“Kipling says that, ‘a single man in a barrack is not a plaster saint,’
and that is about it. That cavalryman posed for me on his horse. But
not all of my work is from life. I go west for three months every
year, and gather a lot of sketches and then work them up. Those color
sketches there,—a chief and his daughter,—are from life. You see I was
able to get all the color. Yet I like to depict white men best; they
are more interesting.”
My eyes rested on an unfinished picture, toward which, every now and
then, Mr. Remington turned a thoughtful gaze as if trying to think of
something. It was a birch-bark canoe, with a figure at either end;
the water was smooth, and the shore was wooded. One person in the
motionless canoe was fishing.
“Is that from memory?” I asked of the artist.
“Partly,” he said, with a smile. “I used to see a good many photographs
of trout fishing in the Adirondacks; lines taut, and then hurling a
trout through the air, to land it in the canoe. So once I thought
I would try it myself. I went up there and fished for two weeks
in the rain. I am trying to think how to make the rain appear to
strike and bounce from the water. You know how water looks when it is
raining,”—and there came into his face a thoughtful and studious look,
showing how carefully he weighed every detail of his work.
Mr. Remington rises early, has breakfast at seven, and works until
three, when he takes his customary horseback ride across the country.
“Do you work from inspiration?” I asked.
“I do not know what you mean, exactly. I must have a study in my
mind, and then I work it out. Some mornings I can do but little; but
I am kept exceedingly busy with constant orders to fill, besides
illustrating my own articles.”