“A Square Man in a Round Hole” Rejects $5,000 a Year and Becomes a
Sculptor.
“MY LIFE?” repeated F. Wellington Ruckstuhl, one of the foremost
sculptors of America, as we sat in his studio looking up at his
huge figure of “Force.” “When did I begin to sculpture? As a child
I was forever whittling, but I did not have dreams then of becoming
a sculptor. It was not till I was thirty-two years of age. And
love,—disappointment in my first love played a prominent part.”
“But as a boy, Mr. Ruckstuhl?”
“I was a poet. Every sculptor or artist is necessarily a poet. I was
always reaching out and seeking the beautiful. My father was a foreman
in a St. Louis machine shop. He came to this country in a sailing ship
from Alsace, by way of the Gulf, to St. Louis, when I was but six years
old. He was a very pious man and a deacon in a church. One time, Moody
and Sankey came to town, and my father made me attend the meetings. I
think he hoped that I would become a minister. But I decided that ‘many
are called, but few are chosen.’ Between the ages of fourteen and
nineteen, I worked in a photographic supply store; wrote one hundred
poems, and read incessantly. I enlarged a view of the statue of Nelson
in Trafalgar Square, London, into a ‘plaster sketch,’ ten times as
large as the picture, but still I did not know my path. I began the
study of philosophy, and kept up my reading for ten years. My friends
thought I would become a literary man. I wrote for the papers, and
belonged to a prominent literary club. I tried to analyze myself. ‘I
am a man,’ I said, ‘but what am I good for? What am I to make of this
life?’ I drifted from one position to another. Every one was sorry to
part with my services, for I always did my duties as well as they can
be done. When I was twenty-five years of age, the girl to whom I was
attached was forced by her mother to marry a wealthy man. She died a
year afterward, and I ‘pulled up stakes,’ and started on a haphazard,
reckless career. I went to Colorado, drifted into Arizona, prospected,
mined and worked on a ranch. I went to California, and at one time
thought of shipping for China. My experiences would fill a book. Again
I reached St. Louis. For a year I could not find a thing to do, and
became desperate.”