U Nl 
 
RECORDS OF WILLIAM M. HUNT. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/recordsofwilliamOOange_0 
 
RECORDS 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM M. HUNT 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY C. ANGELL. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 1881. 
 
Copyright, 1880, 
 By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, Avery, &* 
 Boston. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . 
 
 [Heliotyped from Mr. Hunt's originals.] 
 
 Portrait of Mr. Hunt (his last 
 
 painting) Facing title-page 
 
 Anahita Facing page vii 
 
 The Discoverer Facing page viii 
 
 Sketch in Charcoal, No. 1 . . . . Facing page 7 
 Sketch in Charcoal, No. 2 . . . . Facing page 9 
 Sketch in Charcoal, No. 4 .... Facing page 11 
 Fac-simile of Handwriting . . • . . Facing page 23 
 The Original Sketch for the Pic- 
 ture called " Spring Chickens," Facing page 55 
 " Spring Chickens" as it was after- 
 wards painted in Oil Facing page 57 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The subject of these records, Mr. William 
 M. Hunt, was the first American artist of his 
 time, and in some important respects the 
 most distinguished that our country has pro- 
 duced. His versatility was especially re- 
 markable, and in largeness of style and vigor 
 he has had no equal among his countrymen. 
 
 Though confining himself to no special 
 branch of his profession, his life was devoted 
 mainly to portrait painting. Some of his 
 best-known works of this kind are the por- 
 traits of Chief Justice Shaw, Gov. Andrew, 
 Gen. Dix, Mr. Evarts, Mr. Sumner, and Mrs. 
 Charles Francis Adams. 
 
 Other well-known paintings are those of 
 the Prodigal Son, Fortune Teller, Margue- 
 rite, Hurdy-gurdy Boy ; and of later years, 
 
 vii 
 
viii 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 The Bugle Call, The Drummer Boy, Boy 
 with the Violin, and The Bathers. 
 
 During the last years of his life he became 
 greatly interested in landscape painting, find- 
 ing it a congenial relaxation from the severe 
 discipline of his winter occupation. Some 
 of his finest landscapes are varied scenes on 
 Charles River, the picture called Spring 
 Chickens, and others done at Easton, 
 Gloucester Harbor, and several large views 
 of Niagara Falls and the Rapids. 
 
 But the crowning achievement of Mr. 
 Hunt's life is his great work at Albany. 
 
 In the year 1878 he accepted an invitation 
 to paint two large pictures in oil upon the 
 walls of the Assembly Chamber in the new 
 State House at Albany, N.Y. This magni- 
 ficent room, one hundred and forty feet in 
 length by eighty-four in width, is elaborately 
 decorated in red, blue, and gold, and recalls 
 in style and gorgeous effects the interior of 
 the Alhambra at Granada. The chamber at 
 this time was not entirely finished ; and it was 
 understood that this brilliant coloring of the 
 
Introduction. 
 
 ix 
 
 walls and ceiling was to be supplemented by 
 furnishings of gold draperies, and crimson 
 carpetings and seats. The pictures of Mr. 
 Hunt were to be painted upon the gray stone 
 walls of the arched spaces formed by the 
 vaulted ceiling, forty feet from the floor. 
 These large spaces were lighted, and appar- 
 ently somewhat insufficiently, by rows of 
 windows beneath them. 
 
 The above-named conditions required of 
 tiie artist, therefore, compositions colossal in 
 size, painted upon the highest possible key, 
 and adequately brilliant in color for their 
 surroundings. It cannot be surprising that 
 Mr. Hunt accepted the commission for this 
 work with great hesitation, but how bravely 
 he succeeded in his difficult task is now well 
 known. 
 
 The composition for the north arch, a helio- 
 type reproduction of which is given on next 
 page, represents Anahita, or the Goddess of 
 Night, seated in her cloud chariot, floating 
 down the western sky ; behind her are a 
 sleeping mother and child ; before, three res- 
 
X 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 tive horses, supposed to be attached to the 
 chariot, and to be controlled in their mad ca- 
 reer by the dark guide at their head. These 
 horses are wonderfully vigorous examples of 
 modelling ; and the picture as a whole is 
 masterly in color, and singularly brilliant in 
 effect. 
 
 The painting on the south wall gives us a 
 dignified central figure, the Discoverer, stand- 
 ing, with folded arms, in a boat that rises 
 grandly upon the waves in mid-ocean. He 
 looks earnestly westward for the new land. 
 Hope, at the prow, extends her hand in the 
 same direction, Faith hides her head, Science 
 spreads her chart, and Fortune commands 
 the helm and trims the sail. 
 
 This painting is not so rich in color as the 
 other ; but, in composition, offers an excel- 
 lent contrast to it. This is broad, noble, and 
 reposeful ; the other, brilliant, fiery, and rest- 
 less. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was born in Brattleborough, Vt., 
 in the year 1824. When he was eight years 
 
Introduction, 
 
 xi 
 
 of age his family removed to New Haven, 
 Conn., where he received his first lessons in 
 drawing, a few years later. 
 
 Entering Harvard College in 1840, he there 
 distinguished himself less as a student of 
 books than by his drawing, carving, his 
 music, and his various humorous accomplish- 
 ments. He left the college in his senior year 
 for a tour in Europe. After a winter in 
 Italy he repaired to Diisseldorf, Germany, to 
 begin the serious study of art. At this time 
 he proposed to become a sculptor. After 
 two years' study he went to Paris, and, be- 
 coming interested in the paintings of Thomas 
 Couture, finally put himself under the teach- 
 ing of this artist, and determined to become 
 a painter. He made great progress at this 
 time, and certain characteristics of Couture's 
 teachings were always observable in Mr. 
 Hunt's work to the end of his life. After 
 leaving Paris he lived at Barbizon, the home 
 of Millet. Here he became not only the pu- 
 pil, but the intimate friend and companion of 
 this great master, whom he found to be the 
 
xii 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 ideal man and artist, and for whom he formed 
 a love and admiration that never lessened in 
 after years. 
 
 Ee turning to this country in 1855, Mr. 
 Hunt began painting at Newport, R.I., 
 where he remained until 1862, when he made 
 Boston his permanent home. In 1868 he 
 opened an art school for ladies, to which he 
 devoted a large part of his attention for two 
 years. In 1872 the great fire burned his stu- 
 dio in Summer Street with the sketches and 
 drawings of a lifetime, ■ — an incalculable 
 loss, — and several valuable paintings of 
 Millet and of his own. 
 
 A business friend, meeting Mr. Hunt soon 
 after the fire, and knowing of the loss of his 
 studio effects, said, "Did you lose much by 
 the fire?" 
 
 "Why, yes," returned the .artist, "I lost 
 everything I had in my studio." 
 
 " Ah, yes ! I know ; but I mean property, 
 money, you know, whether you were in- 
 sured ? " 
 
 Mr. Hunt finally built himself a large stu- 
 
Introduction. 
 
 xiii 
 
 dio on the corner of Boylston Street and 
 Park Square, where he held several public 
 exhibitions of his pictures. 
 
 He died September 8, 1879, at the Isles of 
 Shoals, whither he had gone in the vain en- 
 deavor to restore his health, which had be- 
 come seriously impaired a few months after 
 his return from Albany. 
 
 His last painting was an excellent and 
 characteristic portrait of himself. 
 
BECOBDS OF WILLIAM M. HUNT. 
 
 i. 
 
 Some five years ago, when Mr. Hunt first 
 came to see us, being shown into the study 
 where several landscapes are hung, he went 
 directly up to a Corot, and putting his face 
 quite close to the canvas looked it over ear- 
 nestly for a moment or two, and then, seating 
 himself near it, said abruptly, " What is it 
 makes this painting so charming? Why is 
 it so poetic? " 
 
 No one replying, I ventured to say that it 
 was difficult to find a reason ; perhaps it was 
 because the picture was so Corot-ish. This 
 was no answer at all, and disregarding it, 
 accordingly, he went on to say that it was 
 
 l 
 
2 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 " because it is not what people call a finished 
 painting. There is room for imagination in 
 it. It is poetic. Finish up, as they call it, 
 make everything out clear and distinct, and 
 anybody sees all there is in about a minute. 
 A minute is enough for a picture of that 
 sort, and you never want to look at it again. 
 They call Corot's pictures sketchy, and think 
 that he does them quickly and easily. I 
 tell you he works years on them, and works 
 hard." 
 
 He then went over to a little picture by 
 Corot hanging on the opposite wall, to which 
 he had not apparently paid any attention, 
 and putting his thumb on the middle dis- 
 tance, and moving it over the thicket of 
 trees in an artistic way, as though he were 
 following the ' directions of Corot's brush, 
 said, " See how beautiful that is, — how vague 
 and indistinct ! It's a great deal harder to 
 do that than it would have been to make all 
 those trees out clearly. Corot knows what 
 he's about. He did not begin painting in the 
 way he paints now. He learned from expeT 
 
Records of William M. Hunt, 3 
 
 rience that this is the way to paint. He 
 knows the worth of mystery and of hiding 
 the appearance of hard work." 
 
 After Corot's death, in speaking of the 
 great labor and seriousness in his pictures, 
 Hunt said, " I went to see Corot when I was 
 last in Paris. He is as simple and charming 
 as his pictures^ and seemed to enjoy showing 
 his sketches and telling what he proposed to 
 do. Mind you, he didn't speak of Avhat he 
 had done, but of what he proposed to do. 
 He showed me three sketches in which the. 
 subjects were merely laid, which he said he 
 purposed to get ready for the Exposition of 
 three years later. Just think of it ! He was 
 going to keep these sketches by him and 
 work over them for three years before exhib- 
 iting them. ' Yes,' said the old man, ' if the 
 good God spares ♦my life for three years 
 longer, I hope to show some pictures worthy 
 of me and worthy of our landscape painting.' 
 Think of it ! After painting for fifty years, 
 he wanted three years more just to do certain 
 things that he had been trying for so long, 
 
4 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 and had never been able to do. And yet 
 some people think his work hasty and incom- 
 plete ! " I remarked that an artist had said 
 to me that there were multitudes of false 
 Corots in this country, and I had replied 
 that, while there were many imitations, I did 
 not believe that copies were very common, 
 and they were easy to detect, as Corot was 
 one of the difficult masters to copy. " Poh ! " 
 said the artist, " if you will lend me your best 
 Corot I will make a copy of it in a couple of 
 days that you cannot tell from the original. 
 He is the easiest of all the French school to 
 copy." " Tell him," said Mr. Hunt, " that if 
 he kept this Corot by him ten years he 
 couldn't copy it. I'm not sure that anybody 
 could make a fine copy of Corot." 
 
 On another occasion, sitting opposite a 
 Corot at a distance, he. said, " As I see that 
 picture now the tip of the tree there seems 
 too strongly accented ; " then crossing the 
 room to the picture, he continued, " Yes, the 
 end of this branch as it melts into the sky is 
 rather strongly accented. It attracts the eye 
 
Records of Wdliam 31. Hunt. 5 
 
 too much," and, turning round quickly, he 
 added earnestly and with a solemnity not un- 
 usual with him, " If Corot were here now, I 
 think he would agree with me." 
 
 Mr. Hunt was very sparing of adverse 
 criticism, and with the great masters like 
 Millet, Corot, Delacroix, and others he was 
 most reverential, whatever the nature of his 
 criticism. A notable exception to this that I 
 remember was in the case of Charles Jacques. 
 This distinguished painter he disliked, and 
 was disposed to do scant justice to his works. 
 Being asked how he liked a certain Jacques 
 picture, he replied, " It's better than most of 
 his pictures, — not so stuffy." This was the 
 highest praise he felt like giving it. Of an- 
 other one of Jacques' large and pretentious 
 canvases he said, " I don't like it. He thinks 
 these daubs of color on the tree trunks make 
 him a colorist like Diaz." The enmity be- 
 tween Millet and Jacques had, naturally, 
 some influence in intensifying Mr. Hunt's 
 dislike of the latter painter's work. 
 
 I asked him, one evening, if he nearly 
 
6 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 always made drawings in charcoal of his 
 landscapes as well as his portraits before 
 painting. He said that he did ; that it was 
 very easily and quickly done, and gave one a 
 correct idea of how the picture would look 
 in oil, especially as regards composition and 
 values. "It is a great saving of time.* One 
 may get from a few minutes' work with a bit 
 of charcoal more practical hints than he can 
 get sometimes by hours of painting, and he 
 may possibly discover also that he is attempt- 
 ing something that he can't do at all." I 
 remarked that I had never tried charcoal 
 drawing, and that I proposed to attempt it 
 during my summer vacation. " That's right," 
 he said. " I would do it. You'll find it great 
 fun ; easy, quick, and not fatiguing. It will 
 teach you to paint, too. You see you can get 
 all the gradations of tone from the blackest 
 black up to the pure white paper." 
 
 In the autumn following I showed him a 
 dozen or more charcoal drawings from nature. 
 He looked them over rapidly, pausing only 
 when he saw something to praise, passing 
 
Records of William M. Sunt. 7 
 
 over grave faults without notice. Presently 
 he said, u I must do a drawing or two for you 
 some evening, just to let you see the way I 
 do them." Nothing more was said on the 
 subject at the time. After he left the house 
 the probabilities of his remembering his prom- 
 ise were eagerly discussed, and we concluded 
 that the chance of it was exceedingly small ; 
 and, although very desirous of seeing him do 
 some of his famous charcoals, we resolved 
 that no hint should ever be given him of the 
 promise. 
 
 On the second or third subsequent visit, 
 however, to our great joy, Mr. Hunt cried 
 out, as he entered the room, " Where are your 
 charcoals ? I feel just like doing some. Ah," 
 he exclaimed, as we opened the little box of 
 crayons for him, " these are the petits buissons ; 
 you want the gros buissons. Keep these; 
 they'll do for some things, but they are too 
 delicate ; they break too easily. I'll send 
 you a box of the gros buissons." He then 
 seated himself, and taking the block of paper 
 on his knees began by dashing on the paper 
 
8 Records of William 31. Hunt. 
 
 at one side near its margin, in the boldest 
 hap-hazard style, a large black spot. He 
 bore on so hard that the delicate stem of 
 charcoal snapped almost at the start. This 
 did not annoy him in the least, and he went 
 on without interruption, using the fragments. 
 One could scarcely imagine that this in- 
 tensely black dot would ever make a reputa- 
 ble part of a picture, and he presently said, 
 " This looks black to you, but I can't make it 
 as black as I want to, the charcoals are so 
 delicate. I often get a black a good deal 
 blacker than this with the gros buissons." 
 He went on with the drawing, and in about 
 fifteen minutes it was completed. There 
 were the dark willows at the edge of the 
 water that spread across and made the fore- 
 ground, the shore-line and the bridge in the 
 middle distance, the hills far away, the ex- 
 quisitely tender clouds just over them, and 
 higher in the sky the nearer cloud forms, the 
 whole reflected in the water with a success 
 so disproportioned to the apparent labor that 
 it seemed like magic. In fact, the whole 
 
Records of William 31. Hunt. 9 
 
 drawing was so playfully free and effortless 
 as to suggest a lucky accident ; it drew itself. 
 The effect of this charcoa/1, though different 
 in composition, reminds one of Rembrandt's 
 etching of The Three Trees. 
 
 Without pausing, Mr. Hunt went on, say- 
 ing that now he would sketch from memory 
 a sea-side view, that he had left the evening 
 before. This time he drew carefully and 
 with effort, evidently desirous of getting a 
 correct portrait of the spot. In composition 
 the drawing was somewhat like the other, 
 but in place of the clump of willows at the 
 left a large rock jutted out into the water ; 
 beyond this the distant coast-line was made 
 up of rocks and cedar-trees. Above there 
 was a clear sky, with irregular cloud-lines ; 
 and still above these were heavier, unbroken 
 clouds. In the still water of. the foreground 
 the large rock and the sky were reflected ; 
 near the shore the breeze ruffled the mirror's 
 surface, so that no reflections Wjere visible 
 there ; but the smooth water extended in to- 
 ward the coast just far enough to catch and 
 
10 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 reflect the tops of the rocks and trees beyond, 
 so that a long, slender line of reflections 
 nearly parallel with the coast reached across 
 the middle distance. This drawing, though 
 not academically prim, is rather precise than 
 free. The sky and its reflection in the water 
 are, however, more loose, and in Mr. Hunt's 
 usual fascinating manner. The drawing is 
 of the same size as the other, about eight by 
 ten inches, yet it required nearly three times 
 as long to do. 
 
 After a few moments' rest and talk about 
 the beauty of the coast scene as he saw it, he 
 began to draw again with an immense furor 
 and rapidity, clearly due to the welcome re- 
 action from the cramped exactness required 
 by the last subject. In less than three min- 
 utes the picture was tossed from him, and 
 another begun. Near the centre of the fore- 
 ground he had drawn a clump of half a 
 dozen poplars ; beyond, a broad river, and 
 then a perspective of hills melting away into 
 a horizon of clouds ; above, a clear sky. As 
 a finishing touch, the figures of a woman 
 
Records of William M. Hunt, 11 
 
 and a cow were put in at the left of the pop- 
 lars, in five or six seconds. He next drew, 
 with almost equal rapidity, a very poetic 
 landscape, of about half the size of the oth- 
 ers. The water of the immediate foreground 
 reflected imperfectly the three or four trees 
 at the right, and a line of extremely delicate 
 ones extending to the centre, and farther to- 
 wards the left, the finely modelled figures of 
 a woman and child, and beyond, a man in a 
 boat pushing off from the shore. This is 
 one of his poetic little bits, in his daintiest 
 and tenclerest manner. 
 
 In answer to the inquiry as to how his 
 style of doing charcoals differed from that 
 of the French school of Lalanne and Allonge, 
 he said that they, for instance, first covered 
 the paper with charcoal evenly, and then re- 
 moved a portion, forming the lights of the 
 clouds ; while he, on the contrary, supposed 
 the white paper to represent the clear sky, 
 his clouds being formed by the dark of the 
 charcoal touches. In other parts of the pic- 
 ture the French school depends for the lights 
 
12 Records of William JSL Hunt, 
 
 upon the removal, more or less completely, of 
 the darks. Hence their drawings are far less 
 brilliant in tone than when done with the 
 charcoal alone, and with as little rubbing, 
 softening, or erasing as possible. 
 
 He then did a small picture in the manrier 
 mentioned, with light, rolling clouds on a 
 dark background of sky, a darker middle dis- 
 tance, and a nearly white foreground, upon 
 which he put, with the fewest possible strokes, 
 a man with a pair of oxen, ploughing. 
 
 Finally, he called for a crumb of bread and 
 as he began removing with it, carefully, the 
 few lines that had straggled outside the field 
 of his drawing, he said, " I'm not a very neat 
 man about my work, but I do like to clean 
 up the edges of my pictures." Then he 
 quietly put his initials to the first, second, 
 and fourth pictures, and the delightful lesson 
 was over. 
 
 The next morning, to our surprise, a box 
 of gros buissons was sent us. It was some 
 days later before I realized his object in mak- 
 ing a portion of his first picture so very black. 
 
Records of William 31. Hunt. 13 
 
 It was partly for the purpose of showing me 
 the whole gamut of tint from the blackest- 
 black to the whitest white, so that many- 
 values could be made available in one draw- 
 ing, and partly to show that there need be 
 no fear in the use of charcoal that one should 
 get too dark a tone, or 'start on too dark a 
 key. Instead of telling me that my draw- 
 ings were too timid and nearly colorless, he 
 chose to do some that were as far removed 
 as possible from either fault, and trust them 
 to do the rest of the teaching. 
 
 Years afterwards I heard a lady at his 
 studio ask him how long it took him to draw 
 a certain rather elaborate charcoal picture. 
 " Well," answered the artist, " I think it 
 took me an hour or two ; that is, I was about 
 that time putting it on the paper there ; but 
 I suppose I ought to say that it took me forty 
 years, as I've been drawing about that length 
 of time." 
 
 January, 1875. There was in his studio 
 at this time, a striking picture of a small 
 boy fencing, that recalled at once the picture 
 
14 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 of The Actor, by Velasquez, at Madrid. A 
 remark to this effect being made the artist 
 said, " Yes, yes ; I don't know that I was 
 thinking of Velasquez when it was painted, 
 but possibly if Velasquez had never painted 
 his picture this might not have been done." 
 He seemed to take almost as much interest 
 in a large portfolio of charcoal drawings as 
 in his more important works, 'and was con- 
 stantly taking up the drawings that he liked 
 best, and putting them in advantageous posi- 
 tions. 
 
 We were invited several times to his stu- 
 dio during this month, never presuming to 
 visit him without special invitation, at this 
 time or in later years. On these occasions 
 he seemed very merry and light hearted, and 
 would now and then take up his banjo or 
 guitar and play a little, sing a French song, 
 always joke a great deal, and tell stories. 
 
 February 12th. Mr. Hunt came in and 
 looked at a small picture by Millet, of a 
 woman bathing. It is one of his early pic- 
 tures. He took it up and said, " I remember 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 15 
 
 that picture. I saw it in one of the collec- 
 tions in Paris, many years ago. It's fine." 
 To the remark that it was as good as the old 
 masters, he replied, " It's as good as the best 
 of the old masters, — as good as Correggio." 
 This was about four o'clock in the afternoon. 
 We then went out to one of Perabo's piano 
 recitals at Wesleyan Hall. On the way 
 there Mr. Hunt said, " Don't let us sit where 
 we can't get out easily. Sometimes, you 
 know, a fellow wants to get away pretty 
 early, not because the music isn't good, but 
 because one gets enough. If one piece fills 
 you full, what's the use of spoiling your di- 
 gestion by trying to take in more ? When I 
 get full I want to be able to leave quietly." 
 So we got a seat far back, but he remained 
 through the entire programme. 
 
 "It seems strange to sit here," he said, 
 "and take in all this with my ears alone. 
 I'm in the habit of taking in things with my 
 eyes. It makes one want to shut his eyes to 
 hear good music, so that he can concentrate 
 his perceptions in his ears. I should think 
 
16 Records of William JSL Hunt. 
 
 persons hearing music constantly might be- 
 come blind." Mr. Hunt was very musical : 
 he had in his room, at one time, a piano, two 
 violins, a banjo, and a guitar. Having an 
 excellent ear for music he appreciated the 
 best thoroughly ; but as in painting, though 
 conscious of any defect, he was always eager 
 to pardon minor faults, when an artist had 
 " something to say and said' it." I remember 
 once hearing him speak very warmly of a 
 public singer, praising almost without stint 
 her noble voice, her sincerity and breadth 
 of style ; adding at the end, u She's a great 
 singer, even if she does get a little off the 
 key sometimes." " 
 
 On the way home from the concert he was 
 very gay over what he heard a man say by 
 way of criticism, namely, that "Perabo was 
 quite himself to-day." Mr. Hunt kept re- 
 peating the phrase enjoyingly, and asked, 
 "What did he mean by that, — something 
 good, or bad ? Do you suppose he knows one 
 tune from another ? " " No." " Then what 
 does he go to concerts for ? " "Because he 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 17 
 
 has a ticket given him." " And makes it out 
 to be a very remarkable occasion because the 
 player was 4 quite himself.' I wish he would 
 criticise pictures." 
 
 He drank tea with us, and remained until 
 quite late in the evening. The conversation 
 turned towards the drudgery of portrait 
 painting and the peculiarity of sitters. He 
 
 was then painting Mr. , an elderly man. 
 
 ' " He shakes hands every morning when he 
 comes. Do you want to know how he does 
 it?" He then took my hand, and holding 
 it quite still squeezed it very hard. " What 
 does that mean ? " I asked. " It means that 
 he isn't dead, — that's all. He's old and re- 
 tired from business, and he's afraid people 
 will think he's dead ; so when he gets hold 
 of a hand he just lets the owner of it know 
 that he's very much alive still." Of General 
 Dix he observed that he was a perfect gen- 
 tleman in manners, — one of the old school; 
 always deferential, continually mindful of 
 the painter's comfort, never letting engage- 
 ments interfere with sittings, punctual to 
 come, and ready to remain. 
 
18 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 Of another distinguished statesman he 
 said, " He is a man who impresses you as 
 very strong intellectually, a gentleman pol- 
 ished and refined ; but he's a little pompous, 
 and has the air of being afraid you won't feel 
 his greatness unless he reminds you of it by 
 his manner. He always fixed the time of his 
 sittings himself. This annoyed me, but as I 
 was his guest I let things go on in this way 
 for a while ; afterwards I had something to 
 say about my own time for working, and we 
 finally got on very well together." 
 
 Mr. Hunt was very intolerant of preten- 
 sion, — as might be supposed from his char- 
 acter and writings ; never assuming, himself, 
 never pretentious, never dictatorial, he was 
 extremely sensitive to these traits in others. 
 He could neither overlook nor pardon them 
 for a moment in people of position. Many, 
 knowing him as a "hail fellow well met," 
 full of jokes and stories, are not aware that 
 under this democratic exterior lay the dor- 
 mant but ever-present consciousness of supe- 
 riority. He felt that he was deservedly the 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 19 
 
 peer of any American, of whatever position 
 or reputation. He believed that lie had done 
 things that would live, and he did not choose 
 to permit anybody to treat him as an inferior. 
 Indeed, he would not permit himself to be 
 treated with much familiarity by any one, 
 however distinguished, unless he were an 
 intimate friend. He would sometimes pull a 
 letter out of his pocket and say, " This is all 
 very well, but I don't quite like the familiar 
 tone." 
 
 One evening, just after an exhibition of 
 pictures at his studio, he came in quite tired 
 and sensitive and said that Mr. (men- 
 tioning the name of a man of wealth and 
 prominence) came into the studio and swag- 
 gered about with his hat on. " I tell you, I 
 came within an ace of just going up and 
 smashing his hat down on to his chin ; but if 
 I had I shouldn't have stopped at that; I 
 should have kicked him out of the room, too. 
 It wouldn't have been more than he de- 
 served. What business had he, a man I 
 never spoke to more than twice in my life, 
 
20 Records of William 31. Hunt. 
 
 to swell round in my studio with his hat on ! 
 You may wear your hat there as much as you 
 please, and so may any of my friends. You 
 know I often insist on their remaining cov- 
 ered. I care nothing about it if a man is a 
 gentleman. But old is not a gentle- 
 
 man, and if he ever does that thing again I'll 
 send my boy to him and tell him to take off 
 his hat." 
 
 Of Mr. , once a sitter, he said, " I 
 
 wanted to paint him very much, not merely 
 because he is famous, but because he has a 
 striking face, and I thought I could do it 
 justice. So I took great interest in the por- 
 trait, and gave myself the trouble of prepar- 
 ing several canvases and making a number 
 of preliminary sketches. When he came to 
 me, although very polite, he had on his air 
 of condescension, and intimated that he was 
 doing a thing of no account just to please 
 his friends. After sitting for about an hour, 
 he took out his watch, and said he had an 
 engagement. I didn't set any time for the 
 next sitting, and when, some weeks after, 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 21 
 
 his friends came in to see when he should 
 come again, I told them I would let them 
 know when I was ready. I will let 'em 
 know when I'm ready, but it will be when 
 we are both a good deal older than we are 
 now. If he doesn't want his portrait paint- 
 ed, and doesn't want it painted by me, I 
 don't propose to paint it. I did want to 
 paint it, and looked forward to doing it with 
 the greatest interest." 
 
 Of a portrait of R., a prominent man, I 
 said to him, "It is good, a faultless likeness 
 and fine in color, but I don't think it one 
 of your best. You haven't made any more 
 of him than he is. Just look at the por- 
 trait of X. ! It is perfect as a likeness, and 
 yet he has the air of a Roman emperor." 
 "Well," said Mr. Hunt, "a fellow could 
 make a Roman emperor of X., because he 
 is an emperor in his way, but R. is just as 
 big as he looks, and no bigger. I could get 
 nothing big out of him. He impressed me 
 as a big talker, and that's all." 
 
 The following anecdote was given me by 
 
22 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 an artist friend of Mr. Hunt, and is, I tliink, 
 substantially correct. He had painted for 
 one of his patrons a figure in a blue dress, 
 and later, while engaged in painting another 
 portrait in a dress of the same color, he was 
 asked by the owner of the former picture 
 not to duplicate the blue dress. The only 
 reply the artist made was to ask if he had a 
 patent on this particular color, and he went 
 on painting the dress as he had begun. 
 
 On another occasion the following docu- 
 ment was sent for his signature : " Received 
 
 of Mr. fifty dollars for finishing up a 
 
 portrait." Mr. Hunt refused his signature, 
 but instead wrote as follows : " Received of 
 
 Mr. fifty dollars for working a week on 
 
 a picture after it was finished. W. M. Hunt." 
 
 May 13, 1875. Mr. Hunt invited a few 
 friends to his studio to meet William War- 
 ren and Joseph Jefferson. The affair was 
 very enjoyable, and passed off to his entire 
 satisfaction. In speaking of it later he said, 
 " I hardly dared to invite Warren and Jef- 
 ferson ; still I thought they could refuse, or 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 23 
 
 say they were engaged, if they didn't want 
 to come. But they said they would come in 
 for a little while. As they stayed 1 three 
 hours or more, I think they must have had 
 a pretty good time." One of the other 
 guests present was a man of great dignity 
 and social position, and I remember that 
 Mr. Hunt said to him, " I was rather afraid 
 to ask you here, you've got to be such a 
 great man; I thought probably you'd feel 
 too big to come, but I'm glad " — And 
 here Mr. Hunt rushed up and threw his 
 arms round him and gave him a hearty hug. 
 I was astonished at his temerity, but no 
 harm came of it. 
 
 "How nice Mr. Warren looked, didn't 
 he?" said Mr. Hunt. "I've always said 
 that he's the only man I ever saw that 
 makes me want to wear a wig." 
 
 June 9th. He came to us early, and stayed 
 very late. The portrait called The Old Pro- 
 fessor, of Duveneck, interested him exceed- 
 ingly. He took it in his lap and fondled it 
 for a half hour or more, even while talking 
 
24 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 of other matters. A few evenings later he 
 begged us to lend it to him for a short time : 
 he wished to see how it looked in his studio : 
 and so he carried it off under his arm, frame 
 and all, refusing to have it sent round to him 
 in the morning. He also showed us a very 
 friendly letter from Duveneck, in response to 
 an invitation from him to remain and paint 
 in Boston. So far from feeling jealous of 
 Duveneck's talent, as had been alleged, he 
 would gladly have had him live in Boston, 
 and would have done all he could to help 
 him to get orders. Later in the year, when 
 Duveneck was in Boston, Mr. Hunt ex- 
 pressed great regret at not meeting him. 
 
 This evening he was a little disposed to 
 scold the picture dealers, and expose some 
 of their expedients to prevent the public 
 from meeting the artists face to face. 
 
 He told the story of a little child who said, 
 one day, when the servants were noisy, that 
 u she felt as if the wolves were smoothing 
 their voices on her back." Of an old woman, 
 the same little girl said that she was as slow 
 " as two big rocks in a pretty high wind." 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 25 
 
 During August of this year Mr. Hunt was 
 very busy in the construction of what he 
 called his van, — a large covered sketching 
 wagon, commodious enough to live in while 
 on a sketching tour ; built, as he said with 
 great glee, " by a man who builds gypsy wag- 
 ons." It had all kinds of drawers in it for 
 pots, kettles, and painting utensils, and was to 
 be drawn about to eligible sketching grounds 
 by a span of horses ; the man who sold him 
 the harnesses sold him, at the same time, a 
 powder to cure galled spots in horses, that 
 was also a good tooth powder. The same 
 man had, further, a contrivance for pulling 
 up runaway horses that lifted them right off 
 their feet, and a pail for feeding, with a crane 
 under it ! 
 
 The painter laughed heartily over the story 
 he had just heard of two ladies, who, stop- 
 ping iii a country drive to water their horse 
 at a brook, unbuckled the crupper, so that 
 the horse should reach the water. 
 
 He said that the van was so easy that driv- 
 ing in it was like being up in a balloon, and 
 
26 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 gave the pleasantest possible proof of his 
 assertion, one afternoon later, by driving us 
 twenty-five miles in it. The drive was 
 delightful, and the van extremely comforta- 
 ble, but it left a consciousness for a day or 
 two that an experimental drive of twenty- 
 five miles, even in a van, is rather long. 
 
 It is doubtful if he found the new car- 
 riage as pleasurable or at least as serviceable 
 for professional tours as he anticipated. Per- 
 haps this would have been impossible, but as 
 it was not spoken of much after a few weeks, 
 we inferred that it was found to be a more 
 cumbersome vehicle than he liked. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was very fond of horses, often 
 driving a pair, and keeping four or five, 
 besides a saddle-horse or two. He liked fine 
 roadsters rather than fast trotters, and never 
 raced, though generally driving fast and 
 pretty far. Making pets of his horses, and 
 frequently descanting on their individuality, 
 he was, nevertheless, like other horse fanciers, 
 disposed to buy and sell often. If a horse 
 pleased him, the desire of possession was 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 27 
 
 nearly irresistible, and the purchase of one 
 necessitated the disposal of others. 
 
 Having, at one time, some trouble with 
 horse-shoers, we inquired of him whom he 
 employed for his horses. " Oh," he ex- 
 claimed, " don't ask ! I don't know. I don't 
 want to hate anybody in particular. If I 
 knew, I should hate a man ; now I only hate 
 a race." 
 
 Horses were to be depended on until they 
 ran away once, Mr. Hunt said ; " and then 
 they were like the man who jumped up and 
 down in his back yard, with his mouth wide 
 open, while his house was burning, thinking 
 he was crying fire." 
 
28 
 
 Records of William M. Sunt. 
 
 n. 
 
 « 
 
 During the long evenings of early winter 
 he was very cheerful and happy, full of fun 
 and stories. One evening he told us of his 
 big, balky horse that he had tried to cure by 
 electricity. I wish that I dared attempt his 
 description of the astonishment of the horse, 
 and his sudden increase in size, when the cur- 
 rent of electricity first struck him ; the rem- 
 edy did not prove a curative. 
 
 He told us a story of a monkey in Diissel- 
 dorf. The monkey was a very intelligent 
 one, and greatly petted by his master, a pro- 
 fessor in the art school. He was in the habit 
 of giving the monkey daily some lumps of 
 sugar in a small covered box. The little fel- 
 low was fond of opening and closing the box, 
 and of helping himself to the sugar. As a 
 matter of sport, the professor substituted for 
 the sugar-box, one day, a box of exactly the 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 29 
 
 same size and appearance, but which con- 
 tained, instead of sugar, a horrid image that 
 sprang out the moment the cover was raised. 
 The unsuspecting monkey opening the box 
 as usual for his sugar, the jack jumped out, 
 and, dropping it, he rushed to the farthest 
 corner of his cage, and there remained trem- 
 bling all day ; no coaxing could get him near 
 the awful box, and it was finally removed 
 from the cage. The next day the genuine 
 box of sugar was put into the cage-, but the 
 cautious monkey was not to be caught again. 
 He remained in his corner, and looked dis- 
 trustfully at the peace-offering. It might be 
 the same terrible box ; who could tell ? After 
 a while, however, his desire for sugar led him 
 to venture a little nearer the box, and so, 
 keeping himself at a prudent distance, he 
 went round and round it, trying to make up 
 his mind whether any reasonably safe attempt 
 on the contents of the box were possible. 
 He got nearer, and gave the box a little 
 punch; then another; then he knocked it 
 about his cage smartly, and no harm came of 
 
30 Records of William 3£. Hunt. 
 
 it. He took it up and carefully inspected it 
 on all sides, and found it apparently quite 
 satisfactory. Then, putting it down, the 
 momentous question of opening the box 
 was quickly decided ; he made a rush at the 
 cover, removing it and jumping suddenly 
 back, but no terrible jack appeared. He 
 went cautiously up and looked in ; there 
 were his harmless little lumps of sugar, — 
 nothing more. 
 
 Never was a monkey happier. He chat- 
 tered and played all the day long, evidently 
 regarding his fearful experience as an ugly 
 dream, or as the result of a diseased imagi- 
 nation. But his happiness was short-lived; 
 the next day the jack-in-the-box was put in 
 the cage, and again the monkey was fright- 
 ened and perplexed, and the box had to be 
 removed from the cage as before. Then, in 
 due time, the jack was put back in place of 
 the sugar ; and so the poor animal was kept 
 in anxious uncertainty, until he grew thin 
 and nervous, and lost his appetite and sick- 
 ened, and the experiment was given up. Af- 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 31 
 
 ter a time he recovered his health and spirits, 
 and then, just for once, his master thought 
 he would put the jack into the cage, instead 
 of the sugar, to see if the monkey minded it 
 as formerly. The confiding little fellow 
 opened the box, the jack leaped out, and the 
 monkey fell back dead. 
 
 At one of his visits about this time Mr. 
 Hunt informed us of his having been invited 
 by a committee to lecture, some Sunday after- 
 noon, in the Horticultural Hall course. We 
 advised him by all means to accept, and he 
 thought perhaps he might. .He would take 
 for a subject the connection between religion 
 and art, and he ran on and told us what he 
 proposed to say, talking steadily nearly an 
 hour. After finishing, he said, " There ! if 
 some one could have taken down what I 
 have been saying, it would be just what I 
 want for the lecture." I offered to write out 
 in the morning all I could remember, and he 
 gladly accepted the proposal. A week later 
 he had given up all notion of lecturing. The 
 notes that I prepared for him have since been 
 mislaid, much to my regret. 
 
32 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 During the spring of 1877 he came often 
 to the house, one evening marching into the 
 study playing Home Sweet Home on a little 
 mouth-organ. We always could tell how 
 things were going with him by the frequency 
 of his visits. When he was happy he came 
 often. If dispirited or anxious over a diffi- 
 cult portrait, or from some other cause, his 
 visits were less frequent. He said to us 
 frankly that he would not come and be a 
 bore, never realizing for a moment that he 
 could not be a bore, whatever his mood. 
 Sometimes he would come when he was not 
 feeling in good spirits, and then we could see 
 that he was exerting himself to be merry. 
 On such occasions he would be more gentle 
 and tender than usual, but there would be 
 lapses in his gayety, and he would sit silent, 
 biting his finger-nails, his thoughts away in 
 his studio or elsewhere. 
 
 He was singularly afraid of boring people, 
 and when about to confer the greatest pos- 
 sible boon, namely, the taking of us to his 
 studio, he would beat about the bush, and 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 33 
 
 almost never put the proposition in direct 
 terms : " I've got two or three little things 
 over at the studio that I'm going to show 
 you some time ; would you mind going over 
 to-night, or some other night? I'm sorry 
 it's so cold, but I rather want you to see 
 the things right off, now ; I can't wait very 
 well." Sometimes, after sitting for a half 
 hour or more, he would say, " Well, I came 
 in to-night to ask you to go over to the stu- 
 dio, but, really, I think it an imposition, you 
 are so comfortable here ; but I should like 
 you to see a head I've just been working 
 on." This was not an affectation of manner ; 
 it was ever and under all circumstances the 
 same. He always considered that we were 
 doing him a favor to go with him to his stu- 
 dio, and that our acceptance of his invitation 
 was possibly a matter of doubt, as if it were 
 not the greatest possible pleasure to go to 
 his studio and discuss his pictures with him ; 
 we would have gone twenty times oftener if 
 asked. But to the very last his invitations 
 were apologetic or timid, and when he got 
 
34 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 us before his pictures, in the enjoyment of 
 our admiration and enthusiasm, he would 
 sometimes confess that he came to us a few 
 evenings before for the express purpose of 
 inviting us to 'his studio; but after all, he 
 didn't know that we should like the pictures, 
 and he feared he might be dragging us out 
 too often, and so he said nothing about it. 
 
 One evening in May he got upon the sub- 
 ject of pigments. I had started him off by 
 telling him that I had some Veronese green 
 so thin that I could find no effect from it. 
 It resulted in nothing on the canvas. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Mr. Hunt, " I know that 
 kind of green ; the more you put on, the less 
 color you have. It vanishes. It's too thin 
 to run up-hill. I tell you, if the Frenchmen 
 had to paint with our pigments, you wouldn't 
 hear much about their pictures." "After 
 all," he went on to say, " the nearest thing to 
 nature is a black-and-white drawing. Har- 
 mony is the great thing to strive for, and one 
 is surer of this in black and white. In nearly 
 all paintings there is a certain lack of bar- 
 
Records of William M. Sunt. 35 
 
 mony, and therefore a good drawing is more 
 satisfactory. Suggestion of color is better 
 than color itself. What green is to land- 
 scape red is to flesh. All landscape painting 
 is too green ; the green should be felt be- 
 neath the neutral tint in landscape, just as 
 the red should be felt beneath the gray tones 
 in flesh painting. Both Millet and Correggio 
 paint brown, and then contrast it with a blue 
 that appears blue, but which is really a green. 
 Their pictures do not strike one as brown." 
 
 The last time he was in Paris, Millet told 
 him that he would paint a blonde so that he 
 could put pure white for the highest lights 
 of the face. " If the effect is harmonious, it 
 makes no difference what key we paint on, 
 high or low ; but, as in music, one must be- 
 gin and end on the same key. Painting is 
 vulgar by the side of a fine charcoal drawing. 
 Imagination and suggestion are everything 
 in art. Color is vulgar, because it is in the 
 direction of imitation. It is prose instead of 
 poetry. The less imitation the more sugges- 
 tion, and hence the more imagination and 
 
36 Records of William M. Hunt, 
 
 poetry. Drawing as compared with painting 
 is more refined, and therefore truer art." 
 
 During this month we spent a day and 
 night as guests with him at North Easton. 
 With all his endeavors, he was not quite at 
 his best there, being anxious lest our eating 
 and sleeping should not be exactly what he 
 wished ; he had brought out from Boston 
 some bananas and other fruits for a supple- 
 mentary course at dinner. In the evening, 
 on coming in, he asked for a bit of charcoal, 
 to give the effect of a view he had just seen 
 on the river. No charcoal w T as to be found, 
 so he took a bit of cork, and holding it over 
 the light manufactured his coal, and then 
 drew on a scrap of paper a heavy mass of trees 
 against a bright sunset sky, reflecting them 
 in the water below. A brother artist who 
 was with him when he saw the sunset, re- 
 marked afterwards, that Mr. Hunt had got 
 the effect on his piece of paper, and that he 
 had a marvellous facility for remembering and 
 reproducing an impression with a few sim- 
 ple touches. 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 37 
 
 One evening, this month, Mr. Hunt came 
 to tea, and went with us to a concert, which 
 he heartily enjoyed. Miss Cary was the 
 principal singer, and her appearance and 
 manner on the stage impressed him strongly. 
 After the concert he was full of talk about 
 her breadth of style, her repose, dignity, large 
 impression, and her grand and noble person. 
 She was dressed in white, and looked very 
 large to him. He would like to paint her. 
 She would weigh more than a hundred and 
 eighty, and he would have his painting weigh 
 as much as she. It would take fifteen hun- 
 dred tubes of white paint. " Her singing is 
 fine and satisfactory. It has variety of color 
 and tint. Like painting, music requires 
 this." 
 
 It was about this time that Mr. Hunt con- 
 cluded that bread and milk was the only 
 proper diet for him. When asked if he 
 thought he should ever drink tea or coffee 
 again, he said that he knew he shouldn't. 
 At another time he would drink tea and cold 
 water, no wine. Cold water, he argued, was 
 
38 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 the natural drink for mankind. He never 
 felt so well as when drinking water, and 
 plenty of it. Sometimes, for a month or so, 
 he wonld not smoke, no matter how mild or 
 how good the cigar offered him. Nothing 
 could shake his resolution in these matters-. 
 He would listen patiently to your arguments 
 in favor of moderation ; with the greatest 
 gravity, he would even help you to put them 
 in the most plausible form ; but no practical 
 results followed. In due time he ate and 
 drank and smoked again as other men. At 
 one period he was fond of smoking a very 
 low-priced, mild cigar. For the time being 
 he argued that it was foolish for a man to 
 give more than five cents for a cigar ; and he 
 related with great satisfaction how he went 
 into the Parker House, where several persons 
 were about the bar smoking their fine Ha- 
 vanas, and called out in a loud voice, " Give 
 me a five-cent cigar." Soon after this we 
 noticed in his studio a box of choice Havanas, 
 so fine that each cigar was provided with its 
 individual bracelet. Putting on his very 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 39 
 
 funniest expression, the artist showed us how 
 he was withdrawing a fine-cigar now and then 
 from beneath, and putting its bracelet on to 
 a five cent one, and then slyly filling up the 
 hole with it. In this way, as he explained, 
 he kept his box full of nice cigars. 
 
 A lady was describing to him an artist 
 with whom he was unacquainted. " He is," 
 she began, " light complexioned, freckled," — 
 " Yes, yes, I know," interrupted Mr. Hunt, 
 "and he always wears brown clothes." 
 " How did you know ? Have you seen 
 him ? " " No, I've never seen him, but that 
 kind of fellow always wears browm clothes." 
 
 Mr. Hunt was not, in the ordinary sense, 
 a reader; I am sure, at least, that he read 
 few books during the five years of his life 
 that Ave knew him intimately. His conver- 
 sation at times pointed to a considerable famil- 
 iarity with certain parts of the Bible which 
 he had read and discussed with Millet many 
 years earlier, with parts of Shakespeare and 
 with the literature of art. He liked to refer 
 to Hazlitt's art criticisms and to the poetry 
 
40 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 of Robert Browning, accrediting the latter 
 with far more correct ideas on art than most 
 of the other poets. He liked also the writ- 
 ings of Taine, and asked us to read what 
 Fromentin said of Rembrandt's work at the 
 time it appeared in the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes. Considering that he read so sel- 
 dom, it was rather surprising that his want 
 of book knowledge did riot make itself more 
 felt ; but he remembered everything that he 
 read as well as everything that he heard, and, 
 besides, what he had of his own to say was 
 better than anything in books. He was no 
 reflected light. His talk was more generally 
 the result of his personal experience or ob- 
 servation. Never a gossip, he talked of triv- 
 ialities only as they afforded him scope for 
 his irrepressible love of grotesque narrative. 
 He rarely spoke on current topics such as 
 are discussed in the newspapers, and one sel- 
 dom got from his conversation the slightest 
 hint of his newspaper reading. It is said 
 that he skimmed a daily paper quite regu- 
 larly, generally tossing it down after a mo- 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 41 
 
 ment or two, with the remark that "it is 
 strange people can read such stuff." He sel- 
 dom discussed politics, and never voted, so 
 far as I know, after the close of the war. 
 During the war period he was deeply stirred 
 and very loyal. He had two long interviews 
 with John Brown, and was greatly impressed 
 by him. He thought him a marvellous per- 
 son ; a great hero, reminding one of the old 
 prophets, he said. He made arrangements 
 to paint his portrait, but meantime Brown 
 went suddenly to his death in Virginia. At 
 that time he was a strong Republican, but 
 later, appeared to have no party preferences 
 whatever, condemning both parties in good 
 round terms. He once spoke favorably of 
 Bristow as a presidential candidate ; but he 
 had lately been in bathing with him at the 
 beach, and the latter's fine, robust figure, 
 which he liked, had, we thought, something 
 to do with his preference. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was very tenacious of cherished 
 opinions, though never egotistic or overbear- 
 ing ; always ready to listen to dissenting 
 
42 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 views, and desirous of modifying or chan- 
 ging his own whenever shown that he was 
 wrong, His opinions in art matters were so 
 well considered, so thoroughly sound, that it 
 was not easy for one to show him weak points 
 in them ; yet he never seemed to expect any- 
 body to believe a thing because he said it, but 
 was prepared with an abundance of argument 
 and illustration to prove it true. It gave 
 him, usually, little effort to vanquish an op- 
 ponent in a discussion on the principles or 
 practice of art, and so deftly would it be 
 done that his adversary's sense of discomfit- 
 ure was rather pleasurable and satisfactory 
 than otherwise. Once vanquished, however, 
 one felt that he was to remain vanquished. 
 There were, nevertheless, many things in art 
 that Mr. Hunt was not sure about, and these 
 he always spoke of as points that he could 
 not pretend to decide. 
 
 He had, as I have said, a remarkable 
 memory. Nothing great or small could es- 
 cape it. He would recall trivial remarks 
 months and years old. Social engagements, 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 43 
 
 however, he found great difficulty in remem- 
 bering ; but those who knew him well knew 
 exactly which ones he would remember and 
 which forget. " Don't let's name any par- 
 ticular hour, I haven't got any watch now," 
 or, " My watch doesn't keep any sort of 
 time," or, " Yes, yes, I'll try and come round. 
 What time did you say?" All this meant 
 that he would forget ; but if he looked at 
 one earnestly^ and said " Yes " to an invita- 
 tion, without qualifications, it meant yes, and 
 we so understood it. Engagements, he said, 
 were like a millstone about his neck; they 
 were like a cold buckwheat cake. Other 
 than unimportant social engagements he kept 
 to the very letter, and required others to keep. 
 As a man of business he was exact, and more 
 methodical than is generally supposed. 
 
 One evening in the winter of 1877, he 
 came in to see us, and finally got to talking 
 about the Art School at the Museum. It 
 was all very well that the school should not 
 give perfect satisfaction. It would not do to 
 be too easily satisfied. He kept clear of the 
 
44 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 whole thing as much as possible. " They 
 make too much fuss over the students. If 
 two per cent, or one per cent, make anything 
 of artists, it is as much as one should expect. 
 Grunclemann is painstaking, and perhaps well 
 enough as a teacher ; possibly not broad 
 enough ; but let him go on five years at least 
 before judging of his qualifications. They 
 think over there that the school, if good 
 enough, must make artists. There never 
 was a greater mistake. Why don't they set 
 up a school to make poets? All that a 
 teacher can do is to teach. If the stuff is in 
 a pupil he may make a painter. It was the 
 mackerel out of the school that fattened 
 Daniel Webster." He was quite merry over 
 his answer to some of the committee who 
 asked his views of the proper limits as to 
 the age of pupils to be admitted to the art 
 instruction. He replied that none should be 
 admitted under four years of age, and none 
 above eighty. 
 
 Looking at a large landscape in the room, 
 he said, u As a rule, vertical lines darker, 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 horizontal lines lighter ; but one can't paint 
 by rule ; circumstances may require the hori- 
 zontal lines to be darkest. There is a good 
 effect of light in this sky. Light in the sky 
 or elsewhere is not so well produced by put- 
 ting dark against it as by a gradation of tone 
 from the dark towards it. Light radiates, 
 and one must try to produce the appearance 
 of radiation to get the highest effect. No 
 matter if the picture be on a low key. 
 Neither, if the gradation is finely done, 
 need the dark be very dark nor the light 
 very light. Atmosphere and light are the 
 great things to work for in landscape paint- 
 ing." 
 
 On another occasion, being asked if a cer- 
 tain landscape painting were not too green, 
 he answered, " Too green ? No, not too 
 green if you felt like painting green. If one 
 feels like painting green, it's best to paint 
 green. Under such circumstances it's of no 
 use to try to paint any other color. If you 
 feel like painting brown or gray, paint those 
 colors." 
 
46 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 In a conversation about the photographing 
 of his pictures, he was asked, in consideration 
 of the fact that yellow came out black, and 
 purple white, in a photograph, why one should 
 not paint with a view to photography, so that 
 the lights and darks would represent the in- 
 tentions of the artist. 64 Because one should 
 not paint with a view to anything but to 
 paint his picture. If you have views of any- 
 thing beyond that, you do poor, mechanical 
 work." 
 
 Mr. Hunt was especially lenient towards 
 earnest work of young artists. He was se- 
 vere on pretension and conceit only. Of a 
 portrait he said there was "no inside to it. 
 It looked like a bug that another bug had 
 eaten up all except the shell." 
 
 There was never a question as to how Mr. 
 Hunt should be entertained, for he enter- 
 tained himself as well as those about him. 
 No subject was too great for him to discuss, 
 and none too small. He interested himself 
 at one time greatly in our Manx cats, discov- 
 ering that it was difficult to determine their 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 47 
 
 centre of gravity ; that their whole anatomy 
 and movements differed entirely from those 
 of cats with tails. He studied our family of 
 Manx kittens, and finding their nest not 
 sufficiently sumptuous sent one morning, 
 with his compliments, a handsome cat bas- 
 ket, for their use. 
 
 Afterwards he was amused to learn that 
 the old cat had found his elegant basket an 
 unsafe repository for her family, and had 
 lugged them off, while her unregenerate, 
 grown-up, fighting son, of fringed ears and 
 bruised aspect, had taken possession of it 
 uninvited, spending his entire days in it and 
 such nights as his professional engagements 
 would permit of. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was ready to take part in what- 
 ever was going on in the house. One even- 
 ing his hostess was doing some fancy patch- 
 work, and immediately he became absorbed 
 in its condition and development, requesting 
 the liberty of sewing in a square, which he 
 did on the spot with stitches so neat as to 
 excite extravagant admiration. The deli- 
 
48 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 cacy and dexterity of his manipulations were 
 sometimes astonishing. Once, in speaking 
 of his ability to do fine work with the brush, 
 if he chose, he asked for a pencil, and taking 
 a bit of note paper wrote one of our names, 
 made up of seven letters, one of them a cap- 
 ital, so fine that I found a magnifying-glass 
 indispensable for reading it. The space 
 taken up by the seven letters was just one 
 eighth of an inch in length, every letter 
 being firm and distinctly legible. On put- 
 ting down the pencil he remarked, " That 
 isn't nearly as fine as I can write sometimes. 
 I could do much better with a fine-pointed 
 pencil. Still, this isn't easy to do ; just try 
 it." And we all tried it, and found it impos- 
 sible. One cold evening a lady complained 
 of a crack on the end of her forefinger that 
 would not heal and was very sore. u Let me 
 fix it," said Mr. Hunt. He took out his pen- 
 knife, sharpened it on his boot, and pro- 
 ceeded to pare the skin down thin at the 
 edges of the crack, not an easy thing to do 
 at the end of the finger, and a task requiring 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 49 
 
 considerable confidence in both patient and 
 operator ; but he did it neatly, and, advising 
 a poultice for the night, promised that it 
 should be a cure in thirty-six hours ; and it 
 was. 
 
 I have known him to paint an hour or 
 more on a cow less than an inch and a half 
 in length, supposed to be already finished. 
 He first scraped off the surface of the paint 
 with a knife, giving it a speckled look, and, 
 remarking that he guessed he would make a 
 tortoise-shell cow of it, worked continuously 
 and deliberately with fine sable brushes until 
 he had what he called " a finished cow." 
 
 I mention with great satisfaction the fact 
 of his working so long and patiently on this 
 small cow, because, like Rubens, he was fond 
 of painting with great sweeps of the brush ; 
 as a result of this it has happened that per- 
 sons who dislike brush marks and rough- 
 ness of surface, have so associated his name 
 with these characteristics of rapid execution, 
 as to overlook his work of an entirely differ- 
 ent character. 
 
50 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 I remember to have met one who seriously 
 argued that Mr. Hunt could neither draw 
 nor paint in what is called a finished style. 
 
 For a month or more, at one time, when 
 taking wine in the evening with us, he was 
 in the habit of resting his empty wine-glass 
 on the top of his head. There he would sit 
 on the sofa nodding his head in conversa- 
 tion, but never permitting the glass to fall. 
 The top of his head was very smooth, and 
 we were apprehensive, and this gave great 
 zest to his performance. After a while we 
 became used to this habit, but one evening 
 the wine-glass slid from his head and broke 
 on the carpet. This ended the performance 
 forever ; he could not be persuaded to try it 
 again. 
 
 A few evenings later he amused us and 
 himself by substituting for the wine-glass a 
 smooth paper-weight, which he balanced on 
 his head as before ; to vary the entertainment 
 he would now and then put a sheet of paper 
 under the weight, and then snatch it quickly 
 away, leaving the paper-weight undisturbed 
 on his head. 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 51 
 
 He is said to have practised putting his 
 soup plate on top of his head at the restau- 
 rants, for the convenience of the waiters ; but 
 he did nothing of the kind on the evening 
 when he invited us all to dine with him at a 
 little place behind the Public Library. As 
 usual when entertaining guests, he was over- 
 anxious lest everything should not pass off 
 exactly as he wished, and so behaved more 
 like other people. Still, the occasion seemed 
 to afford him great satisfaction, for when he 
 came to us, a few evenings afterward, he said 
 as he left the door, holding up the fingers 
 of one hand, " Th^re are only about so many 
 of us in Boston, you know ; we ought to 
 meet in that way oftener." Who the other 
 three were I never knew with certainty ; I 
 could only be sure that one was Mr. Thomas 
 Robinson, for whom he had the tenderest 
 possible friendship. He was an enthusiastic 
 admirer of the talent of his friend, also. 
 Of the head of a bull by Robinson in our 
 possession, he said, " I don't believe there is a 
 man living at the present time who could 
 
52 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 paint this subject as well as Tom has done 
 it in that picture.' ' 
 
 January 18, 1878. Mr. Hunt came in 
 rather late, but seemed desirous that we 
 should go over to his studio and see an un- 
 finished sunset that he was at work on. It 
 promised to be very fine, but for some rea- 
 son or other it was never completed. He 
 took out from a large depository several 
 other new paintings, notably the two views, 
 almost exactly alike, of Gloucester Harbor. 
 They were of the same tone and on the same 
 key ; but the first was, technically speaking, 
 somewhat smoother, while the second had 
 a little more light in it. The latter was 
 painted with almost inconceivable rapidity, 
 within three hours, and never touched after- 
 wards. I remember also a large landscape, 
 more than twice the size of these, that Mr. 
 Hunt told me was one of two pictures that he 
 had painted in one day. I recall the more 
 important fact that the landscape in question 
 was one of his best and one of the finest I 
 know, exquisitely gray and silvery in tone 
 
Records of William M. Hunt 55 
 
 the intense artistic temperament ; indeed 
 almost the only conspicuous examples among 
 the great painters of calm, judicial, unbiased 
 opinions upon contemporary work are seen 
 in Rubens and Velasquez. Reynolds is a 
 noteworthy example of the opposite kind. 
 
 One evening, Mr. Hunt sat with a cheer- 
 ful little Dupre in his lap for half an hour, 
 praising it without stint, and the next day 
 shut himself in his studio and painted a 
 brown picture that strikingly recalled the 
 Dupre in color and composition. When I 
 first saw his brown painting, some weeks 
 afterwards, I exclaimed at once, 64 There you 
 have a Dupre picture ! " But the artist made 
 no response, nor did we learn until some time 
 later that it had been painted under the cir- 
 cumstances above stated. Being shown a 
 spring landscape, he studied it over some 
 time, and then exclaimed, "I'm going to 
 paint a spring picture ! " This was near the 
 first of May, and in a few clays we were in- 
 vited to see his new picture, which proved 
 to be the painting that he named Spring 
 
56 Records of William M. Stmt. 
 
 Chickens, the original charcoal drawing of 
 which he presented us, possibly as an ac- 
 knowledgment of our claim for the motive 
 of the new picture. 
 
 Being shown a small painting by Kiihl, a 
 Munich artist, representing a drunken man 
 holding a half-filled glass of wine in each 
 hand, he remarked, "It is very skillfully 
 done, but what is the use of doing it? Why 
 choose such a subject, when pleasant ones are 
 all around us ? The subject isn't worthy of 
 the painter." 
 
 Of the landscapes of a number of the stu- 
 dents of the Munich school in New York he 
 said, " They show the result of good school- 
 ing ; yes, they have a neat little recipe for 
 skies." He was very intolerant of everything 
 in painting that savored of a school or estab- 
 lished method, and vastly pleased over any- 
 thing that exhibited evidence of earnest, 
 independent work, no matter how crude. 
 Amateur paintings attracted his attention at 
 once if they happened to have some merit. 
 Now and then we used to put such a picture 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 57 
 
 over the table in the study, in a good light. 
 If there was the least bit of good in it, Mr. 
 Hunt noticed it immediately on entering the 
 room. He would say from across the room, 
 "Ah, a new picture! When did you do 
 that? I like it," or, "You've got a good 
 sky ; there's light in it," or, " That's amus- 
 ing ; you've got a fuller color than usual in 
 your trees." If the picture pleased him still 
 better, he would go to it, look it over closely 
 to see how it had been done, and then say, 
 "I like it," simply, or perhaps add, "You 
 might have saved yourself these strokes of 
 the brush here in the foreground ; they don't 
 count for anything." If, however, the pic- 
 ture put over the table for him to see was 
 too poor, he never appeared to see it. Under 
 such* circumstances he would sit over against 
 it all the evening, and never be caught look- 
 ing at it once. I remember such an occasion, 
 when, having put a little chef oVceuvre, as I 
 half feared and hoped, in its proper place, 
 the coming of Mr. Hunt was impatiently 
 awaited. When at last he came, to our sur- 
 
58 Records of William 31. Hunt. 
 
 prise no notice was taken of the new picture. 
 Lest this should be mere accident or over- 
 sight, I took great pains during the evening, 
 not to obstruct his sight by getting between 
 him and the cherished object. It was all to 
 no purpose. There was red, white, and blue 
 in the picture, but he didn't see it. 
 
 It is remarkable, considering the provoca- 
 tion to which he w r as subjected, that he 
 should never have criticised one of these pic- 
 tures adversely. Occasionally he made sug- 
 gestions in a quiet, confidential kind of way. 
 For instance, in a picture where, in the mid- 
 dle distance, there were some slim young 
 walnut-trees put against the highest light of 
 the sky, he said, " I think, perhaps, there is a 
 little too much color in those trees. Against 
 that bright sky I doubt if one would see 
 much color ; they would be more neutral in 
 tone. Still, I'm not sure about it. I'd think 
 it over before doing anything ; but my im- 
 pression is now that if the color were taken 
 out of the trees it would be truer to nature, 
 and help the picture otherwise. But don't 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 59 
 
 do it until you think it over ; it's possible it 
 may be better as it is." 
 
 Being asked if he liked, personally, a cer- 
 tain young artist, of affected manner and 
 foppish appearance, he replied, "I don't know 
 him. I know his clothes. I've always 
 known his clothes, but I don't know him, I 
 can have nothing to do with such a man when 
 I meet him ; I look right through and be- 
 yond and around him." 
 
 Starting out, one morning, from his Tre- 
 mont Street studio for his breakfast, he en- 
 countered an old woman on the stairs carry- 
 ing down a big box of ashes. He at once 
 insisted on lending a hand, and, taking half 
 the burden upon himself, they landed it on 
 the sidewalk together. " I didn't dare to 
 look up," he said, " but I could feel the eyes 
 of people boring into my back." 
 
 June, 1878. Mr. Hunt wrote us from 
 Niagara Falls that he had definitely accepted 
 the contract for painting two large pictures 
 on the walls of the Assembly Chamber at 
 Albany. He had accepted the offer with 
 
60 Records of William 31. Hunt. 
 
 great hesitation. On one occasion he said he 
 was almost sorry that he had entertained the 
 project at all. It was an immense job. The 
 risk of failure was too great ; he had never 
 done anything of the kind. He should feel 
 happier if they would just withdraw their 
 proposal ; it would take a load off his mind. 
 
 Two weeks later he came home from Niag- 
 ara, and was enthusiastic over the grandeur 
 of the falls and the artistic beauties of the 
 neighborhood, talking of this subject and the 
 projected Albany pictures the entire even- 
 ing. He wished one of the Albany paintings 
 to be a large view of Niagara, which he 
 thought he could make attractive for the 
 position, and which would be very appropri- 
 ate as representing a magnificent bit of scen- 
 ery within the limits of the State. But the 
 authorities preferred The Discoverer as a 
 companion picture for the Anahita. 
 
 His last visit to us before leaving for 
 Albany was on the evening of October 9th. 
 He had been working hard over the large 
 sketches and the separate figures, and was of 
 
Records of William M. Sunt. 61 
 
 course anxious as to the success of his great 
 venture and impatient to get at the work in 
 Albany, the beginning of which had been de- 
 layed owing to tardiness of some sort there, 
 and which, nevertheless, must be finished by 
 the first of January, so that the chamber 
 should be in order for the meeting of the 
 legislature. He appeared tired, this evening, 
 but was very gentle and kind, and left us the 
 impression that he was already a little home- 
 sick in anticipation of his enforced stay at 
 Albany. His mirth seemed forced, and when 
 he left he was quite unnaturally jolly, declar- 
 ing that it wasn't worth while to say good-by, 
 that he should be back again in Boston in no 
 time, that the time would pass very quickly, 
 and that he hardly felt as though he were 
 leaving Boston at all. 
 
 On October 30th he sent us photographs 
 of the condition of his work at that time, ac- 
 companied by the following characteristic 
 letter : — 
 
62 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 Albany, October 28, 1878. 
 
 My dear : I think I must send you 
 
 a photograph of the walls as a record of the 
 work thus far. One week at work, and the 
 outlines are about completed, and painting 
 begins, I hope, to-morrow. 
 
 I can tell you, it is like sailing a seventy- 
 four, or riding eight horses in a circus. It 
 fills one's lungs to breathe in front of such 
 spaces. The figure of Columbus, or the Dis- 
 coverer, is eleven feet from his crown to the 
 boat where his shins disappear. His hand is 
 broader than this page is long. The scaffold- 
 ing is spacious, and the bridge connecting 
 the two is about seven feet wide and seventy 
 feet long ; so you see everything is in propor- 
 tion, and it is delightful to work forty feet 
 from the floor. 
 
 It will be a great mortification if we don't 
 succeed. Just think of a twin mortification 
 forty-five by sixteen ! 
 
 fours truly, W. M. Hunt. 
 
 P. S. It is lucky that I am growing far- 
 sighted and require large print at a distance. 
 Remember me kindly to all. 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 63 
 
 Soon after the receipt of this letter we 
 heard that he was working very hard, — a 
 part of the night by calcium light, as well as 
 during the whole day, — and we wrote ex- 
 pressing fear for his health, and advising him 
 not to work by night and to take plenty of 
 sleep. This was his answer : — 
 
 Albany, Sunday, November 24, 1878. 
 My dear Friends : I received your note 
 of warning not to paint all night, and I fol- 
 low your advice to the letter, for I paint all 
 day, and should be only too thankful (I 
 think) to have a light of any kind these dark 
 days. As you may imagine, a scaffold ten 
 feet wide throws quite a shadow, when there 
 is light enough to throw anything. We have 
 been obliged for the last week to use torches 
 when we want to see our work clearly, and 
 we begin about nine o'clock, A. M., and come 
 away about six o'clock, P. M. Lunch on 
 board. 
 
 Now you needn't pity us a bit, and this 
 apparent whining is merely a form of brag, 
 
64 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 or something that we are rather proud of, and 
 something for an excuse to sing about if the 
 things look ill when the staging comes down. 
 
 It is good, steady, long-winded work, and 
 enough of it, — that's just what it is; im- 
 mensely instructive, I can tell you ; and I 
 can conceive now more readily why those 
 old fellows were not idiots or nigglers in 
 their business, after they had passed a life in 
 front of walls and painted over every large 
 room they had ever lived in. 
 
 We have every encouragement here, and 
 our employers are pleased with the work 
 thus far. All the stone-cutters take great 
 interest in it, and that is very encouraging. 
 
 We have every advantage here, except 
 that we have had thus far no art critics. I 
 suppose that if we had been assisted by their 
 presence and advice we should have already 
 finished our work. 
 
 Oh, it is a luxury to work unsurrounded 
 by winners ! 
 
 We can paint horses sky blue if we choose, 
 and nobody begs us to desist. 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 65 
 
 If the work looks well when it is done, I 
 shall insist on your coming up ; if not — 
 when we meet well act as though nothing 
 had happened. 
 
 Yours truly, W. M. Hunt. 
 
 P. S. Have you heard anything of the 
 body in Boston ? 
 
 P. P. S. Have there been any traces in 
 Boston ? 
 
 P. SSS. If you hear anything of the 
 " body," please inform. 
 
 The several postscripts related to the 
 search for the stolen body of Stewart, in 
 which, it appears, he had a very active inter- 
 est. 
 
 November 29, 1878. Mr. Hunt spent a 
 long evening with us. He had arrived in 
 town the day before, and had intended to 
 pass his first evening at our house, but on 
 calling and finding as out, he had enjoined 
 silence upon the servant, and, trusting to 
 luck that we should hear nothing of him 
 about town, he managed to take us entirely 
 
66 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 by surprise. He walked in upon us unan- 
 nounced, and was as happy and light-hearted 
 all the evening as we had ever seen him. 
 The talk naturally turned to his all-absorb- 
 ing work at Albany, and although he spoke 
 of it as if there were still a possibility of 
 failure, his manner and his happiness told of 
 assured success. 
 
 W e visited him at Albany on December 
 24th. He was very cordial and light-hearted, 
 and appeared well satisfied with his work, 
 though a little apprehensive of the critics. 
 After finishing his pictures he took a short 
 vacation in the country, and returned to 
 Boston. He seemed very tired, mentally and 
 physically, at this time, and although cheer- 
 ful, it was not the sunny, wayward cheerful- 
 ness of old times. The swollen knee, to 
 which it had been necessary to apply a surgi- 
 cal bandage during the last days of his fa- 
 tiguing work at Albany, was still a cause of 
 anxiety. Nevertheless, although, as he ex- 
 pressed it, he felt played out, he thought he 
 might begin on some portraits in the course 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 67 
 
 of a week or two. When told that he should 
 not touch a brush for at least two months, 
 and could not possibly get rested sooner, he 
 would not believe it. In about three weeks 
 he began painting, but was forced to stop 
 again and take more rest ; he soon resumed 
 work, and did, as is well known, some of the 
 best painting of his life. The Gardner por- 
 trait, for example, seems to be in important 
 respects, his best. As a painting it is prob- 
 ably as fine as anything that has been done 
 in America, and takes rank with the best of 
 all time. 
 
 He was not well during this winter and 
 spring, and was apt to relapse into an irrita- 
 ble mood and scold the critics in an excitable 
 way. His visits to us were rather infre- 
 quent. During the two evenings that he 
 spent with us in March, it was remarked that 
 he had lost his old gayety of manner. He 
 seemed to be conscious of this change him- 
 self, and endeavored to make up for it by 
 greater kindness and gentleness. His last 
 evening at our house, and the last time we 
 
68 Records of William 31. Humt. 
 
 saw him, was on the 7th of April, 1879. He 
 was never more cordial than on this occasion, 
 but all he said and did appeared the result of 
 effort. He said he was very tired, and being 
 offered wine put his hand in his pocket and 
 took out some malt, saying that this was the 
 only wine he allowed himself now. Soon 
 after nine o'clock he said he must go home, 
 so as to get to bed early, and presently, his 
 companion not being quite ready to go, he 
 took her gently by the ear and led her out 
 into the hall, saying, " I must go," an expres- 
 sion that we had never heard him use before 
 with earnestness. As he passed out of the 
 door with a ringing " Good-night," one of us 
 said, " We shall never see him again ; " the 
 other, 66 Oh, yes ; he has a splendid constitu- 
 tion. A summer's rest will bring him all 
 right again." 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 69 
 
 III. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was one of the most patient of 
 men when patience became really necessary ; 
 yet the exercise of this virtue was not pleas- 
 ant to him. It wore upon his nervous 
 strength and exhausted him. It was admira- 
 ble, but it was costly, and when all outward 
 manifestations bespoke submission and har- 
 mony he was often most restive. The delays 
 incident to the acceptance of the contract for 
 the Albany work, and the subsequent wait- 
 ing for the room to be got into condition for 
 him to begin painting, were severely felt. 
 Some extracts from letters dated at his stu- 
 dio and addressed to his assistant, while the 
 latter was at Niagara, will show this : — 
 
 " I am glad that everything goes on so well 
 at the Falls ; for, among other reasons, it ena- 
 bles me to be patient with my work here, and 
 also to bear with patience the delays neces- 
 
70 Records of William M. Sunt. 
 
 sary where many are interested. Both Mr. 
 Eidlitz and Mr. Dorsheimer have written me 
 that they were unable to be here to meet me 
 to-day, as we had agreed. Eidlitz is to come 
 the last of the week, and Mr. D. on Sundaj^. 
 In the mean time I have enough to busy my- 
 self about. I feel that even in the event of 
 m}^ not undertaking the work it will not 
 have been entirely lost time, as I am think- 
 ing over a good many things which I would 
 have slept over, had not an occasion called 
 them up. I regret much not being able to 
 be at the Falls to complete the work there 
 before hot weather. But I don't think it 
 would be well to growl much at my luck. I 
 am pleased that Tom is doing well. Remem- 
 ber me to him, and ask him to write and tell 
 me how the brOwn mare's legs and feet are. 
 Also, he must be sure not to let the horses 
 go too. long without having their feet looked 
 to and shoes placed." 
 
 In another note at this time he says, " I am 
 quite as anxious to be in N. F. as you are to 
 have me, and the time lost in questioning and 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 71 
 
 doubt is very perplexing ; but I suppose we 
 must look at it as a good thing. I have been 
 trying some experiments in throwing up 
 large figures in my room from small draw- 
 ings, and they work pretty well. Will write 
 soon and often, and like to hear from you." 
 
 This letter was sent off without either date 
 or signature. He rarely dated his letters, 
 but usually affixed his signature. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was, perhaps, more than most 
 artists impatient of the ordinary incompetent 
 criticism, and being by reason of his temper- 
 ament an ardent hater for cause, naturally 
 disliked a class of talking or writing people 
 who, he felt, misunderstood and misrepre- 
 sented him. His enmity was notably excited 
 by the kind of simplicity that marched up to 
 a picture painted to be seen at a distance of 
 ten feet, and, putting its nose against the 
 canvas, prated of brush marks and rough- 
 ness and the lack of finish. I remember 
 hearing Mr. Hunt and Mr. Joseph Jefferson 
 compare opinions upon the effect of looking 
 at pictures from wrong distances. They 
 
■ 
 
 72 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 quite agreed that it was necessary to modify 
 one's representations to suit the distance of 
 the actor from the audience ; that good act- 
 ing in a small auditorium might not be effec- 
 tive in a larger room. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was a believer in solid masculine 
 work. He had been a painter long enough 
 to appreciate, in his own productions, the 
 worth of time in mellowing the tone and 
 smoothing the surface of paintings in oil. 
 No complaint was ever heard of a want of 
 finish or smoothness in the painting called 
 The Prodigal Son, recently on exhibition at 
 the Art Museum. It appears, indeed, more 
 "finished" or smooth than many a Holbein 
 or a Ribera; yet, two years after it was 
 painted, in 1853, its surface was so coarse 
 and rough that the texture of the sheep-skin 
 on the back of the smaller figure could not 
 be distinguished from the flesh painting ex- 
 cept by its color. Mr. Hunt recognized a 
 certain crudeness and roughness as valuable 
 qualities in fresh work, and did not choose 
 to be forced into a way of painting that he 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 73 
 
 did not approve. Rembrandt painted so 
 roughly in his larger pictures, that his pat- 
 rons complained bitterly ; but we hear little 
 now of his lack of finish, although his paint- 
 ings have not yet become smooth. None of 
 Mr. Hunt's work approaches, in roughness of 
 surface, the loaded lights of the so-called 
 Night Watch, or the picture in the Museum 
 Van der Hoop called La fiancee juive. All- 
 ston's pictures gave great satisfaction when 
 first painted, because they appeared like the 
 work of the old masters. To-day they look 
 faded and lacking in masculine qualities. 
 
 Mr. Hunt disliked also a set of admirers 
 who were pleased to praise his early work at 
 the expense of his present, and who spoke of 
 his latest pictures as crude and hurried in 
 execution. I could see, or thought I could 
 see, that, averaging his work, he was paint- 
 ing, on the whole, better and better every 
 year. I once remarked to him that I thought 
 he had never painted so well as now, and 
 asked him to tell me frankly his own opinion 
 about it. He said, "I think I am painting 
 
74 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 now better than at any period of my life. I 
 should certainly be very much discouraged if 
 I thought that, with all my trying, I had 
 made no progress for twenty years. Of this 
 I am sure : the things that I did many 3 r ears 
 ago with difficulty look very easy to me at 
 the present time." 
 
 The charge of hasty execution is nearly 
 always unmeaning. The value or beauty 
 of an artistic production depends upon its 
 quality, and not upon the way in which it is 
 created. Corot and Millet painted in a way 
 that make their things look, to the uninitiated, 
 both hurried and sketchy ; but they worked 
 patiently over their pictures, and purposely 
 covered up the appearance of hard labor. 
 This gives an attractive quality to their work 
 not otherwise attainable. We all know how 
 long it took these great artists to reach the 
 position due them, owing to the slow process 
 of bringing the public up to the point of 
 realizing that what they called unfinished, ap- 
 peared finished to the painters, and was at 
 least, just what the masters intended it to be, 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 75 
 
 and not something hastily begun and hastily 
 tossed aside from some artistic whim. 
 
 Many artists work slowly, and some very 
 rapidly. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to take 
 as many as three hundred commissions in a 
 single j^ear. 
 
 Since Mr. Hunt's death, but never before 
 within my knowledge, he has been spoken of 
 as lacking in originality, and his earlier paint- 
 ings, done under the supervision of Couture 
 or Millet, or soon after leaving their ateliers, 
 are instanced in supporting this view. But 
 to dispose qf this accusation we have only to 
 look at the things done after he had emanci- 
 pated himself from his pupillary surround- 
 ings. I think one finds in his later work a 
 rather aggressive and striking originality both 
 in conception and style. Certainly one 
 would never speak of any of the old masters 
 as lacking in originality because their early 
 works resembled those of their teachers. 
 Such fidelity to teaching is creditable to the 
 pupil. The only thing that gives very early 
 work any value whatever is its close resem- 
 blance to that of some artist of reputation. 
 
76 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 In the spring of 1877, Mr. Hunt was 
 especially disturbed by an article published 
 in one of the newspapers of New York. It 
 purported to be a notice of the spring exhibi- 
 tion of the Academy of that city, but a chief 
 object of the communication was, apparently, 
 to give vent to some splenetic views concern- 
 ing Mr. Hunt and his pupils and friends in 
 Boston. As Mr. Hunt had no pictures on 
 exhibition in the New York Academy at this 
 time, one might have supposed it difficult to 
 introduce him and his local surroundings 
 into such an article ; but the writer was 
 equal to the occasion. Mr. Duveneck had 
 some pictures there, and these paintings, the 
 writer went on to say, were "not needed 
 here so much as in Boston ; "' but they were 
 particularly needed in the latter place "to 
 1 break up the stagnation that follows monopo- 
 ly in the art world no less inexorably than it 
 does in the market. We are fortunately free, 
 now, from the one-man power that until a 
 little while ago in Boston had ground down 
 all the young women artists', and many of 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 77 
 
 the young men artists', bones to a pale una- 
 nimity, and which, if it had not been checked 
 in time, would have swamped art in our sister 
 city in monotony and mannerism. Mr. Du- 
 veneck's appearance in Boston fluttered the 
 dove-cotes there to some purpose, and noth- 
 ing that we know of in the recent history of 
 our art world seems to me as interesting as 
 the cordial enthusiasm his pictures excited 
 among the younger members of the Art 
 Club, — an enthusiasm which took the prac- 
 tical shape of an invitation to the artist to 
 come and settle in Boston, where, it was 
 hoped, he might give efficient help in the 
 opposition that was making itself felt to cer- 
 tain arrogant and dogmatic claims beginning 
 to be unbearable. Mr. Duveneck did not ac- 
 cept the invitation, but his pictures worked 
 powerfully in the desired direction, and 
 greatly strengthened the hands of the rising 
 school. In Boston the presence of a strong 
 man was needed to temper, not to destroy, 
 the rule of one artist, who, immensely more 
 through social and personal influences, — 
 
78 Records of William 31. Hunt. 
 
 among them a streaming eloquence of dog- 
 matic assertion, headstrong opinions, and 
 blustering scorn of all opposition, — im- 
 mensely more through such influences than 
 through his art, had imposed his theories and 
 his practice on a crowd of blind adorers. 
 Of course some good has come of this auto- 
 cratic rule. It has not enlarged people ; that 
 can only be done by teaching them to think 
 for themselves. It has not made them love 
 art ; that can only be done by showing them 
 art in its various manifestations ; and Boston 
 people have been crammed, in these later 
 years, with the belief that there is no art but 
 French art, and that Couture and Mr. Wra. 
 Hunt are its prophets. ... No man in Bos- 
 ton, with any strength of his own, could, 
 however, long endure this state of things. 
 Those who could escape, fled to Europe or 
 New York ; those who could not escape made 
 the best of it; and we can .imagine their 
 delight when, at a certain exhibition of the 
 Art Club, they saw their deliverance dawn 
 in Mr. Duveneck's pictures." 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 79 
 
 This article Mr. Hunt regarded as a mali- 
 cious as well as an ignorant representation of 
 his position in Boston, and felt that, in jus- 
 tice to his pupils and friends, and to the 
 status of art here, some correcting statement 
 should be made. He therefore wrote and 
 sent the following repty, which was refused 
 publication. It was addressed to the writer 
 of the criticism. U I am not surprised," 
 writes Mr. Hunt, "at your disgust at the 
 character which you describe ; but when one 
 considers that it is your own manufacture, 
 the disgust turns naturally towards the ma- 
 chine which incubates such a production. 
 You present the picture of a being so weak 
 and stupid that he cannot even teach people 
 to ; think for themselves,' and one who has 
 not taught any one to love art; 'for that 
 can only be done by showing them art in 
 its various manifestations.' This weak crea- 
 ture at the same time holds ' autocratic rule ' 
 over a city of three hundred thousand in- 
 habitants for years, grinds everybody to 
 pieces, and those who can escape fly to 
 
80 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 Europe, — or to New York! To cap the cli- 
 max, a deliverer arrives, who, by the bye, 
 had been invited by me to share my studio ; 
 and in another moment, if it had not been 
 checked in time, this 4 one-man power ' would 
 have 6 swamped art in our sister city in mo- 
 notony and mannerism.' 
 
 " Now, your motive in all this is to create 
 animosity between me and other artists ; but 
 you will be unsuccessful. The sister city, 
 over which I am described as holding such 
 autocratic rule, has always been the first to 
 accept most cordially fresh examples of art. 
 Boston was the first to recognize Millet, 
 Corot, Daubigny, and of our own non-resi- 
 dent artists, Inness, Lafarge, Vedder, Duve- 
 neck, and others. 
 
 " You tell us that Boston people have 
 been crammed with French art, and that 
 Couture and William Hunt are its prophets. 
 Now it may surprise the reader to learn that 
 you have written the history of my teach- 
 ings and creed without even asking me an 
 opinion, or being present at any lesson of 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 81 
 
 my class ; furthermore, to learn that I have 
 never undertaken to teach M. Couture's 
 method, or any other method, and have en- 
 deavored, as all my scholars will say, to 
 develop in each one his individual manner. 
 I would as soon think of teaching a method 
 of writing poetry. 
 
 " The words ' French art,' which you put 
 in my mouth, I do not remember ever to 
 have used in my class ; for they convey no 
 meaning to the art student further than be- 
 ing suggestive of a class of skilfully painted 
 pictures imported into New York, and sold 
 to amateurs and dealers all over the country. 
 The term is used here generally by what are 
 called ' dealers' assistants,' who drum up 
 purchasers, rope in friends, and pocket com- 
 missions. 
 
 "Among modern painters I admire Ho- 
 garth, Gericault, Constable, Turner, Dela- 
 croix, Ingres, Flandrin, Corot, Millet, and 
 others. I have pointed these artists out to 
 my scholars as admirable ; and I shall not 
 forget that Gericault, one of the greatest of 
 
82 Records of William M. Hunt, 
 
 modern French painters (mind 3^ou, not a 
 stickler for French art), went over to Eng- 
 land, and wrote to Delacroix to come over, 
 saying that the English had at that time the 
 best painters. 
 
 " And when we see the admiration of the 
 French for Bonnington, of Troyon for Con- 
 stable, artists of each nation studying and 
 admiring the works of the other; and in 
 visiting the studios of some of the best men 
 in England to-day find on their Avails sketch- 
 es by Daubigny, Diaz, Corot, and Millet, it 
 shows that those who have succeeded in art 
 have always loved and respected one anoth- 
 er's work. 
 
 "Please to remark that these are not the 
 names whose monograms decorate the cor- 
 ners of pictures generally peddled about this 
 country, or talked of as belonging to 6 French 
 art,' or any other art. They are the names 
 of individuals, and as different from one 
 another as are Shakespeare, Goethe, Moliere, 
 and Browning; and, moreover, they are 
 names that would never have survived if 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 83 
 
 contemporaneous art criticism could have 
 killed them. 
 
 " The idea that fine art was ever confined 
 to a school, or a people, is too idiotic to speak 
 of. To accuse me of upholding such a sen- 
 timent is as silly in you as it would be for 
 me to publish that you believe that art crit- 
 icism can only be written with a quill of the 
 great bald-headed American eagle." 
 
 Since Mr. Hunt's death the same critic 
 again writes : " Mr. Hunt was essentially 
 the apostle of a school, and cried aloud in 
 the desert of our American art culture the 
 name of a master. He worshipped the name 
 of the late Thomas Couture, and he taught 
 hundreds of his countrymen to worship it." 
 It would be interesting to learn how this 
 writer obtained his singular knowledge of 
 Mr. Hunt's opinions and teachings. I never 
 heard Mr. Hunt mention the name of Cou- 
 ture but once, and on that occasion he hu- 
 morously alluded to the circumstance of 
 some young American artists being in Cou- 
 ture's studio, for the purpose of learning his 
 
84 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 method. " Having got the proper method," 
 said Mr. Hunt, "they can come right home 
 and go to painting." 
 
 As an example of Mr. Hunt's manner of 
 teaching by words, the following outlines of 
 a lecture are interesting. It is a very simple 
 lesson, but not too simple to be of interest. 
 
 " To make a copy of an object, and to imi- 
 tate, if you will, as closely as possible, is an 
 elementary process in learning to paint or 
 draw. Therefore, make the most earnest 
 endeavor, as you do when you first try to 
 copy the letters and words in learning to 
 write. But in order to say anything in art, 
 to express as well as may be the impression or 
 emotion which you have felt when you have 
 seen something that has impressed you, or 
 when your imagination has made a combina- 
 tion, and you desire to express this picture 
 to another, — in order to do this, you will 
 find not only that it is not necessary to say 
 all that you can discover in the objects ne- 
 cessary to give the impression, but it will tax 
 your ingenuity and patience to the utmost 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 85 
 
 to keep the different objects needed to make 
 your statement or picture each in its relative 
 position to the other, and to the point you 
 desire to make in your argument or repre- 
 sentation. 
 
 "The manner of using all objects will 
 necessarily differ in every new subject or 
 statement ; and you will find that to paint a 
 plate, or a flower, or a drapery, is a very 
 easy matter in comparison with making these 
 objects sing the desired note in the harmony 
 of a composition. 
 
 " To have something worth saying is a 
 good deal; to be able to say it, is not given 
 to every one. To be eloquent is rare ; to 
 have the power to move and convince all 
 hearers requires something more than cour- 
 age, conviction, and independence. The 
 possibility of this power is inborn, and is 
 developed only through intense love, earnest- 
 ness, desire unlimited, and the sacrifice of 
 everything to one purpose. 
 
 " You cannot be too plain or too direct. 
 You must believe and you must affirm, and 
 
86 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 let your qualifications and your doubts fol- 
 low in the baggage train to look after the 
 wounded ; and when in your descriptions 
 you speak of a leaden sky or a golden river, 
 neither be surprised nor discouraged when 
 the scientific realist, the expert, or the critic 
 gravely informs you that even by the test of 
 specific gravity your statement can be proved 
 erroneous. Remember that weights and 
 measures are as much his business as per- 
 ception and feeling are yours. 
 
 " When a spectator, after looking at your 
 work, remarks that he never saw this or that 
 in nature, remember that this may be true ; 
 and, moreover, that if he had seen it, it 
 might have said nothing to him. Listen 
 rather to those who have expressed to you 
 clearly something wdiich they have seen, and 
 which enables you to see something which 
 you never before thought worth noticing. 
 You may be sure of getting more satisfaction 
 in showing what you have observed to a man 
 like Sir Isaac Newton, who saw the apple 
 fall, than you would from all the apple gath- 
 
Records of William M. Sunt. 87 
 
 erers from the time of Adam down to the 
 present. 
 
 "Why should we feel hurt by the com- 
 plaints or criticisms of those whose opinions 
 on art, were they for sale, Ave would not give 
 a cent for? On general rules, should not 
 their praise be discouraging? Let us sup- 
 pose, now, that we have become capable of 
 drawing and painting various familiar objects, 
 — of rendering the idea of space in the sky, 
 and the distance extending between objects as 
 they recede from one another ; that we have 
 learned to give the idea of substance and 
 weight to the objects which we have endeav- 
 ored to copy, — let us suppose that Ave have 
 arrived thus far, and can give the general 
 characteristic appearance of these forms and 
 distances. Now it remains to be seen hoAv 
 Ave are to use this poAver in the formation of 
 pictures, for it is, thus far, but the poAver of 
 Avriting and spelling and learning the defini- 
 tion of the Avords of a language, — a part, in 
 fact, of the grammar and the dictionary ; we 
 have still to say something which will inter- 
 
88 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 est mankind, and to do this we must dare to 
 leave the province of literal imitation to the 
 parrot and the monkey. We are now to ex- 
 press, with the little we have learned, the 
 ideas and emotions in which the mind and 
 perceptions and heart of the artist abound." 
 
 A young man learning to paint asked Mr. 
 Hunt if he did not think it time that he ex- 
 hibited something. " Oh, yes, yes," was the 
 reply, "it's quite time you began to exhibit 
 your pictures. You'll never think as much 
 of them as you do now." 
 
 Mr. Hunt himself was rarely very eager 
 to exhibit his own productions to the public. 
 I remember that, being urged to send pic- 
 tures to the Centennial Exhibition at Phila- 
 delphia, he said, I don't know why I should 
 . take the time and trouble to go about and 
 collect my pictures, and send them off at my 
 own risk. I have nothing in my studio that 
 I care to send. If those who own pictures 
 of mine would send them, I should not ob- 
 ject to it, but I don't care enough about the 
 matter to waste time over it." In answer to 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 89 
 
 a letter begging him to exhibit some of his 
 pictures on another occasion, in New York, 
 he wrote : 
 
 "My dear Me. : I have not any 
 
 picture at present which I care about send- 
 ing to the exhibition. Exhibitions are gen- 
 erally, I find, anything but encouraging to 
 production, and I believe the healthy habit 
 of production will, in the end, do more for a 
 man than all the praise or blame elicited 
 from the public or the press. 
 
 u I wouldn't paint a picture for an exhibi- 
 tion with any more freedom than I would 
 talk with any freedom in society or at a tea- 
 party. I don't feel inclined to hang myself 
 up, voluntarily, either as a lunatic or an 
 idiot ; one of which places being always 
 awarded to one who chooses to think or act 
 for himself. I have peculiar notions about 
 painting, and although I never succeed in 
 doing what I undertake, yet I go on, if I 
 don't exhibit. I always feel like answering 
 invitations to exhibit like invitations to 
 
90 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 parties, — that I regret that a previous en- 
 gagement will prevent, etc." 
 
 This little anecdote of an occurrence at one 
 of his last public exhibitions in his studio in 
 Park Square Mr. Hunt told one evening with 
 most hearty enjoyment. The exhibition was 
 a large one ; there were a good many oil- 
 paintings beside a great number of charcoals, 
 the latter reaching to the ceiling and cover- 
 ing one side of the great studio. A stranger 
 was observed to look the things over ear- 
 nestly, and finally to make a broad sweep of 
 the eye over the collection as a whole. Then 
 turning to his companion, he asked, " Is the 
 man that did all these pictures here ? " 
 
 " Yes," said his friend ; " that's the artist, 
 there," pointing to Mr. Hunt. 
 
 "What! you don't mean to say that old 
 feller in the corner, there, did all these pic- 
 tures?" 
 
 " Yes, that's the artist." 
 
 " Wal," said the stranger, giving Mr. Hunt 
 another good look, " he's had time enough to 
 do 'em in." 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 91 
 
 Mr. Hunt was at this time about fifty-four 
 years old, but looked nearly twenty years 
 older. This aged appearance was due chiefly 
 to his long gray beard, that made him re- 
 semble the portraits of Leonardo and Cellini 
 taken when they were quite old men. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was very amusing about his 
 growing old sight, for which he had permit- 
 ted me to prescribe proper eye-glasses, that 
 he bought at Thaxter's. One evening, pro- 
 posing to read us a letter that he had re- 
 ceived, he took from his pocket an unpleas- 
 antly common-looking pair of glasses, and, 
 anticipating my inquiry, said, " These eye- 
 glasses I bought in the street for twenty-five 
 cents. They seem to be about as good as 
 those you prescribed. The fact is those were 
 a little too good. I broke the spring, and 
 carried them to be mended. They were to 
 be done the next day, which was a week ago, 
 but I don't think I shall call for 'em. I 
 might break 'em if I had 'em, and Thaxter 
 will take good care of 'em." He then, as 
 usual for some weeks at this period, hung 
 
92 Records of William 31. Hunt. 
 
 the eye-glasses on the end of his prominent 
 nose, wrong side up, so that the spring lay 
 over his mustache, and gravely began to 
 read. 
 
 He carried at this time a cheap silver 
 watch. It was "hermetically sealed," as he 
 called it. You could, if you wished, put it 
 in a tub of water over night. There could 
 never be any necessity for opening it, as it 
 was wound and its hands set by the stem. It 
 made a noise in winding like a watchman's 
 rattle, and if the stem were turned the wrong 
 way it made just as much noise, and did the 
 machinery no harm. He was constantly 
 taking this remarkable watch out of his 
 pocket, swinging it around by its chain, and 
 winding it both ways as noisily as possible, 
 remarking that it was " the most amusing 
 watch he ever had ; very companionable, too ; 
 worth more than its cost as a toy to play 
 with." 
 
 Mr. Hunt was a most remarkable mimic. 
 He mimicked anybody and everybody includ- 
 ing even himself. On one occasion he showed 
 
Records of William 31. Hunt. 
 
 93 
 
 us how he mounted the platform to declaim 
 his piece when in college. Having made his 
 bow to the audience, he stood before it, dumb, 
 until finally requested to resume his seat by 
 the teacher. The fellows all thought it one 
 of his best jokes, got up for their amusement ; 
 but the truth was, he was so frightened that 
 he could not recall the first words of his 
 piece. 
 
 Mimicking the negro manner and speech 
 he said, " If er white man ever frow me out 
 er balloon agin, an' Ihen ketch Mm, I'll make 
 him prove it." 
 
 One of this race, formerly in his employ and 
 very cunning at begging, said, " Misser Hunt, 
 have you got another pair er shoes exactly 
 like them you got on ? 'cause if you have I'd 
 like to buy em." 
 
94 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 IV. 
 
 On Mr. Hunt's return from Mexico, in the 
 spring of 1875, we expected to see many 
 sketches and paintings as souvenirs of his 
 journey, but nothing of the kind was brought 
 home. In their stead we found his studio 
 resplendent with Mexican trappings, brica- 
 brac, shawls, yellow draperies, a large collec- 
 tion of Mexican opals, and a pair of leather 
 breeches. All these he showed and caressed 
 with childish delight. Mexico was one of 
 the most interesting countries in the world. 
 There was nothing like it ; he was going back 
 another year to make a long stay. Presently 
 he put on his leather breeches, and strode 
 about the studio for our amusement. 
 
 His bringing no paintings or sketches of 
 consequence home with him was due, proba- 
 bly, to the fact that the journey was made 
 for rest and recreation after a hard winter's 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 95 
 
 work at portrait painting. There were, to be 
 sure, at the late sale several charcoal sketches 
 purporting to be Mexican subjects, but it 
 is doubtful if they were correctly named. 
 The brown picture that has been already 
 mentioned as having been painted the next 
 day after the artist had seen a Jules Dupre 
 was catalogued at the sale as a view at West 
 Newbury. Years ago, when first exhibited, 
 Mr. Hunt had called it a view in Weston. 
 Artists record impressions, and the public 
 like to have them named. Sometimes such 
 impressions are more or less accurate tran- 
 scripts of scenes in nature from a chosen 
 point, but a landscape painting is often 
 merely the artist's impression of an effect, 
 and bears no resemblance in composition to 
 any one spot. 
 
 Mr. Hunt had a strong love for diamonds. 
 During the years that we knew him he always 
 wore a diamond ring on the little finger of 
 his left hand. The stone was one of extraor- 
 dinary brilliancy ; and he told us that when 
 he bought it, many years ago, in Paris, he 
 
96 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 could toss it into a collection of a hundred 
 fine diamonds, and readily pick it out again. 
 He had tried in vain to match it since. One 
 evening later he appeared with a second dia- 
 mond ring on the little finger of the other 
 hand. It was fine, but not so fine as the old 
 one. He had found it in a jeweller's shop, 
 and could not resist the desire to own it. 
 Since he had got possession of this, however, 
 he had seen one in New York that he be- 
 lieved might match his old one. He had dis- 
 covered it on a man's finger, and it was not 
 for sale, but he had a friend in New York 
 who was going to see if it could not be 
 bought for him. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was also, as I have remarked, an 
 excellent man of business. At the time of the 
 greatest depression in real estate, a house in 
 Park Square was offered for sale by auction. 
 Mr. Hunt talked over the purchase of this 
 house a great deal, and with his usual ear- 
 nestness. He was sure it would increase large- 
 ly in value ; it was an entirely safe investment. 
 He would like to occupy a part of it imme- 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 97 
 
 diately, himself. To our surprise, lie then 
 named the exact sum that he proposed to 
 give for it, adding that if it went above this 
 sum he should not buy. To our suggestion 
 that it would be a pity to lose it rather than 
 go a few hundred dollars higher, if necessa- 
 ry, he said, " I will not go one dollar higher. 
 A man must have a limit, and wherever you 
 put the limit there you must remain. You 
 might as well not have a limit if you are go- 
 ing higher. I consider it a good purchase at 
 my figures : it may be a good bargain at a 
 higher price. I don't know about that." 
 This astonishingly cool way of treating the 
 matter, in the face of his enthusiasm over 
 the location of the house, its desirability, and 
 the probable low price it would fetch, was a 
 revelation to us ; but we Avere not surprised 
 afterwards to learn that the house was sold 
 at a few hundred dollars above the sum Mr. 
 Hunt proposed to pay. He got some one to 
 look after his interest at the sale, lest he 
 might, under the impulse of the moment, go 
 beyond his limit. On the Millets which he 
 
98 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 sold, a few years since, his profits were, he 
 told ns, in the neighborhood of one hundred 
 dollars on every dollar invested. " And," he 
 remarked, "the Millets were sold below 
 rather than above their market value." He 
 once showed us an unusually fine specimen 
 of Diaz that he bought twenty years before 
 for two hundred francs. It would easily 
 bring fifty times that amount now. 
 
 "Whenever," said Mr. Hunt one day, "in 
 repainting a picture, there is a particular spot 
 that yon wish to save, paint it right out, or 
 you will sacrifice the rest of the picture to 
 it." 
 
 I have spoken of Mr. Hunt's having been 
 invited to lecture in the Sunday afternoon 
 course at Horticultural Hall, and his final 
 decision not to accept the honor. He had 
 already declined to deliver some lectures at 
 Yale College, and afterwards a like request 
 from Harvard College had not been complied 
 with. As to the latter, he said, one evening, 
 
 " Professor came round, at our club, and 
 
 sat down by me and began to make himself 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 99 
 
 agreeable. I didn't mean lie should get the 
 better of me in that respect, so I made my- 
 self agreeable, too, just as agreeable fis I 
 could, — and you know, when I try, I can 
 make myself pretty amusing; and I don't 
 think he got much the start of me in that 
 line. Well, presently, after we had both 
 been so agreeable that nothing further could 
 be expected in that way, he asked me to 
 deliver some lectures at Harvard College. 
 I didn't promise to do it, but I said I 
 would think the matter over, and let him 
 know. I have been thinking the matter over, 
 and have pretty much concluded to ask him 
 to permit such of the students as want in- 
 struction in art to come to me in my studio 
 on certain evenings, when I will talk to them. 
 I shall feel at home in my studio, and have 
 plenty of pictures and drawings about me 
 with which to illustrate my lectures. You 
 see, I have my doubts Whether they really 
 want to learn anything about art at the col- 
 lege. Perhaps they only want me to come 
 over there and lecture. If that's all they 
 
100 Records of William M. Hunt 
 
 want, I shaVt go. If they really want to 
 learn, — if anybody really wants to learn, — 
 I'm ready to teach. I like to teach. So I 
 think I will just invite the authorities to let 
 the students hear the lectures in my studio. 
 If they are in earnest, they will accept my 
 proposal ; but I don't expect it to be received 
 very cordially. It isn't what they want." 
 
 The letter below is a draught of one that 
 was sent in answer to the invitation from 
 Yale College. The matter that follows, it 
 was proposed, first, to embody also in the 
 letter, but this was not done. 
 
 Dear Sir, — In answer to your invitation 
 to lecture on art before the Yale School of 
 Fine Arts, I would say that my time is 
 already more than taken up in trying to 
 learn how to paint, and as I can get no 
 information from lectures I do not believe I 
 could give any. The world is full of people 
 who lecture on i art, and I will not interfere 
 with them. 
 
 Yours truly, W. M. Hunt. 
 
Records of William M. Hunt, 101 
 
 " Neither poets nor artists can be manu- 
 factured ; much as ever they can be supported 
 when they do exist. 
 
 " No man can teach me to produce good 
 work in art except a producer of good work, 
 and he brings his work with him as a thinker 
 brings brains and a fighter brings fists. 
 
 "A talker may persuade himself that he 
 knows everything. A doer persuades the 
 world he knows something. 
 
 " When the world wants wealth and works, 
 it will demand of the financier and the critic 
 some tangible proof of their wisdom ; but 
 paper and talk are easier handled, and will 
 suffice for to-day. 
 
 "It is well to listen to lectures to save 
 one's self the trouble of knowing anything, 
 but if one wants to know anything of art 
 he would better use his eyes ; for until some 
 of the talkers have produced paintings and 
 sculpture which will appeal to the ears, they 
 can teach very little through that medium. 
 I have known a deaf painter, but not a blind 
 one. 
 
102 Records of William M. Runt 
 
 " If I am entitled to an opinion, it is 
 through what I have done. 
 
 " Works, not words, can instruct. 
 
 " The only lessons that painters, or poets, 
 or architects, or sculptors, have ever taught, 
 or can ever teach, are in their works. 
 
 " When an artist leaves his work to amuse 
 people, he loses not only his time, but their 
 respect. 
 
 " The best thing about most lectures on 
 art is that their effect is not lasting. 
 
 " Lectures are like hash, — not very nour- 
 ishing, but will do when one is so young he 
 knows no better, or so old he has no teeth. 
 You can't expect a uniform." 
 
 The uniform refers to a story of Mr. Hunt's. 
 A man ordered some hash at a restaurant. 
 He presently found a soldier's button in it; 
 and on remonstrating with the waiter the 
 latter said, " What do you want ? You can't 
 expect a whole uniform in one plate of hash, 
 can you ? " 
 
 u The most interesting lecture I ever hap- 
 pened to hear was on language, when the 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 103 
 
 speaker dealt with the material he was de- 
 scribing. 
 
 " A man who wants to discover anything 
 would better stand by Christopher Columbus 
 on deck at night than listen to his lectures 
 on the discovery of a new world. 
 
 " How are we going to make painters by 
 lectures to men? We are going to make 
 questioners and doubters and talkers. By 
 painting and showing the painting of others 
 we are to make painters. By working frankly 
 from our convictions we are going to make 
 them work from their convictions. 
 
 " Most of us have been so taught to doubt 
 and question that we haven't time enough 
 left in our life to express an opinion of our 
 own. It is by having something to say, and 
 not trying to say it in words, that one learns 
 to paint. 
 
 " One capable artist, with his assistants 
 employed as formerly, would produce more 
 good workers than all the schools in the 
 country, and With this difference : that works 
 would be produced instead of theories and 
 
104 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 advice and teachers. If good art is pro- 
 duced, take advantage of the fact, instead 
 of inveigling hundreds into an occupation 
 where not one in a thousand can make a liv- 
 ing, unless he resort to talking, toadying, or 
 speculation, all of which an artist can famil- 
 iarize himself with when it becomes neces- 
 sary, but which he is naturally averse to. If 
 people are to be instructed or assisted by 
 artists, artists must be employed in their 
 legitimate occupation ; an artist cannot live 
 on compliments and conversation. 
 
 " If you want artists, respect art. If you 
 want art, respect artists. 
 
 " It seems to me high time that something 
 should be done to encourage producers. The 
 country is being overrun with art teachers 
 and lecturers, because we don't want doers, 
 but talkers. When we really want art 
 there will be a call for artists to paint, and 
 producers will be respected, employed, and 
 encouraged. The world seems to want ma- 
 chines to manufacture artists, poets, states- 
 men, and philosophers ; but when these exist, 
 
Records of William, M. Hunt. 105 
 
 neither their work nor their opinion is wanted. 
 One is invited cordially to join the gang and 
 produce what he is not to produce, — works. 
 If he is a musician, he is invited to play for 
 the world to march in to supper. 
 
 " If Michael Angelo and Titian were liv- 
 ing to-day, they would not be called upon to 
 paint. They would be lectured to by the 
 wise, and told that the Greek only could pro- 
 duce art. Were they even to lecture from 
 Maine to Georgia, artists would not neces- 
 sarily rise up in their wake. We don't want 
 our hens to lay ; if they do, we throw away 
 their eggs, and bring all the hens in the coun- 
 try to sit on gravel stones, hoping to hatch 
 out wonders. We are all taught to criticise 
 and find fault with things instead of being 
 made to comprehend and appreciate them. 
 This also comes from talking instead of do- 
 ing. It is only one who has done something 
 who can see in an embryo the possibility of 
 what it may grow to. Those who are taught 
 from the past see only the past. They ig- 
 nore the existence of the present." 
 
106 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 Of modern painters, Mr. Hunt was fond- 
 est of Millet; next to him he mentioned 
 oftenest, I think, Eugene Delacroix; then 
 Corot. He never quoted Couture. He liked 
 Turner and Reynolds. Of the picture called 
 the Slave Ship, he said, " I like it ; it has 
 breadth. A small man couldn't have painted 
 it." Speaking of the Rimmer statue of Ham- 
 ilton, one evening, he said, " People laugh at 
 it a good deal ; but it's not to be laughed at ; 
 there is noble feeling in it. No doubt it has 
 faults enough; but you just go down and 
 stand near it, directly in front, so that you 
 can look up to it, and you'll find it impres- 
 sive." 
 
 Once, in talking over the work of some of 
 his lady students, I remarked that a certain 
 painting by one of them I thought very cred- 
 itable, on the whole, but that it lacked, in 
 comparison with his work, just a certain 
 qualhVy that one might well suppose it would 
 have. One could not expect great excellence 
 in flesh tint, in color, and in composition, but 
 the artist being a woman, and dressing well 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 107 
 
 herself, ought, one might fancy, to excel in 
 graceful and stylish arrangement of the 
 dresses of her figures, and paint drapery 
 fairly well. " Yes," said Mr. Hunt, " one 
 might think so ; but the trouble is, she 
 doesn't know what is under the dress that 
 she paints. She didn't begin drawing from 
 the nude figure, and doesn't know the 'anat- 
 omy of the human form well enough. With- 
 out this knowledge it is impossible to do 
 draperies well and to give what you call 
 style. Just hold up your arm a minute." I 
 held up my arm bent at a right angle, as for 
 a tailor to measure for the length of a coat 
 sleeve. "Now," continued Mr. Hunt, "I 
 will tell you every time before I touch your 
 arm with my finger whether it is the flesh or 
 the cloth of your coat that I shall touch. I 
 know exactly where the arm itself is, not- 
 withstanding the large folds in the sleeve." 
 He then went on touching the arm, saying 
 every time before the touch, "coat," "arm," 
 " arm," " coat," correctly. " Well, then," I 
 said, " there is no really fine drapery painted 
 
108 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 in this country. I should think you would 
 never see any that would entirely satisfy 
 you." " That's true," he replied ; it's very 
 rare to find drapery satisfactorily painted un- 
 til you get back to the old masters. They 
 know how to do it." 
 
 Of the old painters he quoted most fre- 
 quently, perhaps, Veronese; then Michael 
 Angelo, Titian, and Velasquez. 
 
 Mr. Hunt felt that he was very strong in 
 the artistic anatomy of the human figure. 
 In early life he had been a hard student In 
 Germany, and was a very correct and pains- 
 taking draughtsman. When at school in 
 Diisseldorf he was noted for this special 
 talent. Powell, the painter of the great pic- 
 ture at Washington illustrating the discovery 
 of the source of the Mississippi, who visited 
 Diisseldorf while Mr. Hunt was a student 
 there, says that he displayed remarkable 
 talent as a draughtsman. His studies from 
 the nude and the antique were so perfect in 
 drawing, and so impressed his teachers, that 
 he was declared to be qualified to paint long 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 109 
 
 before he had been at the academy his full 
 three years. Nothing of their kind, so far as 
 fine drawing is concerned, with the possible 
 exception of a work or two of Page, has ever 
 been done in this country comparable with 
 the Wardner portrait, the figure of the 
 painter's mother, or the portrait of Mrs. 
 Adams. Other things of the artist's are 
 finer in color; but Mr. Hunt's greatest 
 achievements lay not so notably in the direc- 
 tion of color as in his drawing, modelling, and 
 in his noble style. He was especially satisfied 
 with his ability to paint hands correctly and 
 elegantly when he chose. Being remon- 
 strated with, one evening, for exhibiting a 
 figure in which the hands were in a half-fin- 
 ished state, he retorted, " Well, the picture 
 belongs to me. I don't ask anybody to buy 
 it. It's my picture, and I suppose I can 
 exhibit it if I choose. You say the hand 
 looks erysipelatous. It does. It looks as 
 though it had a very bad ulcer on it ; but 
 nobody is obliged to look at it unless he 
 chooses. Most people know by this time 
 
110 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 whether I can paint a hand or not ; whoever 
 doubts it may look at my portraits and see." 
 
 I still maintained that, by virtue of his high 
 position in his profession, he should feel 
 bound to exhibit publicly nothing but his 
 best work ; that, like high officials, he should 
 move with circumspection before the people. 
 He rejoined pretty hotly that he thought it a 
 rather serious matter if he couldn't do as he 
 would with his own pictures. He got quite 
 excited over the discussion, but in a few 
 minutes it was over, and his next evening 
 with us followed sooner than usual, — a 
 compliment clearly intended to show us that 
 the little disagreement had left nothing un- 
 pleasant behind it. 
 
 His subordination of his skill in drawing, 
 for the purpose of giving prominence to some 
 other artistic quality in his work, at times 
 misled certain critics. Thus, of his smaller 
 picture called The Bathers, when he brought 
 us the photograph in the autumn of 1876, he 
 remarked, " I don't pretend that the anatomy 
 of this figure is precisely correct. In fact, I 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. Ill 
 
 know it is not. It's a little feminine ; but I 
 did it from memory, without a model, and 
 was chiefly occupied with the pose. I do 
 think the balancing idea is well expressed, 
 and it is the fear of disturbing that which 
 prevents my making any changes in the con- 
 tour of the figure. L know that I could 
 correct the anatomy, but if the pose were 
 once lost I might never be able to get it 
 again." 
 
 While impatient of what he called incom- 
 petent criticism, like most artists, he courted 
 the sincere criticisms of friends. However 
 adverse, such criticism rarely annoyed him. 
 I remember a conversation like this over a 
 small gray landscape : — 
 
 "You made pretty free with your ivory 
 black in this picture, didn't you?" 
 
 " Yes, I did use ivory black pretty freely." 
 
 "It seems to me that the sky is a little 
 noisy too : so much motion there would be 
 likely to ruffle the surface of the water 
 more." 
 
 " Yes, that's true ! I could fix that all 
 
112 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 right in a few minutes; but it's something 
 like what I saw, and perhaps somebody may 
 like it well enough to buy it as it is." 
 
 On one occasion he had invited us to his 
 studio to see a full-length figure on which he 
 was working. It was stylish, fine in color, 
 and lifelike, but, at the first glance from the 
 studio door, there appeared to be something 
 amiss in the drawing of the back part of the 
 head. Expressing his desire to know of any- 
 thing that struck us unfavorably, he was told 
 of the apparent defect, and said at once that 
 it must be remedied. He then asked us to 
 go again to the entrance of the studio, and, 
 covering a portion of the head of the figure 
 with his hand, showed us how the fault could 
 be remedied ; and the drawing was afterwards 
 changed according to this indication. 
 
 I once said to Mr. Hunt, " I've discovered 
 the secret of the great fascination in paint- 
 ing. Perhaps you'd like to be told what it 
 is?" 
 
 " Well, yes," said Mr. Hunt, " If you've 
 got the secret you may as well tell it to me." 
 
liecords of William 31. Hunt. 113 
 
 " Then I'll tell you. Painting is an attrac- 
 tive and very respectable form of gambling. 
 Everybody likes to gamble. When you put 
 your brush to canvas you can never foretell 
 the result. The effect may be much better 
 than you expect; oftener it will be much 
 worse, and never will be exactly what you 
 anticipate. There is no certainty about it. 
 What do you think of my discovery ? " 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Hunt, after a moment's 
 seriousness, "I used to think that the old 
 fellows knew exactly the effects they were 
 going to produce, but I'm not at all sure that 
 they did. You may be right." 
 
 It is not known for what particular occa- 
 sion the following memoranda were made : — 
 
 " A good deal of our so-called cultivation 
 is like sand-papering the surface of the eye." 
 
 u The only real cultivation is that where 
 the instinct is preserved in all its clearness, 
 notwithstanding all that is added to it." 
 
 " The great secret is to add, arjd not to 
 swap." 
 
 " The false tooth, the glass eye, are types 
 
114 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 of the highest civilization and cultivation. 
 Pedantry fills a tooth ; affectation and a glass 
 eye are things known only in modern civiliza- 
 tion, — in states of modern culture." 
 
 " Intelligence is water-power ; wit is steam. 
 Expand a drop of intelligence by the fire of 
 enthusiasm and fervor of desire, and it multi- 
 plies its force by thousands." 
 
 "There is more force in speed than in 
 weight." 
 
 While Mr, Hunt's sensitive organization 
 gave him a capacity for enjoyment unknown 
 to differently constituted people, it gave him 
 also, naturally, what might be termed an ab- 
 normal susceptibility for suffering from a 
 class of slight or temporary annoyances, that, 
 with most people, pass unnoticed. 
 
 His spacious studios never pleased him 
 long, and he was disposed to find fault with 
 them a great deal, in a humorous way. Once 
 the noise of rats so disturbed him that he 
 felt forced to seek new quarters. Then his 
 numerous stoves gave him such trouble that 
 he could not work. A slight leak in the 
 
• Records of William M. Hunt. 115 
 
 roof, on another occasion, had a similiar 
 effect. Finally he built the large studio in 
 Park Square, and, having moved into it, we 
 heard no more of these troubles. 
 
 Doubtless, a great part of this sensitiveness 
 was due to ill health. He rarely complained 
 of feeling unwell, and spoke of his health 
 with reluctance. Appearing tired, one even- 
 ing, when we noticed it and asked him how 
 he was, he said, " Oh, I don't know; if I 
 should begin with my bad feelings, I should 
 keep it up all the evening. What is it that 
 Emerson says, — Beware how you unmuzzle 
 the valetudinarian ? ". 
 
 One evening he said, " After all, I don't 
 know but the barbarous tribes that kill off 
 their old men are pretty wise. You know 
 they put an old man in a tree, and then shake 
 it. If he's strong enough to hold his place 
 in the tree, they allow him to live another 
 yeat ; but if he falls to the ground, they kill 
 him with clubs." 
 
 Probably his tenderness towards those who 
 were ill, or not strong, and his sympathy for 
 them, were quickened by his own sufferings. 
 
116 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 One of our household had sent him some 
 home-made chocolate drops, upon the receipt 
 of which he forwarded them, with the fol- 
 lowing letter, to a friend and pupil who was 
 ill: — 
 
 My dear Miss : I bring you some of 
 
 Millet's drawings, by way of making you 
 patient to stay indoors this blustering weath- 
 er. I also add a little box which I found on 
 my return to the studio. 
 
 The note is so pretty that I send it too, 
 
 for I feel that had Mrs. known you were 
 
 ill she would have sent you the sugar-plums 
 and the note. At any rate, to have received 
 them is so grateful that I pass them along, 
 as in the game of button, button. 
 
 Yours truly, W. M. Hunt. 
 
 In a letter from Weathersfield, Vermont, 
 postmarked June 30, 1879, to his assistant, 
 Mr. Carter, who had just left him, at the time 
 when Mr. Hunt was supposed to be slowly 
 regaining his health and strength, he says, — 
 
Records of William 31. Hunt. 117 
 
 " I imagined you arriving in Boston a lit- 
 tle while after our tea, and yesterday at 
 about the same hour safely at home in West- 
 boro'. What a relief it must have been to 
 you, and what a reward for your unbound- 
 ed patience, and what a let up ! Well, I 
 mustn't be sentimental, but I will express 
 my gratitude. Since you left I have endeav- 
 ored to take your place in taking care of 
 me. ... I really do not want you to hurry 
 back on my account. Do try to have a good 
 time, so you may not lose your faith in the 
 whole human race." 
 
 A few clays earlier he had written to Mrs. 
 Carter : " It must be dreadfully aggravating 
 for you to have your husband penned up 
 here so long ; but I can tell you one thing : 
 when he does get back (if that ever hap- 
 pens), what there is left of him will have 
 gone through a fiery . furnace of patierice, 
 and I will guarantee that the temper of the 
 old Damascus blades was nothing in com- 
 parison. 
 
 " I really pity him and you too, but I am 
 
118 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 so selfish that I pity myself the most ; and 
 though I would like to be generous and give 
 him up a little, I find myself selfishly cling- 
 ing to him." 
 
 On the outside of an envelope he wrote, 
 in addition to the superscription, " Be care- 
 ful of this : beyond value." Within was the 
 following note : — 
 
 My dear Mrs. I received this 
 
 morning, through the hands of our mutual 
 John, a beautiful velvet wig. It fits per- 
 fectly, and sticks closer to my head than my 
 hair has. 
 
 The following lines, written from the Isles 
 of- Shoals on August 23d, only about two 
 weeks before his death, is one of the very 
 instances when he alludes to his health : — 
 
 Saturday, p. m. 
 
 My dear Boy, — I feel a little better ; if 
 I can only get some more sleep I shall do 
 well. Yours, W. M. Hunt. 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 119 
 
 Notwithstanding his weakness and lack of 
 sleep, his generous impulse towards a broth- 
 er artist led him to write as follows on Aug- 
 ust 16th : — 
 
 My deak : I should like to be in 
 
 Boston and look over Tom Robinson's pic- 
 tures with you, and enjoy the satisfaction of 
 seeing something fine. I am sure Tom de- 
 serves the greatest credit for his pluck, perse- 
 verance, and capacity, and I am heartily 
 grateful that he has been so successful. 
 
 He is a real man, and it does not surprise 
 me to know that he has painted his real self. 
 I am glad you wrote me about his pictures, 
 as I was desirous to know about them. . , . 
 When you see him just shake him by the 
 hand for me. 
 
 The above was an unusually long letter 
 for him at this time. Generally his letters 
 were very short, but full of characteristic 
 humor, with never a hint at illness or de- 
 spondency. 
 
120 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 "Shoals." 
 
 Dear C : Weight yesterday afternoon, 
 
 east wind, cool, thick woollen clothes and 
 coat, and thick boots, after tea, . . 145 
 
 This morning, rather warm and some 
 changes of clothing, .... 141 
 
 Three days ago, thin suit and warm 
 wefither, 137 
 
 Weather and weight variable. If it 
 grows as hot here as in Danielsonville 
 
 I should weigh, 000 
 
 Yours truly, W. M. Hunt. 
 
 The great achievement of Mr. Hunt at 
 Albany involved more labor than is gen- 
 erally supposed. There had been, during 
 the summer preceding, a preparatory work 
 in the studio at Boston of nearly five 
 months. Mr. Hunt had returned from Ni- 
 agara about the first of July, after accepting 
 the commission for these paintings, and had 
 set about the task at once. It was necessary 
 that the separate figures and parts of figures 
 should be studied, drawn, painted, and com- 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 121 
 
 bined to fit the great arched spaces where 
 they were to go. 
 
 For The Flight of Night the heads of 
 the horses, their legs and feet, were all 
 freshly painted from life, although years 
 before he had carefully modelled the horses 
 in clay. Anahita,. the Goddess, was again 
 painted from life. Sleep and the Child, and 
 the Dusky Guide, were also painted from 
 life. For the other picture, the Discoverer, 
 Science, Hope, and Fortune, were painted 
 from life models. Parts of these figures 
 were also drawn and colored as separate 
 studies ; as, for instance, the heads, hands, 
 and arms. 
 
 Of the two compositions entire and of 
 their separate parts, there were made at 
 this time upwards of thirty careful charcoal 
 drawings, and in pastel more than twelve. 
 Seventeen oil-paintings, twelve inches by 
 thirty, of the compositions complete, were 
 also done. These were made chiefly to test 
 the effects of proposed combinations or con- 
 trasts of color. In addition, there were two 
 
122 Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 large paintings, one of each subject, about 
 six by eight feet, and two large pictures in 
 oil, of Fortune, of about the same size. 
 
 Blocks of stone like that in the walls of 
 the Assembly Chamber at Albany were sent 
 him, that the effect of pigment upon them 
 might be tested. 
 
 Meantime, in a room under the studio, 
 paints were being ground and tints mixed 
 and hermetically sealed in five-pint tin cans, 
 to be in readiness for transportation to the 
 scene of his great work. Why all this grind- 
 ing and mixings was done in secret no one 
 knows; but Mr. Hunt never made his ap- 
 pearance in this room until the grinder, who 
 knew nothing of the destination of his prod- 
 ucts, had gone home for the day; then he 
 went down and inspected the results with 
 the greatest interest. 
 
 After all this painstaking preparation, it 
 was found, on arriving before the great walls 
 at Albany, that the space within the arch 
 upon which the Flight of Night was to be 
 put was not sufficiently high for the compo- 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 123 
 
 sition as it had been proportioned. It was 
 necessary to lower the figure of the goddess, 
 and to change the relative positions of the 
 horses, so that they should be brought more 
 together towards the centre of the panel. 
 Some important changes were also made in 
 the grouping of the figures in the Discover- 
 er. The composition of this picture appears 
 always to have been more tractable than 
 that of the Flight of Night. There had 
 been fewer and less radical changes made 
 in it since it was first drawn. It has been 
 generally supposed that this composition was 
 purposely designed for the arch it now occu- 
 pies ; but this is not the case. There is still 
 extant a charcoal of it drawn in the year 
 1857. 
 
 The Flight of Night had been first put on 
 paper in 1847, ten years earlier. It had 
 undergone many changes before these last at 
 Albany, and long before it was ever supposed 
 it would be anything more than an easel 
 picture. The goddess was first drawn shield- 
 ing her eyes from the coming light with 
 
124 
 
 Records of Wiltiam M. Hunt. 
 
 her raised arm. She was looking forward, 
 was differently seated, and her chariot was 
 winged. 
 
 The work at Albany being necessarily hur- 
 ried was especially anxious and exhausting. 
 The legislature was to meet at an appointed 
 time, and the staging must come down on a 
 certain day, whether the paintings were fin- 
 ished or not. It could not be known before- 
 hand that just fifty-five days' labor would end 
 the task. But it was known that the final 
 and telling touches must be made by Christ- 
 mas, and rectified, if necessary, on that day ; 
 after this, no additions or subtractions were 
 possible. Whether the two large composi- 
 tions could be satisfactorily put upon the 
 walls within the prescribed time seemed a 
 question ; and it became still more a ques- 
 tion when, after painting the first day, they 
 found, on climbing up to their places the 
 next morning, that their day's work had 
 pretty nearly vanished into the texture of 
 the stone. The faith and courage of Mr. 
 Hunt's accomplished assistant were now in- 
 
Records of William M. Hunt. 125 
 
 valuable ; and later, during the progress of 
 the work, his solemn promise that, if their 
 effort proved a failure, he would himself 
 paint out both pictures in a single night was 
 greatly comforting to Mr. Hunt. 
 
 During these fifty-five fatiguing days the 
 artist and his assistant were always up in 
 the morning to catch the rising sun, so as to 
 carry a fresh impression to the work upon 
 the Flight of Night. Every evening they 
 watched the waning daylight, and noted the 
 effects of figures and objects against the set- 
 ting sun as a study for the Discoverer. 
 
 Thus the fifty-five busy days passed rap- 
 idly by, and came to an end. The great 
 work was accomplished. But, apart from 
 the anxiety inseparable from an experiment 
 of such magnitude, the physical strain of 
 working on such spaces upon step-ladder 
 and scaffolding told fearfully upon the 
 artist. 
 
 During the intense excitement of the 
 work, as it progressed, he was, indeed, 
 unusually strong and buoyant in spirits ; 
 
12G Records of William M. Hunt. 
 
 and even after the return to Boston, for two 
 or three weeks, under the lasting stimulus 
 which his happily-finished task had given 
 him, he was still light-hearted and cheerful; 
 but the inevitable re-action came at last, and 
 the nervous exhaustion had been so severe 
 and prolonged that no recovery from it was 
 possible. 
 
\ 
 
I 
 
GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE