An old college friend of mine once wrote to me and asked what he should
do about his son, who was in Harvard, but wished to give up college and
become a painter. I answered and said: “Discourage him; discourage him
to the point of starvation, for if he be sincere in his love of the fine
arts, he will pay no attention to you. No man is a real artist unless he
finds the impetus toward it so great that he sticks to it in spite of
every deprivation.” I do not know whether my friend took my advice or
not, but at any rate his son, Barry Faulkner, has become, with or
without discouragements, one of our foremost younger decorative
painters.
Emerson understood, perhaps better than anyone, as he tells us in his
TO AN ARTIST
Forget the hut and seek the palace,
Reck not what the people say,
For where’er the trees grow biggest
Huntsmen find the easiest Way.
George Lathrop told me that shortly after his marriage with one of the
daughters of Nathaniel Hawthorne he was very much surprised at receiving
a formal visit from Mr. Emerson one afternoon. The poet was old then and
was not in the habit of going about much, so the call portended
something of importance. After the usual conversation, Emerson said,
pointedly:
“Mr. Lathrop, I understand that you have chosen words as a means of
livelihood?”
“Yes, sir,” said Lathrop.
“And have married?” continued Emerson. “An added insanity?”
Poverty is one of the strongest enemies that the artist has to fight. We
should each one have a Mæcenas to keep us; I know of but one or two
cases in this country where men have succeeded in gaining membership in
the first rank in the opinion of other artists (for they are his peers
and deciding fact) without money behind them. They inherit it, they
marry it, or they are backed by some one so that they may have a
security of rental, food, and materials. There is not enough market for
the fine arts that a man may live by them alone.
After all, it is as it should be. We are a young nation, really in our
infancy, and babies do not need art until they have been fed and kept
warm. It takes many generations of growing wheat until the body is ready
for something finer. So far, the fine arts have been an indication of
the coming death of the country that produced them—like a bush or vine,
a nation flowers and then dies. Only the seeds grow, and those in
another place. If I were asked to give my opinion, I would vote against
forcing the people to accept the fine arts, as I would vote against
giving a baby tobacco or alcohol, which would most assuredly stop its
growth. (However, Emerson says, “America has a genius for making new
law,” and it may be that we can change this. I sincerely hope so.)
All this is hard for the artist whose only desire is to catch and keep
some of the beauty that he finds about him, and if he is forced to
depend upon the sale of these dreams to provide him with bread and
butter, he is quite liable to starvation or cynicism. The ordinary
person cannot possibly realize how close to the wind an idealist often
gets. To say that you are “broke” means nothing to the business man. I
once heard one of them tell a painter friend of mine that it was all
wrong for him to owe his washerwoman, that he should do, as all
practical folk did, go down and hypothecate a bond! It is unethical for
an artist (as it is for a professional man) to go into the courts or to
advertise. He must not ask for work or show that he is hard up in any
way, and, like the stage folk, he must hold his work at a high price.
The distance between the price of a work of art and the money one can
obtain for it is a long road, however. I was astonished to read in a
newspaper, not long ago, that a picture of mine, bought by a well-known
millionaire, was appraised, at his death, for exactly ten times the
amount I had received for it not more than ten years before.
If a man dies or goes crazy—so that the source of supply is definitely
cut off—his work immediately jumps in value. I often think of John
Twachtman, struggling along without any particular recognition, selling
his pictures for little or nothing, and almost bankrupt when he died.
His brother painters knew the value of his work and resolved to make the
public see it. The dealers fought shy of it, as he had not been a
popular seller when alive. Choosing the right week in February and the
proper gallery (the American Art Association) such men as Thomas Dewing
and Alden Weir, who commanded a position in the fine arts in this
country, were joined by one of the unusual people in America—a man with
a strange combination of business ability, overwhelmed by a love of
beauty—Thomas W. Clarke. Twachtman’s pictures, of which there were a
great many, were properly placed before the public, with the result that
his bills were paid and a substantial sum realized for his widow. A
number of his best canvases were reserved so that Mrs. Twachtman might
have them for a nest egg.
What a contrast while he was alive! One friend of his has in his
possession to-day many exquisite sketches which he purchased from time
to time for twenty-five dollars apiece. They are now worth thousands. I
remember walking wearily up and down Fifth Avenue all of one afternoon
with Twachtman, each of us with one of his unframed landscapes under his
arm, visiting dealer after dealer in a vain effort to sell one of them
for twenty-five dollars in order that he might obtain enough money to
remain a member of The Players. In one gallery we were offered fifteen
dollars. By that time we were quite tired, and I had to restrain John
from striking the man. In sadness we returned to the club and placing
the canvases in the cloak room, went downstairs to cheer ourselves with
a drink, where I (talking as usual) told our afternoon’s experience to a
limited number of friends. I had hardly finished when the clerk reached
out through the side window and handed John a receipted bill for his
dues. Stanford White had heard the story and paid them.
As a sequel to this tale: a year or two ago at a picture shop of the
second rate—the kind that is hung with framed canvases to the ceiling—I
saw in the window, in a gorgeous and very vulgar frame, one of those
pictures that we had carried unsuccessfully along the Avenue so long
ago. On a card in large letters was printed, “One of the greatest
landscapes of John Twachtman.” I went in and inquired the price. It was
thirty-five hundred dollars!
Twachtman painted such exquisite small things. It made no difference to
him—the size, shape, or texture of his material—he could always conjure
up an idea that fitted it perfectly. Whenever I was working at a large
decoration he would come up to my studio and carry away the triangular
pieces of canvas that inevitably come off a work of this kind. I suppose
the pictures he made on them have sold for more, since he died, than all
of my decorations put together.
He looked like a faun; one would expect, upon moving back his hair, to
find some furry ears. He had the nature of a faun. There was no place
for him in the nineteenth century; he would have been a normal creature
in the Golden Age. His simplicity of mind showed in his work. I have
stood before one of his landscapes and thought: “How _did_ you do it?
How _could_ you see the thing so simply?” My mind is always cluttered up
with details, but, for him, they just did not exist. I cannot imagine
John in an airplane; it would have been incongruous. His place was in
the fields, living on berries and herbs, refreshing himself at the
brooks and streams, as he went his merry way, here and there catching
and keeping for the world a fleeting glimpse of Nature as she showed her
secret self to him. John Twachtman is as good an example as I know, of
my own definition of an artist—”_one who shall show you the stars during
the daytime_.”
All the world is striving to manufacture what the people want, but an
artist is in an entirely different position. There is no value to a
picture at the pawnbroker’s. You can borrow practically nothing on a
Corot; you can get more on the frame than on the canvas.
One day when I was very hard up, a young architect from Paris who was
building the New Amsterdam Theater here telephoned me that Mr. Finn had
recommended me to do some work for him. It appears that he had made a
contract with a certain painter for a series of panels representing the
development of the North River. Although the contract had been running
two years and the theater was to open in two weeks, the painter had only
half finished the work. There was nothing to do, as the theater _must_
open, and Mr. Finn had told him I was the only man who could do them in
a hurry, but he would have to pay a stiff price. I asked him what I
thought was fair (I never know what my work is worth), and choosing the
subjects, running from Eric the Red to the last international yacht
race, I began.
I was living at that time in a studio which had formerly been a stable,
with a cement floor graded to the central hole, where there was an
outlet to the sewer. Just before this the sewer had become stopped up
and, as it had rained heavily, the water had gathered on the studio
floor. There was no time to fix it; I had only two weeks to do six
panels, each one more than five feet long, and could not have the
plumbers messing around. Of course, I had no money to hire another place
to work. I had a time! Every morning I raced to the Library to look up
the historical facts, and then came home to make my compositions. All
this while there were four inches of water on a level all over the
floor, a line of bricks to walk from my easel to my painting table, and
another line from the table back to where I could get a point of view of
my work. Of necessity, from the door to the bed was a third brick
pathway. Every now and then, in the excitement of creation, I would fall
off of my improvised bridges and drench my feet. But youth is lucky and
I escaped pneumonia—also I finished the panels in time.
At another time in my life, I found myself with a lot of pictures and no
money. There were four people depending upon me, no work, and nothing I
could realize upon. On awakening one morning I discovered that the
entire capital of the group was one nickel, which I found in a baby’s
bank. This had been robbed sundry times before, but the little coin had
somehow been missed. It was necessary to do something, and that
immediately. A friend who had dined with us the evening before upon a
stew made of thirty-five cents’ worth of beef neck and some potatoes had
suggested that a certain elderly banker, the silent partner of a
well-known financier, had just “turned down” a proposition made to him
for an overmantel decoration. The artist had asked too much and my
friend suggested that I go and make a bid.
The banker’s office was away downtown, and, arrayed in white shoes and
hat and my best white serge suit from London (it was one of the hottest
days of the year), I marched out with my nickel in my pocket. At that
time I was living up on Ninety-sixth Street, so I sauntered casually
over to the subway station, pushed the coin nonchalantly through the
grating of the ticket office. The man promptly shoved it back with the
curt remark, “No good.” I let it fall on the floor; it dropped with a
dull thud and I threw it angrily away, not thinking so much of my own
disappointment, but disgusted with the person who had been so cruel as
to cheat a baby by putting a lead nickel into its bank.
However, I still had a journey to make, and gazed about, looking for an
idea. My eye fell upon the shop of my barber where I was in the habit of
having my hair out. Going in, I asked him to lend me some change. My
clothes and my manner must have deceived him, for he pressed me to take
a dollar, although I asked only for a dime and said that I would not be
responsible for returning more. Armed with the ten cents, I was on my
way.
Mr. Lungren, for it was he, was in his office, received my proposal with
enthusiasm, and I got my order. He was just about to dismiss me
politely, when I said I must have one third cash on the spot. He asked
why, evidently thinking I did not trust him, but I replied with Bill
Nye’s well-known story of going into a shabby little restaurant,
ordering two boiled eggs, and receiving a check for one dollar. Upon a
demand for the reason for such an exorbitant charge, the proprietor
replies:
“Look around you. I need the money.”
Mr. Lungren laughed and started to make out a check, but I insisted upon
currency, saying that a check was only a promise to pay and no good to a
drowning man. Then I added, “I want it in small bills, please.” I got it
in twenties and tens.
On the way home, I stopped at every subway station, went up to the
surface, and bought a drink and broke one of the bills. By the time I
had traveled from Wall Street to Ninety-sixth Street my mind was in a
very mellow condition and my pockets bulging in every direction.
Marching into the house, I yelled for the startled members of my family
and, emptying my pockets, hurled the bills into the air so that they
flew into every part of the room. These high spots in a man’s life are
worth all the years of poverty and struggle.
In spite of the fact of the manner of my receiving the order, I think I
made a pretty good representation of “Hospitality” for Mr. Lungren.
During these periods of “hardupness” in my life, I was constantly having
the strangest things happen—things that almost made me believe in
miracles. I am often criticized for being too optimistic, but my
experience has made me so. Luck has always come to me out of the empty
air. The telephone, the mail, a chance meeting with a friend, any one of
a thousand occurrences may happen to change the tide of affairs at any
moment. Oftentimes, in Europe, would come a letter from mother, with a
wholly unexpected check. Mothers seem to have a seventh sense which
tells them when their children need help, and I always felt that there
was an especial bond of sympathy between my mother and myself. She
probably knew that I was rather an outcast and needed her more than the
others, and I am sure that I understood her better than anyone else. For
example, when I painted mother’s portrait, everyone criticized me
because I did not have her knitting. I never saw my mother knit; she did
not have time. Whenever she had a moment’s leisure to sit down, she had
some sewing in her hand, so I made her mending a stocking.
This was a time of portraits—I did President Hill of Harvard, Mr. Sayre
of Bethlehem, and many others—and small decorations, including several
overmantels and ceilings, but finally, out of the clear sky came along
one of the largest orders that I ever received—to help do the Capitol of
the state of Minnesota, at St. Paul.
It was rather a big idea for a state to decorate its building so
extensively, and Cass Gilbert, the architect, deserves a great deal of
credit for the venture. I was given four huge panels below the dome of
the rotunda. They were about twenty-eight feet long and thirteen in
height. Placed ninety feet from the ground, they looked like postage
stamps when finished. The two rooms where the Supreme Court and the
House of Representatives met were given to Blashfield and La Farge.
The subject chosen was the Settling of the West. The first panel
represents the Young Man Leaving Home; the second, the Cleaning Up of
the Land; the third, Breaking the Soil, which he does by lifting a great
stone out of a hole from which issues a young girl bearing maize; and
the last, the Young Man Is Crowned and sends the Four Winds to the Four
Quarters of the globe bearing the gifts of Minnesota. In every panel he
is accompanied by Hope and Minerva.
[Illustration:
“CLEANSING THE SOIL OF THE BAD ELEMENTS”
Panel by Edward Simmons, Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul
_Copyright by Edward Simmons; from a Copley Print, Curtis & Cameron,
Publishers, Boston_
]
There were several guides in the Capitol employed to show the visitors
around and explain the sights to them. I thought it would be splendid
for me to give them special instructions about my work, so that they
would not make the usual ludicrous mistakes. But guides seem to be a
different breed of animal chosen for the wide range of their
imaginations. I supposed everything was going all right, when one day a
particularly loquacious one came to me and showed me a miniature palette
in his buttonhole, telling me he was an artist himself and belonged to a
club of artists. He knew all about the ladies in my decoration—the one
veiled in chiffon (which I had made for Hope) he called Sin, entirely
neglecting the nude woman in the foreground (Sin) clinging to a grizzly
(Savagery). He had probably received his early education in and about a
Burlesque show.
It was in St. Paul that I saw the most wonderful collection of paintings
ever gathered together (as far as I know) by a private individual. Mr.
J. J. Hill had built a special room, especially lighted with everything
adequate to show them to the best advantage. And such pictures! He had
numbers of Corots—one of the nude Magdelen—Millet’s “Goose Girl,” and
beautiful Daubignys. One Corot (of Biblis) was stunning. I could have
lain on my back under the trees of the landscape and gone miles and
miles through the distances between the clouds.
There were capitals and capitols to decorate after St. Paul, but none of
them such a large order. In the Law Courts of Mercer, Pennsylvania, I
put figures representing the different characteristics of the law; at
Des Moines, Iowa, I was given a long and narrow half-moon panel,
twenty-five or thirty feet in length and only about five feet in width
at the center, and they _would_ have for a subject, the Presentation of
the Flag to the First Regiment that went to the Civil War. Of course, I
couldn’t get in a human figure and a flag in the proper way, so I made
an awkward girl holding it and letting it sag to the ground.
In the Capitol of Pierre, South Dakota, I painted a panel of the Lewis
and Clark expedition which camped at about this place. I made the river
and the bluffs, with a voyageur in a coonskin cap sitting on an
overturned canoe and bargaining with an Indian who is showing him a
buffalo pelt. An amusing incident, which my friends would say shows how
“Simmy always falls on his feet,” is the way I painted the Indian. The
librarian of the building was a great expert on Indian lore and had
ferreted out much obscure knowledge, much to the annoyance of some of
the painters, who were constantly having to change their figures to
agree with his statements. I made an Indian with two braids of hair, but
later added another, as he had his back turned and it suited my
composition. This librarian wrote me an enthusiastic letter saying that
he had supposed himself the only man in existence who knew that the
tribe of Sioux Indians that lived in South Dakota were the only ones who
wore their hair in three braids.
About this time (I was sixty years old) I thought it wise to stop and
take cognizance of myself. My work was too literal, too full of details,
and I wondered what the causes could be. First, there was my natural
timidity. As a boy, I was taught not to fight. Surrounded by women all
my childhood, with natural tendencies to stay in the house and read or
draw, the baby of the family and always ailing—all these circumstances
kept me away from a rough-and-tumble boy’s life. I can remember only one
real fight in my young days. It was when I was seven years old.
I had a little spotted overcoat which in the opinion of the authorities
had gotten too shabby. It must have been very old, for it was given to
the small son of our washerwoman, a boy about my age. In front of the
schoolhouse one day, we were coasting, when some one put a stick on the
coast. I hit it and was thrown off my sled. It happened again, and I
realized that it had been intentional. I lost my temper and threatened
all sorts of things happening to the boy who did it, and dared him to do
it again.
It happened again. I was furious and told the offending boy to step out.
Lo! my washerwoman’s son with my overcoat on! Of course, I was badly
pummeled, but I can remember the mystic feeling of striking my spotty
overcoat. Though I really was worsted in the battle, I bore but few
signs of it, and as he got a black eye, when asked who won I very meanly
pointed to the evidence and left the questioner to his own inference.
This quality of timidity has always been accompanied in my nature by a
great love of heroic deeds, and I find that it is so of many persons of
my type. My brother told me of meeting Charles Reade when he went to
England with the Harvard crew to row a match with Oxford. Mr. Reade
lived close by, on the Thames, and he dined and wined the boys. In
return they invited the author to go out in the launch to see them get
into their shell. This very tall man, whose stories redounded with feats
of bravery, walked down the fixed steps which led to the float, but when
he felt the raft moving under his feet, he drew back and would go no
further.
Reade was also overwhelmed by love of facts and could always produce the
proof of any statement he made. (I see a lot of myself in this.) The
great joke among the Harvard boys was when he declared, after a long
recital of something that he thought had occurred in America:
“I found the statement in one of the reputable journals of your
country”—and he produced the _Police Gazette_!
Other faults in my work were caused by my early New England environment
and education. To me, modern education is like a puddle in the road—very
broad, but only two inches deep—and one must remember that truth has
never been said to come from a puddle. In pictures, truth dwells in deep
places. There is a painting in France of “Truth Arising from a Well” and
the scandalized burghers fleeing in every direction. It isn’t considered
decent, even in New York, to listen to naked truth, hence the
crucifixion of all geniuses, from Christ to Whistler.
It is so strange to see mothers teaching their girls; for example, to
take care of babies by giving them dolls, but as to the method of
procuring these babies—no! My early ignorance had driven me in the
opposite direction later in life. In my desire to be truthful, I went
too far and filled my work with a mass of unimportant details.
The subject of education reminds me of an experience I once had with a
man of high authority, in the question of the teaching of youth. In
fact, he was the president of the board of education of the largest city
of the country. Also, he was in the “art” business—that is, he made what
were supposed to be the most artistic calendars and pictures used by
large firms for advertising purposes. During my hard-up days a friend of
mine suggested that I send him a canvas of a girl’s head that I had done
out of pure _chic_, thinking it was the style of thing he could use. I
have never been successful with illustration (it needs a special
talent), and I would have been surprised if he had accepted it, but I
was surely not prepared for this statement from a man occupying so
prominent a position in the educational world as he.
“Too much character in the face, Mr. Simmons, too much character. We
mustn’t have any at all.”
And this man’s productions go all over the United States, in many
obscure and out-of-the-way places. They are the only specimens (besides
those atrocities—the Sunday colored supplements) that the people have
upon which to form an artistic taste.
Then there is that tendency to “follow de crowd.” We all have it, and in
attempting to get away from it resort to the other extreme, resulting in
so-called Cubism and Futurism, etc. We are like the sheep I saw on
Scott’s ranch in California. Although for two generations the rail fence
leading from one field to another had not existed, these creatures still
skipped in the empty air, just as did their grandfathers long ago. We
are the same, else why do sculptors make statues in marble when there is
an abundance of wonderful jasper in this country? Tradition and the
Greeks say so. I have no quarrel with the man who goes to the other
extreme, provided he first learns what the world has found out, up to
his time, about his art, and then chooses to differ. He may possibly add
something. But if he insists upon being ignorant, it is like the
Sultan’s order to his general to burn the library at Alexandria. “If the
books agree with the Koran, they are needless; if they disagree, they
are wicked. Burn them.”
We speak of Realism and Idealism—it seems to me that we just go around
in circles and all such discussion is futile. First, we dig with our
noses, like the ground hog, producing Realism; then we gradually climb
up, going through all the stages of Idealism, Super-idealism,
Æstheticism, and Euphuism. Then bang! we drop back again to the ground
hog and dig for the truth.
Kenyon Cox gave us the best idea of this question that I know of. He
said (to paraphrase): “Every honest worker is striving to realize his
ideal. He maintains, if he succeeds, that he has produced Realism, but
it is not the way we outsiders see it. To us it is Idealism.”
Hawkins told me about following Corot in the fields when he was
painting. One day when the master had made a particularly beautiful
landscape, with cows browsing in the foreground, Hawkins objected to the
fact that Corot had painted in a pond when there was really none in
sight.
“My cows will be in my picture for a thousand years,” he answered, “and
I put in the pond to give them some water.”
In 1913, the order for the Panama Pacific International Exposition at
San Francisco came along, and in order to free my mind of old ties and
get a new point of view, I took a boat to the Barbadoes, before starting
my compositions.
If any man wishes to find a perfect figure with purely Greek movement,
let him go the Barbadoes. The black women walking past his window will
give him the sensation of Greek statues in motion. I was not long enough
there to see much of the islands, as recovered health and spirits and a
great new urge for work drove me home long before I had planned. On
going to the steamship office, I found that my return ticket could not
be used for more than two months, no berth being free until then, but I
resolved to go home, and when I make up my mind to a thing I generally
succeed.
A steamer came in three days, of course full, and I made a bet with a
friend that I could return by it. So, getting my duds together and
arranging with a boatman to do just as I told him, I set out for the
steamer in the harbor. I chose the hour when most of the officers would
be on shore, dining, sent the men up ahead of me with my baggage, to be
deposited in a corner of the deck, following it with my return ticket.
Then I hid behind a fresh-air funnel. When the ship was well away and
the pilot dropped, I emerged, sought the smoking-room and the steward.
“When does this room close?”
“At midnight.”
“Could you make me up a bed there?” tipping him.
“It’s against the rules, but I could.”
I then sought the purser. A big fight, but I won out, and all during one
of the pleasantest voyages I ever made I slept upon a mattress placed
upon four chairs in the smoking room.
It was the delight of my life to be able to carry out, in the San
Francisco work, an idea that I had been mulling over for years—namely,
that of doing a large panel with only three pots of color—red, yellow,
and blue—and three brushes. Somehow, I felt that this would simplify my
work, and I think I was right. The canvases, forty-six feet long, were
to be placed high in the open air, and needed a certain boldness of
treatment which I meant to acquire, so I made a flesh-color sky, white
drapery, pink roses, black hair, etc., all with three colors,
crisscross, using red, white, and blue stripes about as wide as my
finger, for the entire composition. I was in doubt as to whether I could
express form in this way, but found that I could, and there is not a
single outline in the two panels.
I was, as I have been in many other cases, forbidden to use the nude,
the idea being that the Westerners would not stand for it. As usual, I
paid no attention to the order and painted a nude female figure nine
feet tall, directly facing one, for the Fine Arts. No one seemed to
notice it, as I heard no objections raised. As Thomas Dewing says,
“Vulgarity is in every human being and will out. With some it shows in
their acts or talk, and with some in their work. It would seem wiser to
have it come out in some less permanent way than work.”
The two panels were painted in my studio with the help of my assistant,
Ira Remsen, and in 1914, before the fair opened, all of the artists
assembled in San Francisco to add the finishing touches and see their
work placed. It was my second visit to the Coast, and my earlier
memories of the good times, hospitality, and generosity were repeated.
Childe Hassam and Robert Reid were among those who helped beautify the
buildings, Hassam proving that he was a decorator as well as a picture
painter, and Reid making one of the hits of the fair by those fine
things in the Fine Arts Building which the city of San Francisco has
seen fit to preserve for all time.
Our membership in the Lambs’ Club gave us the privilege of enjoying the
Bohemian Club, with whom courtesies are exchanged, and in the summer we
made the trip to the Bohemian Grove to see the annual play produced.
Here in the Outdoor Theater, with the giant redwoods forming a
background, one gets a unique impression, if not purely artistic. The
proscenium is two hundred feet high and the stage too large for the
human animal, making an effect (as the play which I saw was based on
purely modern ideas, fit only for an intimate audience) rather
disappointing. Like everything else in California, however, it is
overwhelming.
Over in the Greek Theater in Berkeley, during this summer, it was my
good fortune to see Gilbert and Sullivan in the right setting for the
first time. The idea of “Trial by Jury” (with the inimitable DeWolf
Hopper), played in this theater which has been copied from one of
classic times, seemed rather incongruous. But to my surprise it was as
Greek as Aristophanes.
One is always having surprises out West. I saw one of the three or four
best decorations in America, painted by a Californian and totally
unknown. They say that a prophet is never respected in his own land, so,
instead of giving Charley Dickman, the artist, one of the important jobs
at the Exposition, the committee came east to New York and even went to
Europe for painters.
The decoration that I speak of is across the bay from San Francisco in
Oakland, in the office of a Borax company. Dickman has given a picture
of the desert, where the product is found, using that Corot gray of
Death Valley as a basic color harmony, making the figures and a horse,
all of the same tone, chime in with no discord. It shows an unusual ease
of treatment of a very difficult question. Again he has managed to turn
two corners (which is supposed to be against all laws of decoration) so
successfully that one is unaware of the fact. To me, it was a remarkable
work of art, but no one in town seemed to know about it.
I had hoped to stay in California; every one dreams of dying there, I
suppose, but I found it would be impossible to make a living. They will
not purchase anything that has not already been hallmarked by New York
or European approval. Then, too, the climate produces a strange effect
upon the Eastern temperament. I saw an apple tree with fruit larger and
different from any I had ever eaten. The farmer assured me, upon his
word of honor, that he had brought it from New England as a young tree
and that it had been a true Eastern russet.
[Illustration:
EDWARD SIMMONS
At the age of seventy
]
After my return to New York I carried out two ceilings for Mr.
Rockefeller, which were placed in the tea houses at the entrance to his
Tarrytown home; I made a decoration for a lumber man down in
Mississippi, and then came the War. I was too old to go; they even
refused me in the Camouflage section, although I insist I would have
been of use.
Although I was not allowed to take part in the War, my whole world
changed. The color of everything—we were enmeshed in khaki. To eyes
accustomed to riotous shades, this deadening of the whole tone of things
was tremendously depressing. And then the strides—machine guns, tanks,
bombs, poison gas, everything came tumbling and tossing, one over the
other, in a mad strife for something to end it all. But all the time
they were only getting farther involved. I wanted to keep step, and felt
as if I were marching, marching, marching—until I would suddenly become
conscious that I was only sitting still. I had never found the necessity
of realizing the meaning of the old saying, “He also serves ——.” For the
first time I was forced to acknowledge that it was the age of the young.
I saw a picture of myself as the perfect Uncle Sam, his long legs stiff,
his gray hair flying in the wind, his coat tails standing out farther
than they had ever done, struggling to keep his footing; while all about
him, over him, and under him were a mass of young men and boys in
uniforms of tan, bearing the modern equipment of war and heeding not at
all this old-fashioned figure who was gradually being left behind.