had the talent for friendship developed to a rare degree; and the striking fact is the number and variety of the people whom he thus grappled to his “soul with hoops of steel.” First to be named among these friends should be Axel Adlerspane, whom he met at a boarding house in Buffalo. Adlerspane was a Swede; he also was a sailor and at times they were shipmates. Mr. Sellstedt describes Adlerspane as “a very remarkable man. He was of noble family, and had been page to Princess Josephine, the consort of Oscar I (then crown prince), for two years succeeding his graduation as ensign in the navy and finishing his studies at Carlberg’s Military Academy. . . . We soon became warm friends and it was by his advice that I chose portrait painting for my specialty. It is almost impos- sible to overrate the influence this man had on my future life and conduct. Vastly my superior in learning and intel- lect, of a severe disposition and highly polished manners, he would spare me not a whit when I did or said a foolish thing and I sometimes hated him for his harshness in point- ing out and ridiculing my faults and lack of savoir-faire; but however mortified I might be at the time, reflection soon showed me that he was right and I would set about to reform. I had been out of society for ten years among the most uncultured and it is no wonder if I had absorbed much to be eradicated. We were much together, . . . until he was summoned home by his friend, King Oscar, when, in 1844, he ascended the throne.” William G. Fargo of Buffalo was a business man of extraordinary energy, foresight and capacity. He would be named in any list of great men of affairs this country has produced. He was the very embodiment of hard- headed, shrewd common sense and of what is known to us as a “practical man,” and yet these two men, so dissimilar1 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 65 in their tastes, were devoted personal friends and com- panions. We should add to this particular group Joseph Warren, the editor, a man of much reading and many scholarly acquirements and a public spirited citizen—one of the small group of men to whom we owe our system of public parks. These three men, Fargo, Warren and Sellstedt, apparently formed a special coterie by themselves. Not long before his death the latter described his two friends to me in a graphic portrayal of their fine qualities which had attracted him to them in such strong and endur- ing friendship. He told of the many pleasant times they had enjoyed together and how, on occasions, they had journeyed away to some seashore resort for the sake of a period of uninterrupted mutual companionship. Then there was James O. Putnam. How would it be possible to describe him to a stranger in words adequate to carry any conception of this brilliant and gifted man. Well born, well bred, well educated, a student of history, government, statecraft, literature and biography, his mind was a storehouse of choice knowledge. By temperament he was imaginative, poetical, as sensitive as a woman, nervous and high strung. His whole nature was in attune to the highest, purest and noblest, in thought and action, that has ever been conceived or accomplished by mankind upon this planet. All this was combined with a gift of expression, which, at its best, poured itself forth in a rhapsody of words most brilliant and most eloquent. Orator, statesman, diplomat, scholar, philosopher, Mr. Putnam was one of the rare men of the earth whom the good Lord occasionally sends to His creatures to break the dull level of mediocrity of the masses of their fellows. Between Mr. Putnam and Mr. Sellstedt there was a deep and abiding friendship which ripened and grew closer with each passing year, and par-66 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. ticularly towards the end when they were left about the only survivors of a large group of friends. I should also mention Dennis Bowen, James M. Smith, Sherman S. Rogers, my father, Doctor Scott, Rev. Dr. Shelton and Horace Briggs. Indeed, for half a century he was well known to every man of prominence in Buffalo, and with many of them he was an intimate friend and companion. No man ever lived here who entered with keener zest and enthusiasm into the social life of our city, or was more welcome in social circles or contributed more to their charm. Those were the days of the smaller, and to my mind, the happier Buffalo. I have yet to appreciate that anything is added to the real enjoyment of life by herding together hundreds of thousands of heterogeneous humanity, drawn from all quarters of the globe, who have no common interests except to make money and to increase industrial activities, which condemn us to endure an atmosphere filled with noise, coal-smoke and noxious gases. When our friend came here he found a “neater, sweeter” Buffalo, in a “cleaner, greener” setting. It was, comparatively, a vil- lage life, of which Niagara Square was the center. There dwelt the Austins, Babcocks, Howards, Wilkesons, Sizers and the Fillmores. The other folks of what was known as “Society” abided, for the greater part, within stone’s throw. It was a pleasant, informal, social life—the time when neighbors dropped in of an evening for a social call, the time of great parties given in private houses, where people crowded together, seemed to enjoy themselves, and suffered and were strong and stood about to partake of bountiful feasts created out of the lavish profusion of the day. On such festive occasions the wine flowed freely, and occasionally the fiery liquid got the better of some gentle- man with disastrous results. It was the time of “Old FolksLARS' GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 67 Festivals,” bachelors’ balls, sleigh rides to Williamsville and other far away resorts; the time of the Young Men’s Association Lyceum lectures, all manner of social and literary clubs, and of the Saint Cecelia and kindred singing societies; the time when private theatricals were much in vogue; the era of square dances, the Quadrille, the Lanciers, Virginia reel, “Money-musk,” the Schottische, etc. But I fear I am getting beyond my depth, for I was just about to attempt to describe the “hoop skirts” and other peculiarities of feminine attire of that day. Suffice it to say that our friend entered into all these social activities and enjoyments with the zest and enthusiasm which came natural to him after his early experience of like festivities in his Swedish home. Laughter and sunshine attended upon his coming, and no hour could be tame or uninteresting when spent with him. He took special interest in the private theatricals and acquired local fame in his interpretation of the part of Shylock, studied so closely from the pages of his beloved Shakespeare. And what an interesting and inspiring comrade he was, and what a pleasure and privilege to be his friend and com- panion! I can see him now “in my mind’s eye,” with his broad, expressive features, those curling locks and beard gradually growing whiter with the flight of time, that red necktie, that sailor gait and the little trick he had of lifting his head and rolling up his eyes, especially when seeking for the right word to express his meaning! The very motion was evidence of the student mind. This hesitancy for a word was not due to lack of words, but to the constant habit of always selecting the best and aptest word to illus- trate his thought. Then, when he found it, he would shoot it forth with a sudden exclamation and a radiant smile would light his face, triumphant in the knowledge that the68 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. right word had come at his bidding. It was my privilege, in the spring of 1875, to spend some weeks with him in Italy. I had come with my comrades from Leipsic. We were a merry crowd, happy to have escaped from the dull winter gloom of Saxony; happy to be done with the winter semester, and thrilled with joy and excitement at last to find ourselves in sunny Italy, with all it meant to us, with its treasures of beauty and art and its wonderful historic interest. And then in Rome and in the heart of the Bohemia of the Eternal City, in the cafe of the Hotel D’Orient, I descried, dimly through the clouds of tobacco smoke, the curly head of our Buffalo artist. With what kind enthusi- asm and evidences of pleasure he received my comrades and myself! He became our constant companion and, although more than twice our age, the brightest, merriest, youngest one of all our merry crowd. Then followed delightful and instructive days in his company in Rome, Florence and Venice. He had certain curious ways with him. He would wander through palaces, churches and galleries apparently in an absent-minded mood and giving no evidence of paying particular attention to what he saw or heard,—and yet, when evening came and we sat together after the table d’hote, you were astonished to find how every incident, everything we had seen, done or heard was sketched upon his memory in deep and enduring lines, and he would talk most intelligently and delightfully upon the events of the day. Those were pleasant evenings thus spent with him, and how profitable for a youngster of twenty! His talk was rich with anecdote of his strange and varied experiences. He had acquired a broad, catholic taste and a kindly, most humane and tolerant philosophy of life, and so his conversation was upon broad and genial lines—no narrowness, no petty prejudices, but a most kindly andLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. generous outlook upon all his fellow-men. In Venice, our hotel, was on the Riva. The first time we entered our room he lifted the window curtain and there, in full splendor before us were the waters of the Canale di S. Marco, sparkling and dancing in the sunshine and resting upon the surface innumerable gondolas and sailing craft, the sails of the latter gorgeous in coloring, fluttering in the breeze, and beyond lay the Guidecca with the exquisite dome of the “Salute” outlined against the blue Italian sky. In an instant his artist’s eye caught the full magnificence of the scene, immediately he had procured the implements of his craft, and before he had set foot upon the stones of Venice (and I believe that this was his first visit to the Queen of the Adriatic) he was at work upon that beautiful painting which is reproduced in color in his autobiography. I turn over the leaves of my father’s favorite copy of Shakespeare. How black it is with pencilings to mark his love of favorite passages and with his comments on the text! Are there, I wonder, many copies of the Light of Literature owned by people of the present day bearing the ear-marks of so much study and devotion? Doubtless Sellstedt’s copy is the same. There I read how the Shake- speare Club first met at my father’s house on Monday evening, Nov. 9, 1868. The play was “The Merchant of Venice.” Among the seventeen named who were cast for parts that first night, three only are now living. That club continued for many years, and a very delightful club it was! Through some oversight, Mr. Sellstedt was not given the part of Shylock that first night, but ever thereafter, I think, when this play was on for the evening, he interpreted this famous role. Among those who joined were the Bab- cocks, the Rogers, the Kents, the Howlands, the Noyes, the Ranneys, the Lothrops, the Folletts, Mr. and Mrs.70 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. Hawes, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Williams, Miss Williams, Miss Wilkeson, Mr. Frothingham, and Charles Akers, the sculptor. I like to recall those pleasant evenings, when the club met at our home and we children were allowed to be present as a special privilege—the gathering of friends and the pleasant mutual greetings, the solemn silence before the play began, the interested and strained attention during the reading, particularly if the play was one of the great tragedies, and how, at the end, the books would be closed with a resounding slap and then could be heard a suppressed sigh of relief from the strain of following the intricate and mighty thoughts and the awful human tragedy which the master had portrayed with a stern and relentless hand. Then would come a reaction in thought and feeling, and wit, fun and merriment were masters of the talk about the supper table. I am sure our friend regarded these as the most delightful evenings of his life. There he was with his beloved author and surrounded by his friends—and to one so richly endowed with a love for good literature and a love for good company, these hours were replete with the high- est and keenest pleasures to be obtained from social inter- course. In January, 1850, Mr. Sellstedt married Louise Lovejoy, who was taken from him by death after a few months of happiness together. He was a long time recovering from this bereavement. Six years afterwards, and in June, 1857, he married Caroline, the accomplished daughter of Dr. William K. Scott. Their married life began in the house on Mohawk street and there they remained for life. We all remember that pleasant home, the social center of all inter- ests in art and of much besides. There all artists were received, cared for and made most welcome; thither came forlorn wanderers from the masters’ native lands and neverLARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 71 failed to receive advice, comfort and most substantial aid; and there, surrounded by his wife, family and troops of friends, for over half a century he dwelt a busy, useful, happy,, contented man. Two great sorrows came to him: first, the loss of his darling son, his only man-child; and, later, when death carried away his daughter’s husband. His heart was deeply wounded by these afflictions, but Time, nature’s great healer, at length restored to him his full vigor of mind and spirits. The years, “those silent robbers of our opportunities,” one by one came and vanished and finally so many had slipped away that he must count himself an old man, as reckoned by time. Still they left him untouched in his vigor and freshness of mind and body. The “joy o’ life” remained with him, and his happy, useful career continued on. Finally, however, even his hardy frame gave way to the relentless years, but never for a moment could they conquer his strong mind, or daunt his cheerful and courage- ous spirit. The time came when the hand grew too unsteady for the brush, and the eyes too dim for the canvas. Im- mediately his restless spirit turned to other things for occu- pation and recreation. Always had he pursued his study of English with the plays of Shakespeare for his guide, which he read with boundless admiration and unwearying zeal. He wrote his memoirs, then a monograph on art and artists of Buffalo. He experimented in many sorts of literary exercises in poetry and in prose. He faced the decline of his powers with a calm serenity and resignation. I remem- ber that towards the end, when I called to see him, I would find him using a magnifying glass to aid his failing sight, and so constantly reading, studying and observing. No man in the prime and vigor of manhood could take a deeper interest in life in all its phases than he displayed almost72 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. until the end of his long, useful and happy journey through the world. It was interesting to see how, in these later years, the childlike spirit which was the key-note of his character asserted itself in many ways. The older he grew, the more he seemed to court and love the society of the young. He enjoyed the Saturn Club, that home of youth and fun and frolic, and never failed to be on hand to take part in its many unique and sometimes boisterous revels. He seldom missed an evening at the Studio Club and no one present found keener zest or enjoyment in the enter- tainments there provided. He retained to the last his faculty of making the best of things and being thankful for what- ever of recreation or pleasure came in his way. During the last year, a building was erected adjacent to his house, shutting out the light from his windows looking towards the west, and behold, instead of complaint at the loss of all this light, air, and sunshine, he explained to me how the offensive brick wall would shelter them from the frost- laden winds of winter. I have omitted any allusion to his religious opinions and the views he held of another life. This I have done inten- tionally, for although I know he was imbued with deep reli- gious sentiments I dread the use of cant phrases in dealing with such sacred themes and prefer to pass them by in reverent silence. May I, however, quote four verses from a poem written by him, an old man, his heart still grieving for his lost boy? “All-right,” we say, when all is wrong, Hope may be near or out of sight, Far, far away or absent long,— He whispers in despair: “All-right, I shall in death find peace all right.”LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. 73 Thus or in sorrow or in joy The soul in darkness or in light, We thoughtlessly this phrase employ, And’ right or wrong, we say, “All right.” My first-born son lay sick to death Sadly I watched by him that night, He bade me raise his head for breath, He looked,his love and said, “All right”: And died at once—O ! was it right? I know, I know, I do believe, I try to see the prospect bright, And yet, and yet, my heart will grieve, Although I hope all may be right, And God at last shall set all right.” / How often in those days of homeless wandering, did our sailor, pacing the lonely deck, keep his solitary watch by night, about him a vast expanse of black threatening waters and above him “The floor of Heaven, thick inlaid with patins of bright gold ! ” Then, with the process of the hours, the stars grow dim and fade from sight or sink into the ocean. The faint flush of returning day comes out of the east. Gradually, a shimmering gleam is reflected upon the surface of the deep, growing ever brighter first with a silvery and then a golden glow. The scattered clouds above are suffused with crimson. Announcing the “Rosy-fingered dawn, the daughter of the morn.” then suddenly, the “Sunshine splendid comes flashing o’er the sea,” emblem of the new day, new birth, new life and immor- tality. Our sailor strikes the hour for change of watch and his clear, strong voice rings out, “All’s well.” So this clarion note, “All’s well,” was with him throughout his74 LARS GUSTAV SELLSTEDT. beautiful and beneficent life and remained with him to the end. Surely it is with him still, and may we not cherish the hope, nay, the strong, abiding faith, that somehow, somewhere, when the hour strikes for our change of watch again we shall hear that clear, strong voice crying, “Aiks weir? “For love will dream and faith will trust That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Alas, for him who never sees, The stars shine through his cypress trees, Who hath not learned in hours of faith The truth, to sense and flesh unknown, That life is ever lord of death, And love can never lose its own. And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall we not see him, waiting, stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of his beckoning hand?”