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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8073212 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #55498 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55498) diff --git a/old/55498-0.txt b/old/55498-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 92a35b5..0000000 --- a/old/55498-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1457 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Homer Martin, by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Homer Martin - A Reminiscence - -Author: Elizabeth Gilbert Martin - -Release Date: September 6, 2017 [EBook #55498] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMER MARTIN *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - -HOMER MARTIN - -A REMINISCENCE - -[Illustration: HOMER MARTIN - -From a photograph taken in England in 1892] - - - - - HOMER MARTIN - - A REMINISCENCE - - [Illustration] - - OCTOBER 28, 1836—FEBRUARY 12, 1897 - - NEW YORK - WILLIAM MACBETH - 1904 - - Copyright, 1904, by WILLIAM MACBETH - - [Illustration] - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - PORTRAIT OF HOMER MARTIN _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - NORMANDY TREES 6 - - THE DUNES 12 - - ON THE HUDSON 18 - - BLOSSOMING TREES 24 - - THE HAUNTED HOUSE 28 - - THE CRIQUEBŒUF CHURCH 32 - - GOLDEN SANDS 36 - - ON THE SEINE (“HARP OF THE WINDS”) 40 - - TREES NEAR VILLERVILLE 46 - - CAPE TRINITY 52 - - A NEWPORT LANDSCAPE 56 - -The publisher cordially thanks the friends who kindly lent the pictures -which have been reproduced to illustrate these pages. - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -During the last year I have more than once been told that an -authoritative biographical sketch of my husband ought to be written -and I have never felt inclined to dispute the statement as an abstract -proposition. But when it is followed by the direct question: “Who so -capable of writing it as you?” the names of one or two of his personal -friends inevitably present themselves as belonging to practised writers -and connoisseurs of art, who might, perhaps, need the aid of dates or -facts I could supply, but who, in more essential respects, would be -altogether better equipped for the task. Homer Martin was so intensely -masculine, so preëminently a man’s man, that he must necessarily have -escaped thorough comprehension by any woman. And this, I think, is the -chief reason why I have so long delayed, why I am even now inclined to -shirk altogether, the fulfilment of my reluctant promise to put on paper -some of my memories of the years we spent together. - -The question made me smile when it was propounded more than a year ago, -but since then it has often made me ponder. Doubtless no one else has had -so long and intimate an acquaintance with various phases of his character -and circumstances; doubtless, too, it was not merely as an artist that -he commanded attention and attracted life-long friends. Yet I suppose -it must be solely in this character that he appeals to the majority of -those who are now attaining to a tardy appreciation of his achievement -as a whole. It is not in my power to hasten that. When I first met him -my ignorance of art—at any rate on its pictorial side—was dense; and -if it has been somewhat mitigated since, that result is due solely to -him and largely to his own works. Is not this tantamount to expressing -my conviction that those who wish to increase their knowledge of Homer -Martin as an artist can do so much more satisfactorily by studying the -landscapes into which he has put as much of his best self as any man -could part with and live, than by reading anything I find it possible to -say about him? Aspects of external nature are inextricably blended in -these with the mind, moods, and personality of the painter. Years before -he had quite succeeded in mastering his material, I remember the late -John Richard Dennett saying of them: “Martin’s landscapes look as if no -one but God and himself had ever seen the places.” There is an austerity, -a remoteness, a certain savagery in even the sunniest and most peaceful -of them, which were also in him, and an instinctive perception of which -had made me say to him in the very earliest days of our acquaintance that -he reminded me of Ishmael. They formed, I think, the substratum of his -personality. Needless to add, for those who knew him even slightly, that -he had other phases. Though the human verb in him was one and singular, -its moods were many. - - ELIZABETH GILBERT MARTIN. - - - - -A REMINISCENCE - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -A REMINISCENCE - - -Homer Dodge Martin, fourth child and youngest son of Homer Martin and -Sarah Dodge, was born in Albany, N. Y., in a house on Park Street, -October 28, 1836. That was my own native city, but although we must -have lived for years in the same neighborhood, he was past twenty-two -and I in my twenty-first year when we first became acquainted. But for -the anti-slavery movement which split the Methodist body first into two -great sections and then into minor subdivisions, we might have met much -earlier, for, in our childhood, our parents had attended the same place -of worship. - -What I know, therefore, about his early years I learned chiefly from -his mother. He was not of a reminiscent habit as a rule, and his -recollections of childhood were not always pleasant. His father was -one of the most upright and altogether the mildest-tempered of all the -men that I have met. His mother was a woman of strong but uncultivated -mind, keen wit, incisive speech and arbitrary will, from whom her son -derived many of his own characteristics, including his innate bent toward -pictorial expression. In her that inclination never took any but the -crudest shape, but she had beyond all peradventure the instinct which -under more propitious circumstances would have displayed itself more -convincingly. Perhaps the very cramping of it in her was the cause of its -appearance at so preternaturally early an age in him. She more than once -told me that he began to draw as soon as he could hold a pencil, and that -from his twentieth month to provide him with one and a piece of blank -paper was the surest means of quieting his most turbulent outbreaks. -Years afterward, not long before our marriage, his first schoolmistress -sent me a spirited drawing of a horse which she said he had made for her -when not more than five years old. - -This drawing was produced in one of the Albany ward schools, and it -pretty accurately foreshadowed all that he was to accomplish in them -thereafter. I doubt if he ever took kindly to lessons obviously given. -Even in painting, his sole direct tuition was imparted by James Hart -and extended over two weeks only. What he needed, what suited him, he -then and always took in, so to say, through his pores, absorbing what -he required, leaving other things untouched, and wrestling unaided with -his personal problems. Greatly to his own after regret, his ordinary -schooling ended when he was thirteen. But at the time his aversion -to school-books and school routine dovetailed to a marvel with the -persuasion of his relatives that it was time for him to begin earning his -own livelihood. He once told me that his school-hours had been largely -spent in looking through the windows at the Greenbush hills on the other -side of the Hudson, and in longing for the time to come when he could go -over there in the horse-boat with paper and pencil to record a nearer -view. - -Nevertheless, it was only for school-books as such that he had an -intimate aversion. In other lines all was fish that came to his net. How -he obtained it I do not know, but a copy of Volney’s “Ruins” which he -read at this period colored his opinions in a way that he afterward found -reason to regret. But at the time it made him an irreverent, amused, and -precocious critic of the talk he heard at Conference-time, when itinerant -ministers thronged the family board. - -[Illustration: NORMANDY TREES - -Reproduced from the original painting in the Wilstach Collection, -Philadelphia] - -Poetry of certain kinds attracted him throughout his life, and verse that -greatly pleased him would stamp itself indelibly on his memory. Once in -a great while, almost to the last, I could persuade him to repeat to -me Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” with a lingering enunciation and a -melancholy charm of accent which a few of his most intimate friends may -likewise recall. I especially remember one night in Villerville, when -we were alone out-of-doors in the late moonlight, awaiting in vain the -advent of a nightingale said to have been heard in the neighborhood, that -he more than compensated me for its absence by reciting the whole of the -same poet’s lines to that “light-wingèd Dryad of the trees.” Reciting, -I say, but the word is ill chosen. It was rather a barely audible -yet perfectly distinct breathing out of the ineffable melancholy and -remoteness of those perfect lines. - -Homer was transferred to his father’s carpenter shop on leaving school; -but even that most patient of men came at last to the reluctant -conclusion that the long, slender fingers which could not refrain from -ornamenting smoothly planed boards with irrelevant trees and mountains -were of no use at all in handling saws and chisels. A shopkeeper with -whom he was next placed as clerk, much against the boy’s own will, -soon discharged him for incorrigible—perhaps premeditated—rudeness to -customers. One of these, who was a young cleric in the Episcopalian -Seminary in Ninth Avenue, New York City, when he told me the story, -described in words too graphic to quote, the manner in which, as a child, -he had once been driven out of the shop and all memory of what he was -sent for out of his mind, by the thunderous scowl and wrath-freighted -tone and terms in which Homer inquired what he wanted. - -He was next introduced into the architect’s office of a relative, whence -he was eliminated, partly because his cousin thought the inevitable -landscapes that decorated his plans totally superfluous, but also on -account of Homer’s congenital inability to see perpendicular lines -distinctly. I think I never saw him draw an upright of any sort without -first laying his paper or canvas on its side. When the Civil War broke -out, shortly before our marriage, and he presented himself for the draft, -it was this defect of vision which caused the examiners to reject him. - -Every attempt at harnessing him to a beaten track of obvious utility and -present productiveness having terminated disastrously, from the paternal -point of view, E. D. Palmer, the Albany sculptor, finally succeeded in -persuading the elder Homer Martin that his son’s talent and inclination -for art were too marked and exclusive to permit of his success in any -other pursuit. Thenceforward—he was perhaps sixteen—he was left free to -follow the bent of his genius. I do not know where he painted at first; -perhaps at home. Later on, he had a studio in the old Museum Building, -at the junction of State Street and Broadway. James Hart had previously -occupied it, and it was probably there that for a fortnight he acted as -Homer’s instructor. - -There were other painters in Albany at the time: William Hart, George -Boughton, Edward Gay, perhaps one or two others, with all of whom he was -intimate and whose studios he frequented. Boughton went abroad not long -after, and, when he was in France, once wrote to Launt Thompson in most -enthusiastic terms concerning the landscapes of Corot, whose great vogue -had hardly yet begun, but with whose work Boughton was at once enchanted. -And, in describing it, he remarked that “if Homer Martin had been his -pupil he could hardly paint more like him.” It was not until long years -after that Thompson had the grace to repeat the observation to Homer, and -when at last he did so, the only reply he got was: “Why did you not tell -me that years ago, when it would have been of some service to me?” For -Homer, too, was one of the Corot worshipers from the first. - -It was in the Museum studio that I first saw Homer Martin. It was not -until long afterward that I learned—and not from him—that having seen -me in the street, he deliberately sought acquaintance with my eldest -brother, like himself a lover of music and a frequenter of the local -Philharmonic Society. An invitation to visit the studio and bring his -sisters soon followed. To the end of his days, I suppose, Homer had -reticences of that sort with me. At the time I speak of he was already -locally known as a colorist of no mean capacity and a man of genius. I -had heard his name, but only in connection with that of a dear friend and -schoolmate of my own, a beautiful, golden-haired little creature, with -a voice as delightful as her person, whom he was said to be following -everywhere she went. They never met until after our marriage, which -preceded her own. - -I went one afternoon with my brother to see his pictures and his studio. -The latter struck me as the most untidy room I had ever entered. I -remember his rushing to throw things behind a large screen. I was not -used to paintings. Such as I had seen had seemed to me mere daubs to -which any good engraving would be altogether preferable. But on that -afternoon there was a large unfinished landscape on the easel, which -even to my unpractised eye conveyed the promise of beauty. It was a -commission, painted for a Mr. Thomas of Albany, if I do not mistake. -There were two great boulders lifting their heads out of a shallow -foreground brook, and one day, much later, when I was there, he painted -his own initials on one of them and mine on the other, but—as was always -his habit when he remembered to sign his pictures at all—in tints -differing so slightly from that of the surface on which he inscribed -them as to be scarcely distinguishable from it. - -[Illustration: THE DUNES - -Reproduced from the original water color in the collection of Mr. Wm. -Macbeth] - -We were married in my father’s house during the first year of the Civil -War, on the twenty-fifth of June, 1861, and went off the same day to -Twin Lakes, Connecticut. I still have the first sketch in oils which he -made out-of-doors that season: a barley-field, meadow land in the middle -distance, gray-green trees beyond. Two or three brown boulders, others -merely penciled in, lie on the left of the foreground. The delicate heads -of grain are swaying in a light breeze. Perhaps he did not do much in -the way of visible work that summer. At all events, I do not now recall -any. But in some subsequent winter he embodied his recollections of the -place and time in a delightful landscape. All his life long, I think, his -results were arrived at more by means of a slow, only half deliberate -absorption when out-of-doors than by a wilful effort to record them at -the time. Yet the one exception to that statement which I distinctly -recall is a very great one: the Westchester Hills, which is thought by -many to be his most perfect landscape. It was painted entirely _en plein -air_, and many a day I sat close by, reading aloud or knitting while it -was in progress. He never got so much as an offer for it, nor was it -until more than two years after his death that a purchaser was found -sufficiently venturesome to end a long hesitation by paying $1,000 to -obtain it. He was presently rewarded for his temerity, I am happy to -say, for when he put it up at auction a few months later, it brought him -$4,750. The second purchaser was still more fortunate, reselling it for -$5,300. - -Neither of us ever revisited Twin Lakes. Later in the season we went to -the farmhouse of Mr. Thaddeus Dewey, near Fort Ann, N. Y., where we -remained until late in the autumn. - - * * * * * - -My husband retained his Albany studio until the winter of 1862-63, when -he went to New York and for some months painted in the studio of Mr. -James Smillie. It could hardly have been earlier than the winter of -1864-65 that after many efforts he succeeded in finding an empty studio -in the Tenth Street Studio Building—a little, skylighted room on the -top corridor which he occupied continuously until he resigned it before -sailing for England the second time in the fall of 1881. His forty-fifth -birthday came while he was on shipboard. I followed him to London in the -succeeding June. - -His nearest neighbors in the Studio Building for many years were Sanford -R. Gifford, Richard Hubbard, C. C. Griswold, and J. G. Brown. Jervis -McEntee and his charming wife were on the corridor next below; so was -Julian Scott. Eastman Johnson and Launt Thompson were on the ground -floor. I think that John La Farge must have come a little later. At any -rate, I do not remember him before the winter of 1867-68. Failing, as -often happened, to find my husband in his own studio, I went one day to -that of Mr. La Farge on the same corridor in search of him. He was not -there either, but I still retain a very distinct recollection of Mr. La -Farge, face and characteristic attitude of doubtful welcome for intruders -quickly changing as he divined my identity, asked me to enter, and so -began a friendship still unbroken. Of course, Homer had talked a good -deal to me about him. Certain questions which had been pressing on my -mind with increasing persistence ever since my father’s death in 1866, -very speedily found expression in a sort of personal catechism concerning -his hereditary faith which he, perhaps, may likewise recall. - -We were fairly prosperous in those early years, or might have been if we -had been constituted differently. “There is much virtue in If.” Homer’s -landscapes were often commissioned, and seldom remained long on his -easel in any case after they were finished. But it was never possible -to count on any definite term as that of their probable completion. He -was a man of many moods, and that one of them in which he could paint -and be satisfied after a fashion with what he painted, was the most -irregular and uncertain of them all. He did not possess his genius but -was possessed by it. His fallow periods were many. When they passed away, -the first sign that seeds had begun to sprout again was often the entire -scraping out of a landscape that to others had seemed to need only the -final touches. I asked him once in later years, at a time when there was -every need for exertion were it possible, why he did not paint. It was in -1881. “I cannot paint,” said he. “I do not know where the impulse comes -from, nor why it stays away. All I know is that when it comes I can do -nothing else but paint; when it goes I can do nothing but dawdle.” That -was absolutely true. It was also very inconvenient. - -But in that earlier period with which I am still concerned, his pictures -for years brought him an income which averaged between two and three -thousand dollars, sometimes more than that. It was war-time and after. -Prices were high for everything. Money came at irregular intervals, often -so prolonged that, when it did come, it had to be chiefly employed in -the process he once described as “mopping up debts;” a kind of industry -to which he found me persistently addicted. Neither of us took as much -thought for the morrow as perhaps we might have done had not the morrows -themselves seemed so uncertain a quantity. Life used to present itself -to me at that time as a narrow path leading between precipices, across -turbulent brooks, over stones that were slippery as well as sharp, and -whose end was nowhere in sight. In fact, it never did become visible -until, turning at some unexpected angle, our cul-de-sac would prove to -have had a hidden outlet after all. Perhaps this was why our frequently -recurring difficulties troubled us more and taught us less than they -might have done under different circumstances. In the complex of life we -ourselves were circumstances. Once, in later years, he casually remarked -that I had never given him a chance to get tired of me, because he never -knew what I would do next. Can any one give what one has not got? - -[Illustration: ON THE HUDSON - -Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of John M. -Robertson, Esq.] - -Meantime, we found life entertaining as well as perplexing and difficult. -Our little boys were healthy, intelligent and good-tempered. Homer’s -work, when he could once settle down to it, was always able to divert -his mind from every other preoccupation. I had been writing book reviews -occasionally ever since the early spring of 1861 for the “Leader,” to -which paper an article of mine concerning Mrs. Rebecca Harding Davis’s -first novel had been sent under a pseudonym by the brother I have -already referred to, who was a friend of that eccentric genius, Henry -Clapp. Later on, I wrote once in a while for the “Round Table,” and, -after some date in 1866, when Auerbach’s “On the Heights” was sent me -from the “Nation” editorial rooms for review, pretty steadily for that -periodical. Our friends were interesting to both of us. If Homer ever -“talked shop,” at least I never heard him, and the men whose company -he instinctively sought were never painters; or, since I must make an -exception in the case of John La Farge, they were never merely that. He -had a great capacity for love, and the two men whom he loved best were -critics in the large sense: John Richard Dennett, from the first time -they met until his untimely death in 1874; and William C. Brownell from -that period, or perhaps before it, until the end. - -Painting was his own sole means of adequate expression. Perhaps I ought -not to say that. I may not be an adequate judge, and certainly I have -heard great things about his reputation as a talker at the Century -Club. But to me, from first to last, he never talked about impersonal -subjects—perhaps because he could not consider anything that affected -me in a purely impersonal light. I always read aloud to him a great -deal, but the books and topics which interested me most after 1870 -never interested him at all. Until then we had both been turning our -intellectual searchlights in every conceivable intellectual direction. At -that period mine steadied on its proper centre and veered no more. But to -the very end I continued to read to him whatever he desired to hear. - -Nevertheless, even though he was too many-sided not to find issue in more -than one direction, his pictures are the only permanent result of his -imperative need for self-expression. He always detested what he called -literary pictures—pictures, that is, that told or tried to tell a story. -And yet I think it true to say that if he is supreme as a colorist it is -largely because color was to him an instrument, not an end. He used it -as a poet uses words. He made it reflect not so much what is obvious in -nature as that duplex image into which external nature fused itself with -him, who was also a part of nature. To me, this is what individualizes -his pictures. I think it impossible to mistake them. When he was in -England the second time, I went to the art rooms of Mr. Lanthier, whom -I had authorized to obtain from William Schaus a landscape I had never -seen, and which had been for some months tucked away in an upper room -inaccessible to visitors. I, at least, had been refused a sight of it -when I went to the Schaus gallery for that purpose. The attendant told -me they did not exhibit American pictures. Lanthier obtained possession -of it, and when I saw it I remarked that, as usual, it was unsigned. -“Unsigned!” protested he. “It is signed from the top of the canvas to the -bottom. No one in the world could have painted it but Homer Martin.” He -sold it a few days later to Mr. Sidney de Kay, whose family, I believe, -still possesses it. - -Homer went abroad for the first time in 1876, in company with the late -Dr. Jacob S. Mosher, an Albany friend of both of us since before our -marriage, and at that period quarantine physician of the port of New -York. They went to France and Holland, perhaps to Belgium, as well as -to England. How far they penetrated into France I do not remember, but -I do recall—though when Mr. Charles de Kay wrote to ask the question -some three years since I had forgotten—that they visited Barbizon and -probably some of the painters whose classic ground it was, and that -Homer made some pencilings both there and at Saint-Cloud. They were -absent for some considerable time, and it was at this period that he made -acquaintance with the late James McNeill Whistler. - -He sailed for England the second time in October, 1881, and I joined him -in London early in the next July. On the “glorious Fourth” we visited -Mr. Whistler’s studio, where Homer had occasionally painted. I think it -must have been there that he painted, late in the previous autumn, a -delightful Newport landscape which was bought at the Artist Fund sale of -that season by Mr. Lanthier for Mr. Charles de Kay. Whistler’s beautiful -portrait of his mother—which I afterward saw in Paris at the Salon—was -on the easel, and it is the only one of his pictures which I distinctly -recollect. There were some “nocturnes” on the walls, and they were -doubtless worth remembering. But I never went there again, and on this -occasion my attention was riveted by the artist and his surroundings, -alike spectacular and bizarre, the man grotesque as a caricature in -attitude and aspect, the rooms all pale blue and lemon-yellow, even -to the many vases and the flowers therein contained. He said a good -many things, not one of which was I able to recall, so lost was I in -contemplation of the general oddity of him and his chosen environment. -“What did you think of him?” asked Homer after we came away. “Why didn’t -you talk? You never said a thing.” “I was afraid to open my lips,” said -I, “lest I should involuntarily tell him to shake that feather out of -his hair. He must have had his head buried in a pillow before we went -in.” “I wish you had!” said he with a laugh. “That is Jimmy’s feather. He -delights in having it noticed.” I had observed that he bowed profoundly -on our introduction and so brought it into staring evidence; but I could -scarcely believe, even on testimony, that the premeditated effect was -produced by a quite unpremeditated lock of gray hair. - -[Illustration: BLOSSOMING TREES - -Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Mrs. -Charles O. Gates] - -The especial occasion for this second visit to England was the making -of some drawings illustrative of places mentioned in the novels of -Thackeray and George Eliot. He had been there for some months and they -were hardly more than begun, but after I came he worked at them pretty -steadily. It was an undertaking which he did not at all enjoy, but which -circumstances had made imperative. When he first told me of it in the -previous summer, he made it evident that he thought such a commission -derogatory to his dignity as a painter. Whether it was that his pictures -were selling less readily, or because the painting mood came with less -imperative frequency, I do not know, but he was unusually despondent. The -idea of the voyage was pleasant in itself. One of his never fulfilled -longings was to cross the ocean in a sailing vessel. His Artist Fund -picture was nearly due and could be painted on the other side; he thought -the price of the drawings would pay all his other expenses. And when an -unexpected stroke of good fortune made it possible for me to join him, -his sky cleared up. I do not remember whether the English drawings were -successful; I do know that they were tardy in reaching the New York -office of The Century Company, for whose magazine they had been destined, -and that when, in the ensuing year, he sent the same publishers a set of -Villerville drawings, accompanied by a sketch he had suggested my writing -about that delightful haunt of painters, Mr. Gilder wrote me, after some -delay, that they had been much interested in my article, but that their -art department was not satisfied with the drawings. It was subsequently -published in the “Catholic World,” unaccompanied by the illustrations, -that magazine not then having begun to produce any. - -In October of that year, the completion of the last drawing coincided -with the arrival in London of an old New York friend, the late Mr. Bryant -Godwin, and an invitation to spend some weeks in Normandy with the family -of another, W. J. Hennessy, the well-known artist and illustrator. There -was no further reason for delay in England, and the three of us crossed -the Channel one night by the Southampton boat. I have never forgotten -my first sight of the French shore next morning. “I don’t wonder now at -Rousseau’s color,” I said to Homer; “how could he help it?” - -It had been our intention to return to New York after a brief visit -with the Hennessys, who had been living for years in a picturesque and -pleasant way at Pennedepie, an agricultural hamlet on the road between -Honfleur and Trouville, where they occupied a roomy and quaintly -furnished old manor just opposite the village church. But we found the -place, the people, and the neighboring views alike delightful, and when -news arrived, early in our stay, of a considerable sum to his credit -which had been lying for some months uncalled for at the American -Exchange, London, where it had been sent to his first address by Mr. -James Stillman, Homer decided on remaining in Normandy. To have returned -to New York just then would have been a distinct loss to both of us in -many ways. I look back on the time we spent in Villerville as the most -tranquil and satisfactory period of our life together. - -That little fishing village, dominated by the tower of a church erected -when the eleventh century was young, in thanksgiving because the -foreboded end of the world had not come in the year 1000, lies about -midway between Honfleur and Trouville, at an easy walk from Pennedepie. -Equidistant from either place stands the ivy-grown church of Criquebœuf, -beloved of artists, and made by Homer the theme of one of his best -pictures. In the same grassy enclosure on the right of the pond into -which this old church dips its foot, he found two more delightful -subjects. One of them is embodied on one of his last canvases, the -“Normandy Farm,” now owned, I believe, by Mr. Bloomingdale of New York. -It was bought in the first place by Mr. W. T. Evans, a week or so before -my husband’s death. The other, a view of a deserted manor, showing dimly -through a veil of ghostly trees, which Mrs. Hennessy declared ought to be -called “The Haunted House,” was finished in New York after his return for -an early friend, Dr. D. M. Stimson, to whom for many years he had been -greatly attached. I think it was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair. - -[Illustration: THE HAUNTED HOUSE - -Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Dr. D. M. -Stimson] - -Villerville had for years been thronged in summer and fall by painters, -French, English, and American; perhaps it is so still. Guillemet had been -there for twenty consecutive seasons; Duez had built himself a house and -studio with a Norman tower. Stanley Reinhart came both summers while we -were there, with that most sweet wife of his and their pretty little -children. The Forbes-Robertsons had a little villa for a while,—the -parents, that is, and Miss Frances, then a girl of sixteen; and the -actor son must have spent some considerable part of his vacation with -them, for I recall a rather animated discussion we had one night, pacing -up and down the _estacade_ in the moonlight, when he declaimed in so -ardent a fashion about the intrinsic and extrinsic glories of England, -that a mere sense of equilibrium made the interjection of a “What about -Ireland? What about India?” seem to me inevitable. “Oh! unjust, if you -insist,” said he. “But I am an Englishman—Scotch as a matter of fact, -I suppose. And you must admit that a man is bound to stand up for his -country, right or wrong.” It is a sentiment I have never been able to -understand. Some of us, I suppose, are born cosmopolitans, or else look -forward to “an abiding city wherein dwelleth justice,” since not even -patriotism can insist that it has a local abiding place here. - -And that reminds me of another incident belonging to the winter -time, when, as there was not an English-speaking soul in the entire -neighborhood except ourselves, our landlord one day brought me in -despair a lady whose vernacular it was, accompanied by a French _bonne_ -and two little children as apple-faced and ruddy as Polly Toodles’ -babies. She explained that she was the wife of a major in the English -army, and had but just returned with him from India; also, that while -there she had read such a glowing description of the beauties of -Villerville in a copy of “The Queen,” that she had determined to examine -them for herself. I did what I could for her in the way of finding a -furnished apartment, and before they had removed to it, went one morning -to return her call at one of the hotels. I found her and the major at -a late breakfast, with the English newspapers lying about. The period -antedated Mr. Joseph Chamberlain’s change of his political coat, the -Irish question was well to the front, and my new acquaintances spoke -English with one of the most sonorous brogues that had ever greeted my -ear. Here was a case in which my own sympathies and the presumable ones -of my audience seemed naturally to invite a moderate expression of views -on a current topic. Dead silence fell for a moment after I had stopped -speaking. Then the major said with an accent that positively projected: -“Excuse me, but I am English: that is to say, I am Irish, _but of the -landlord class_!” It was simply a matter of the point of view. - -It was this question of the seasons, I think, which chiefly necessitated -my learning the language which was afterward of so much use to both of us -up to the very end. It also necessitated a more incessant companionship -than at any period was ever possible in the city of the Century Club. It -was easy to pick up French enough to carry on such intercourse as was -absolutely necessary with the people about us, but my serious study of -it was undertaken in the first place in order that I might continue to -read aloud to Homer in the evenings after the available supply of English -novels and periodicals had been exhausted. I began with About’s “Roi -des Montagnes,” my method being to read a sentence to accustom his ear -and my tongue to the unfamiliar sounds, and forthwith to translate it -literally. Of course, I had teachers, one of whom had taught this, her -native language, in a London private school, while a second was at the -time professor of English in the College of Honfleur. Curious English it -must have been! But he was praiseworthily anxious to increase his own -knowledge as well as mine. But the best one of the three was a delightful -woman, Mademoiselle Lemonnier, the village postmistress, who did not know -a word of English although her mother had been an Englishwoman. She was -very well read and intelligent as well as companionable and kindly. I had -applied to her, when my first instructress found it impossible to come -any longer, to find me another. We already knew each other pretty well, -and when she said, “If you will let me teach you _for love_, I will do it -myself, but if you insist on paying, I will inquire for some one else,” -it was simply a new version of Hobson’s choice. I could not have done -better in any case. When Homer went abroad for the last time, he made a -point of crossing the Channel to visit Mademoiselle Lemonnier. Slender -as were their means of communication, they had managed to understand and -sympathize with each other very completely, a strong sense of humor on -either side helping greatly to that consummation. - -[Illustration: THE CRIQUEBŒUF CHURCH - -Reproduced from the original drawing through the courtesy of Dr. D. M. -Stimson] - -We lived in Villerville for nineteen months. An excellent studio with -two adjacent rooms had been arranged for us before our arrival, and we -lunched and dined at Madame Cornu’s hotel, providing our breakfast in our -own quarters. A quaint old English priest whom I knew in London, and who -had to the full the hereditary prejudice against “Johnny Crapaud,” had -warned me not merely of what he believed to be the prevalent Jansenism -which would prevent so frequent an approach to the sacraments as I had -been accustomed to, but against the cheating, the conscienceless thievery -to which he assured me we would be subjected on all sides. “I would not -spend a farthing in France!” said he. Well, in Paris, perhaps, though -I had no personal experience of it even there. But in Villerville, and -afterward in Honfleur, there was absolutely no exception to the perfect -cordiality, absolute trust, and gentle politeness which greeted us on all -sides. I have never met anything like it elsewhere save in the parish -of the Paulist Fathers in New York. I speak from what may be called -exhaustive knowledge, since there was a period, before we left the former -place, when we were out of money for so long that when at last we were -able to settle Madame Cornu’s bill it amounted to the considerable sum -of two thousand francs. I had asked her some time previously if she -were not in need of it, but only to receive the smiling answer: “When -Madame pleases. We are neither of us robbers.” So in Honfleur, where, -after we had been domiciled for a month or so, and had found our fresh -bread and rolls on the kitchen-window ledge every morning, I went to the -baker to inquire for and settle his account. “But, Madame,” objected -the fresh-cheeked young woman in charge, “we have kept no account. Does -not Madame know how much it is herself?” “Why, yes,” said I; “you have -brought so much for so many days at such a price.” “_C’est ça_” she -smiled. “Whatever Madame says.” And this, again, reminds me of Madame -Cornu and her remarkable bill. There had been a price set in the first -place of so much a day for our two meals, which were always abundant and -well-cooked. I knew the dates and was ready with the exact sum. But when -my tally was placed beside her bill there was a discrepancy arising from -the fact that Homer would sometimes be absent from the midday meal by -reason of a sketching excursion or something of the sort, and she was -never notified beforehand. Yet on every such occasion a deduction had -been scrupulously made. Such an experience never befell us elsewhere. - -To Homer also Villerville was as delightful as any place could be while -lacking that social intercourse with men of brains and cultivation -which was always his chief pleasure and relaxation. Years afterward, -Mr. Brownell said one evening when we were all dining together in those -pleasant apartments of theirs on Fifty-sixth Street, that the three weeks -which he and his wife had spent there with us seemed to him more like his -idea of heaven than anything he remembered. And he asked me whether I -would not like to live it all over again. In retrospect, yes; as I have -just been proving. But, were it possible in reality? O no! Never have I -seen a day that has tempted me to say to it: “Stay, thou art fair!” - -[Illustration: GOLDEN SANDS - -Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Mrs. Wm. -Macbeth] - -Our sojourn in Villerville was a particularly important one for both of -us, but in different ways. For him it was a period of absorption rather -than of production, while, on that very account, exactly the reverse -process went on in me. I have already said it was at his suggestion -that I accompanied his Villerville drawings with an article which, Mr. -Brownell afterward wrote me, was like “a Martin landscape put into -words.” Homer perhaps thought so himself, for he had already said: “I see -that you can paint with words. I wonder if you can set people in action. -Why not try?” Whereupon I made a character sketch which Mr. Alden, of -“Harper’s Magazine,” declined because “it was too painful,” but which -the then editor of “Lippincott’s”—I think his name was Kirk—found too -short, and wrote me that if I would lengthen it out so that it should -bear less resemblance to a truncated cone, he would be glad to avail -himself of it. Whereupon I recalled it, fished up my heroine out of an -earthquake on the island of Capri which I had allowed to swallow her, but -whom I now unearthed, none the worse except in the matter of a broken -wrist,—I think it was a wrist,—and in a month or so received a very -fair-sized check for the tale of her experiences. - -The same sort of exterior pressure, not any interior need of expression, -was what led to the production of a tale which ran for eighteen months -as a serial in the “Catholic World” under the title of “Katharine,” and -during that period provided for our necessary expenditures. Henry Holt -republished it with a new name which he himself suggested. I liked the -first one better, but it made too little difference to me to make it -worth while to adhere to my own views. Mr. Kirk, by the way, had also -renamed my sketch: that seems to be a privilege with literary sponsors, -the literary parent not being present. Almost an entire chapter was also -eliminated from the book, because the reader, whose name I never knew, -objected to it on the ground that it showed too plainly that “Mrs. Martin -really believed” that a certain tenet of her faith was absolutely true. - -I began a second story on the heels of this one, but when it had run to -some thirty thousand words, Homer objected to it as certain to split upon -the same dogmatic rock as its predecessor, and I laid it aside for a -third one which attained the same proportions and pleased every one who -then or thereafter read it better than either of its predecessors. But it -had the misfortune of not specially interesting me; and yet there was a -baby in it with the second sight, who bade fair to develop into something -“mystic, wonderful,” in course of time, if not interfered with. Meantime, -the imperative need for production on my part having ended, I put the -unfinished manuscript in the fire some three years ago. The second one I -completed after our return to New York, and it was published under the -title of “John Van Alstyne’s Factory,” in the “Catholic World.” - -To Homer our life in France was chiefly seed-time. There germinated -his “Low Tide at Villerville,” the “Honfleur Lights,” the “Criquebœuf -Church,” the “Normandy Trees,” the “Normandy Farm,” the “Sun Worshipers,” -and the landscape known in the Metropolitan Gallery of New York, where -it now hangs, as a “View on the Seine,”—which, in strictness, it is -not,—but for which his own title was “The Harp of the Winds.” I had -asked him what he meant to call it, and, with his characteristic aversion -to putting his deeper sentiments into words, he answered that he supposed -it would seem too sentimental to call it by the name I have just given, -but that was what it meant to him, for he had been thinking of music all -the while he was painting it. And this reminds me of a commission given -him by a music-lover among his friends during our early days in New York -to “paint a Beethoven symphony” for him. He did it, too, and to the -utmost satisfaction of its possessor. - -[Illustration: ON THE SEINE (“HARP OF THE WINDS”) - -Reproduced from the original painting in the Metropolitan Museum, New -York] - -He used to carry about with him in those days a pocket sketch-book in -which he noted his impressions in water-color. Mr. Brownell must remember -it, and so, I think, must Mr. Russell Sturgis, for, being at our rooms -during my husband’s last sojourn on the other side of the Atlantic, when -he was known to be afflicted with an incurable malady, he said to me that -if Homer’s things were ever put up for sale, he would like to become -the purchaser of this book. My husband never got over his chagrin when -it became evident that it must have fallen a prey to some unscrupulous -packer of our household goods at the time when he concluded to follow -me to St. Paul, in June, 1893. He had a suspicion that it might have -found its way to a pawnbroker, and never gave up hoping for its ultimate -recovery. It had in it some delightful miniature bits of character and -color. - -It was in Villerville also that he began the “Sand Dunes on Lake -Ontario,” now hanging in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, with the -intention of sending it to the Salon. But before it was completed he got -into one of those hobbles which were not uncommon in his experience, when -the more he tried to hurry the less he was in reality accomplishing. It -was in no condition to be seen when the last day for sending came, as we -both agreed, yet he sent it. Naturally enough, it was rejected. I think -that result surprised him less than it momentarily annoyed him. He put -the canvas aside and for months never touched it. But one day during the -next season, while he was painting on it, a French landscapist and his -wife came to call upon us. I forget his name. He studied it in silence -for a long time. Then turning to me, he said: “Your husband’s work -reminds me strongly of that of Pointelin. He must send this canvas to the -next Salon.” “It has been there once,” said I, “and the jury rejected -it,” adding, because of his evident surprise, “It was not then in its -present condition.” “Nevertheless,” he replied, “I cannot understand a -French jury rejecting such a picture in any state in which Mr. Martin -would have sent it in at all.” - -I do not remember just why we removed from Villerville. Perhaps because -Homer was able to obtain in Honfleur a roomy and well-lighted studio -apart from our dwelling-place, an arrangement which he always preferred. -The little city from which William the Norman set out on his conquering -expedition in 1066 had not the picturesque charm of the village we -left, but possessed compensating features in the way of English and -American neighbors. Our whole sojourn in France was, in fact, delightful, -and perhaps even more so to me than to my husband. Through my mother -there was a good deal of French blood in my veins, and in its ancestral -environment it throbbed with a rhythmic atavism unknown elsewhere to my -pulses. - -I think that notwithstanding the excellent lighting arrangements of his -studio, my husband did not complete much work in Honfleur. “The Mussel -Gatherers,” to me one of the most impressive of his later canvases, -was finished there, and though I do not recall another for the Artist -Fund Sale, I suppose there must have been one. A never-completed studio -interior with a portrait of me, and reproductions in miniature of the -studies hanging on the walls; still another small portrait, a number of -panels, one of which, “Wild Cherry Trees,” was in the Clarke Sale in -1897, and various water-colors belong likewise to this period. Meanwhile -his note-books were filling up with material for future use. - -I sailed for New York at the end of August, 1886, and Homer, who had -remained to finish some of the things I have just named, followed -me three months later, arriving December 12th of that year. In the -following spring he secured one of the studios in Fifty-fifth Street, -having previously utilized for that purpose a room with a north light -in an apartment we had in Sixty-third Street. In his more convenient -quarters he painted a few great pictures, among them the “Low Tide at -Villerville,” the “Sun Worshipers,” and still another, the title of -which I never knew, and which I never saw until much later, when going -one day with the late Miss a’Becket to the Eden Musée,—I think to see -something of her own in an exhibition then in progress, of paintings -belonging to private owners,—this great canvas faced me on the line of -the opposite wall, and startled me into the exclamation: “That must be -one of Homer’s!” It was full of light and color. The land on the left -sloped gradually down nearly to the middle of the foreground, and the -wonderful sheet of water behind and beyond it that fairly rippled out of -the frame, was dazzling. What he called it I do not know. To each other -we never gave his landscapes any name, nor did he to any one else unless -a purchaser required a title, or there was question of a catalogue. -I think, however, that this canvas may be one which was completed in -January, 1889, while I was in Toledo, and which was bought almost as soon -as finished by Mr. Thomas B. Clarke. If so, it changed hands very soon, -and was possibly taken away from New York. Homer wrote me at the time -about the sale. From all I could learn of the Memorial Exhibition at the -Century Club in the spring of 1897—an exhibition which, to my lasting -regret, closed just before I was able to reach New York—this picture was -not included in it. - -[Illustration: TREES NEAR VILLERVILLE - -Reproduced from the original water color in the collection of Mr. Wm. -Macbeth] - -His last studio in New York—occupied from 1890 until he went to St. -Paul in June, 1893—was in a house belonging to the Paulist Fathers -and adjoining their Convent in Fifty-ninth Street. There he painted the -“Normandy Trees,” the “Haunted House” I have already referred to as -belonging to Dr. D. M. Stimson, the “Honfleur Lights” now owned by the -Century Club, and began the “Criquebœuf Church,” afterward completed -in St. Paul. In that house I first observed that his eyesight, always -imperfect, was becoming still more dim. Never till then had I known him -to ask any one to trace an outline for him. He thought, moreover, that -some serious internal trouble threatened him, and consulted both an -oculist and a physician. In the early summer of 1892, believing that an -ocean voyage would benefit him, he availed himself of the opportunity -afforded by the sale to the Century Club of the “Honfleur Lights” and -sailed for the last time to England. He spent a very considerable part -of his absence at Bournemouth, where resided the family of Mr. George -Chalmers, friendship with whom must, I think, have been coeval with -his entire life in New York, and lasted, on the part of the survivor, -far beyond it. Concerning this visit, Mr. Chalmers wrote me a few -years later, in reply to my request that he should tell me about it: -“I do not feel that I can do Homer the justice he deserves. Certainly -that visit greatly endeared him to me and to my wife, and even to our -Harold, who was then a little mite, but who remembers him well. I wish I -could remember some of Homer’s talk, always so charming, on our various -outings during that happy time—especially about pictures, a subject with -which he was eminently so familiar. Two visits to the National Gallery -in London I recall in a general sort of way, to be sure. I remember -how stirred he was as we stood before the two Turners in the National -Gallery, presented by the artist on condition that they should be placed -next to the Claudes. Homer regarded Turner’s challenging comparison with -the great Frenchman as the sheerest audacity, and called attention to -the fussiness and labored work of the Turners compared with the ease and -serene dignity and splendor of the Claudes.” - -Curiously enough, Mr. Chalmers arrived in New York from London the next -day after my own arrival from St. Paul, in April, 1897, and took what I -am sure could not have been altogether agreeable pains in order to render -me a very important service. - -During this last absence of my husband from America, I spent a part of -my own vacation in Ottawa, and while there received a letter in which -he asked me to write to the oculist who had examined him—I think it -was Dr. Bull—and find out from him precisely what was the condition -of his eyes. I did so, and received the painful verdict that the optic -nerve of one of them was dead, while the other was partially clouded by -a cataract. I mention these facts in order that my readers may get an -adequate conception of the enormous difficulties under which his latest -paintings were begun and finished. Among these is the autumnal known as -“The Adirondacks,” exhibited at the Century Club Memorial Exhibition, -and bought shortly afterward by Mr. Untermyer at the sale of Mr. T. B. -Clarke’s collection. Looking at it when he was giving his final touches, -I said to him: “Homer, if you never paint another stroke, you will go out -in a blaze of glory!” “I have learned to paint, at last,” he answered. -“If I were quite blind now, and knew just where the colors were on my -palette, I could express myself.” Another belonging to this period is -the “View on the Seine” already referred to, and which in an earlier -stage was, to my mind, still more beautiful than it is at present. In -its primitive condition—and, indeed, from the moment when it was first -charcoaled on the canvas, the trees so grouped that they suggested by -their very contour the Harp to which he was inwardly listening—it was -supremely elegant. Elegance is still its characteristic feature, but I -wish he had left it as I saw it first. “The trees were about four hundred -feet high!” he objected, when I told him so, and I did not then, and -do not now, see the force of the objection. It was a thing of beauty, -anyhow, and who but a pedant measures those except by the optical -illusion and spiritual impression they produce? - -It was I who went first to St. Paul, where our elder son resided, hoping -to recover by means of a long rest from the fatigue entailed by incessant -mental labor. I had been editing, reviewing, translating, finishing a -novel, besides keeping house, and began to feel as if my own mainspring -were liable to snap at any moment. This was at the end of December, 1892. -I went, intending to return, and to continue the writing of book reviews -during my absence. But in February I broke down completely, gave up all -work and all expectation of resuming it in New York. In the following -June, Homer resigned his studio and followed me, stopping on the way to -see the Chicago Exposition, where several of his paintings were on view. - -In St. Paul he had for a while a very good studio in one of the life -insurance buildings, and while there completed several pictures, among -them that of the “Criquebœuf Church,” selling it, almost as soon as it -reached New York, to Mr. William T. Evans. This building was sold, soon -afterward, and converted to uses which made it impossible as a studio. - -If my memory serves me correctly, it was in the spring of 1894 that the -Century Club had a reunion of more than ordinary importance. The special -date and occasion I do not recall, but I know that Homer’s presence was -so urgently desired by some of his friends that he then paid his last -visit to New York, and to the place and associates in it which had given -him most satisfaction. He was absent some six weeks, possibly more, and -I have since been told that when he left, his physical condition was -such that his friends not merely gave up hope of seeing him again, but -expected speedy tidings of his death. But the end was not so near. It was -to be preceded by such a conquest of mind over matter, of sheer will over -propensities both inherited and acquired, of triumphant performance in -the face of physical obstacles apparently insurmountable as is altogether -unique in my experience. Such efforts are never made, I take it, except -under the stimulus of hope, and even that sheet-anchor often fails when -the soul is pusillanimous. But Homer Martin was no coward. Moreover, he -had always been his own severest critic. Mr. Montgomery Schuyler has -quoted him as saying in earlier years when the hangmen exalted him “above -the line” in exhibitions, and buyers accepted that verdict as conclusive: -“If I could only do it, they would see it fast enough.” Mr. Schuyler -adds: “But this was more modest than exact. Even after he had attained -the capacity to ‘do it,’ to make canvas palpitate with light and color, -as the visitors to the Memorial Exhibition know, the picture-buyers of -twenty years ago still failed to ‘see it.’” - -[Illustration: CAPE TRINITY - -Reproduced from the original drawing in the collection of Mr. Wm. -Macbeth] - -But, at the period of his life with which I am now concerned, he was not -only conscious that he had attained full mastery of his own power of -artistic expression by means of color, but he had reason to believe that -an opportunity had been afforded him to make that mastery triumphantly -evident. Although his faith turned out to be ill-founded, yet his belief -to the contrary was sufficient to make him rise at once to his full -strength and shake off without apparent effort whatever other shackles -had hitherto confined him. He was like nothing so much as blind Samson -after his hair had grown, and he carried off the gates of old habits -and flung them aside as easily as if he had never felt their weight. In -the late spring of that year he went away alone to a quiet farm, taking -with him the canvases on which “The Adirondacks,” the “Seine View,” -and the “Normandy Farm” were already charcoaled, and set to work at -their development and completion. From time to time he would come into -the city, his step alert and his physical improvement so apparent in -every way, that my apprehension that his health was already shattered -irreparably gave way to confidence that years of life and successful -achievement were still before him. As for him, I think he never fully -believed that the doctors were right in considering his bodily condition -hopeless until a short time before his death. He had always looked -confidently forward to such length of days as both of his parents and -others of his more remote forbears had attained. “I never thought,” -he said to me one night, a week or two before his death, “that I was -shortening my life in this way.” As to his blindness, it never became -entire, and having been accustomed from the beginning to defective vision -while yet absorbing his material through the eye and appealing to it in -his production, he had, in a measure bewildering to hear of and barely -credible to us who beheld it in its final efforts, learned to rely almost -entirely on his inward vision and the hand which responded as it were -instinctively to its impulse and suggestion. - -The pictures I have named went to New York in the late autumn of -1895, and were at once acknowledged with hearty words of praise and a -preliminary check. My husband was back at home by this time, and, full -of vigor and the anticipation of assured success, had begun three or four -other landscapes. Only one of these was ever completed, but that was so -present to his imagination, and his steady hand moved in such obedience -to his will, that it took visible shape almost without an effort. He had -begun making plans for the future and seemed to have renewed his youth. -And then, when the year was nearly ended, his hopes were shattered by the -tidings that the pictures were found to be unsalable, and had been, or -were to be, transferred to other hands which might or might not be more -successful in finding purchasers for them. - -This was the end, so far as further work was concerned. My Samson fell -once more into the hands of the Philistines, and this time not to rise -again. - -[Illustration: A NEWPORT LANDSCAPE (The Artist’s Last Work) - -Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Frank L. -Babbott, Esq.] - -Over those final days, I have not the heart to linger. In all ways, they -were inexpressibly painful. In August of the following year, a growth in -his throat made its appearance. Although it never caused him intense -physical anguish until a few days before his death, when it seemed to -have made its way to the brain, it caused him great discomfort. So long -as hope remained that it was not malignant and might be removed, he felt -and expressed an irritation which, under the precise circumstances, -was only natural. But when, late in October, about the time of his -sixtieth birthday, the specialist who was attending him pronounced it -cancerous, his mood changed. Certain thoughts, certain memories, certain -injustices of which he had felt himself the victim, would still move him -to indignation when the recollection of them recurred, but he bore his -physical trials with wonderful and unalterable patience. A Unitarian -clergyman in the neighborhood began calling on him in the early winter -and contributed much to his entertainment in some of my unavoidable -absences. But, as Christmas was approaching, my husband asked me to -request the Reverend Doctor Shields, now Professor of Psychology in -the Catholic University at Washington, D. C., to pay him a visit. Said -he: “L⸺ is a good fellow; he thinks just as I do about the tariff -and the civil service, and he likes good books. But, what all that has -to do with his profession, considered as a profession, I do not clearly -see.” Therefore I preferred his request to Dr. Shields, who might -reasonably have refused it, as he was not doing parish duty but employed -in laboratory work at the Ecclesiastical Seminary in St. Paul. He came, -nevertheless, a number of times, paying his last visit on the Saturday -evening before Homer died. And then, before leaving, he said to me: -“There is not the ghost of a hope that your husband will do just exactly -what you wish him to do. And, for my part, I am content to leave him in -the hands of God just as he is. He is absolutely honest. If he could take -another step forward, he would do it.” And, on his part, Homer said to -me, “Father Shields has the clearest mind of any man I ever met. I wish I -had known him three years ago. But now my head is in such anguish that -I can no longer keep three or four threads of argument in my mind at the -same time.” - - * * * * * - -One day in Honfleur, Homer broke a protracted silence by saying, “I -hope that I shall die before you do.” To which I answered, “I hope so -too.” “You think that you could get along better without me than I could -without you?” he asked, and I said, “I know I could.” And now, two days -before he died, he said, “I am glad that I am going first”; adding a -few more words which it pleases me to remember, but which I shall not -repeat. And again I told him that I was glad also. Later still, he asked -me what I meant to do when he was gone, and when I said I hoped to enter -a convent, he replied, “That is just what I supposed. Well, it is a -beautiful life.” - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Homer Martin, by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMER MARTIN *** - -***** This file should be named 55498-0.txt or 55498-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/4/9/55498/ - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Homer Martin - A Reminiscence - -Author: Elizabeth Gilbert Martin - -Release Date: September 6, 2017 [EBook #55498] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMER MARTIN *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<h1>HOMER MARTIN<br /> -<span class="smaller">A REMINISCENCE</span></h1> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt="Cover image, created by -the transcriber and placed in the public domain" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 420px;" id="illus1"> - -<img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="420" height="600" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption">HOMER MARTIN</p> - -<p class="caption">From a photograph taken in England in 1892</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">HOMER MARTIN<br /> -<span class="smaller">A REMINISCENCE</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter titlepage" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/deco.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="Decorative image" /> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage">OCTOBER 28, 1836—FEBRUARY 12, 1897</p> - -<p class="titlepage">NEW YORK<br /> -WILLIAM MACBETH<br /> -1904</p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">Copyright, 1904, by <span class="smcap">William Macbeth</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter titlepage" style="width: 200px;"> -<img src="images/publisher.jpg" width="200" height="150" alt="Imprimatur of The De Vinne Press" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table summary="List of illustrations"> - <tr> - <td>PORTRAIT OF HOMER MARTIN</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus1"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="tdr smaller">FACING PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>NORMANDY TREES</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus2">6</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>THE DUNES</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus3">12</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>ON THE HUDSON</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus4">18</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>BLOSSOMING TREES</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus5">24</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>THE HAUNTED HOUSE</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus6">28</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>THE CRIQUEBŒUF CHURCH</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus7">32</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>GOLDEN SANDS</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus8">36</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>ON THE SEINE (“HARP OF THE WINDS”)</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus9">40</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>TREES NEAR VILLERVILLE</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus10">46</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>CAPE TRINITY</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus11">52</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A NEWPORT LANDSCAPE</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#illus12">56</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class="center smaller">The publisher cordially thanks the friends who kindly lent the pictures -which have been reproduced to illustrate these pages.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">During</span> the last year I have more than -once been told that an authoritative biographical -sketch of my husband ought to -be written and I have never felt inclined to -dispute the statement as an abstract proposition. -But when it is followed by the direct -question: “Who so capable of writing -it as you?” the names of one or two of his -personal friends inevitably present themselves -as belonging to practised writers and -connoisseurs of art, who might, perhaps, -need the aid of dates or facts I could supply, -but who, in more essential respects, -would be altogether better equipped for the -task. Homer Martin was so intensely masculine, -so preëminently a man’s man, that -he must necessarily have escaped thorough -comprehension by any woman. And this, -I think, is the chief reason why I have so -long delayed, why I am even now inclined -to shirk altogether, the fulfilment of my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> -reluctant promise to put on paper some of -my memories of the years we spent together.</p> - -<p>The question made me smile when it was -propounded more than a year ago, but -since then it has often made me ponder. -Doubtless no one else has had so long and -intimate an acquaintance with various -phases of his character and circumstances; -doubtless, too, it was not merely as an artist -that he commanded attention and attracted -life-long friends. Yet I suppose -it must be solely in this character that he -appeals to the majority of those who are -now attaining to a tardy appreciation of his -achievement as a whole. It is not in my -power to hasten that. When I first met -him my ignorance of art—at any rate on its -pictorial side—was dense; and if it has -been somewhat mitigated since, that result -is due solely to him and largely to his own -works. Is not this tantamount to expressing -my conviction that those who wish to -increase their knowledge of Homer Martin -as an artist can do so much more satisfactorily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> -by studying the landscapes into -which he has put as much of his best self -as any man could part with and live, than -by reading anything I find it possible to -say about him? Aspects of external nature -are inextricably blended in these with the -mind, moods, and personality of the painter. -Years before he had quite succeeded in mastering -his material, I remember the late -John Richard Dennett saying of them: -“Martin’s landscapes look as if no one but -God and himself had ever seen the places.” -There is an austerity, a remoteness, a certain -savagery in even the sunniest and most -peaceful of them, which were also in him, -and an instinctive perception of which had -made me say to him in the very earliest days -of our acquaintance that he reminded me of -Ishmael. They formed, I think, the substratum -of his personality. Needless to -add, for those who knew him even slightly, -that he had other phases. Though the -human verb in him was one and singular, -its moods were many.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Gilbert Martin.</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<h2>A REMINISCENCE</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/header.jpg" width="500" height="150" alt="Decorative header" /> -</div> - -<h2>A REMINISCENCE</h2> - -<div> -<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-h.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Homer Dodge Martin</span>, -fourth child and youngest son -of Homer Martin and Sarah -Dodge, was born in Albany, -N. Y., in a house on Park Street, October -28, 1836. That was my own native city, but -although we must have lived for years in -the same neighborhood, he was past twenty-two -and I in my twenty-first year when we -first became acquainted. But for the anti-slavery -movement which split the Methodist -body first into two great sections and -then into minor subdivisions, we might have -met much earlier, for, in our childhood, our -parents had attended the same place of -worship.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> - -<p>What I know, therefore, about his early -years I learned chiefly from his mother. -He was not of a reminiscent habit as a rule, -and his recollections of childhood were not -always pleasant. His father was one of -the most upright and altogether the mildest-tempered -of all the men that I have -met. His mother was a woman of strong -but uncultivated mind, keen wit, incisive -speech and arbitrary will, from whom her -son derived many of his own characteristics, -including his innate bent toward pictorial -expression. In her that inclination never -took any but the crudest shape, but -she had beyond all peradventure the instinct -which under more propitious circumstances -would have displayed itself more -convincingly. Perhaps the very cramping -of it in her was the cause of its appearance -at so preternaturally early an age in him. -She more than once told me that he began -to draw as soon as he could hold a pencil, -and that from his twentieth month to -provide him with one and a piece of blank -paper was the surest means of quieting his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -most turbulent outbreaks. Years afterward, -not long before our marriage, his -first schoolmistress sent me a spirited drawing -of a horse which she said he had made -for her when not more than five years old.</p> - -<p>This drawing was produced in one of the -Albany ward schools, and it pretty accurately -foreshadowed all that he was to accomplish -in them thereafter. I doubt if he -ever took kindly to lessons obviously given. -Even in painting, his sole direct tuition was -imparted by James Hart and extended over -two weeks only. What he needed, what -suited him, he then and always took in, so -to say, through his pores, absorbing what -he required, leaving other things untouched, -and wrestling unaided with his personal -problems. Greatly to his own after -regret, his ordinary schooling ended when -he was thirteen. But at the time his aversion -to school-books and school routine dovetailed -to a marvel with the persuasion of his -relatives that it was time for him to begin -earning his own livelihood. He once told -me that his school-hours had been largely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -spent in looking through the windows at -the Greenbush hills on the other side of the -Hudson, and in longing for the time to -come when he could go over there in the -horse-boat with paper and pencil to record -a nearer view.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, it was only for school-books -as such that he had an intimate aversion. -In other lines all was fish that came to his -net. How he obtained it I do not know, -but a copy of Volney’s “Ruins” which he -read at this period colored his opinions in a -way that he afterward found reason to -regret. But at the time it made him an -irreverent, amused, and precocious critic of -the talk he heard at Conference-time, when -itinerant ministers thronged the family -board.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus2"> - -<img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="600" height="470" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">NORMANDY TREES</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original painting in the Wilstach Collection, Philadelphia</p> - -</div> - -<p>Poetry of certain kinds attracted him -throughout his life, and verse that greatly -pleased him would stamp itself indelibly -on his memory. Once in a great while, -almost to the last, I could persuade him to -repeat to me Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian -Urn,” with a lingering enunciation and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -melancholy charm of accent which a few of -his most intimate friends may likewise recall. -I especially remember one night in -Villerville, when we were alone out-of-doors -in the late moonlight, awaiting in vain the -advent of a nightingale said to have been -heard in the neighborhood, that he more -than compensated me for its absence by -reciting the whole of the same poet’s lines -to that “light-wingèd Dryad of the trees.” -Reciting, I say, but the word is ill chosen. -It was rather a barely audible yet perfectly -distinct breathing out of the ineffable melancholy -and remoteness of those perfect -lines.</p> - -<p>Homer was transferred to his father’s -carpenter shop on leaving school; but even -that most patient of men came at last -to the reluctant conclusion that the long, -slender fingers which could not refrain -from ornamenting smoothly planed boards -with irrelevant trees and mountains were of -no use at all in handling saws and chisels. -A shopkeeper with whom he was next -placed as clerk, much against the boy’s own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -will, soon discharged him for incorrigible—perhaps -premeditated—rudeness to customers. -One of these, who was a young -cleric in the Episcopalian Seminary in -Ninth Avenue, New York City, when he -told me the story, described in words too -graphic to quote, the manner in which, as -a child, he had once been driven out of -the shop and all memory of what he was -sent for out of his mind, by the thunderous -scowl and wrath-freighted tone and -terms in which Homer inquired what he -wanted.</p> - -<p>He was next introduced into the architect’s -office of a relative, whence he was -eliminated, partly because his cousin -thought the inevitable landscapes that decorated -his plans totally superfluous, but -also on account of Homer’s congenital inability -to see perpendicular lines distinctly. -I think I never saw him draw an upright -of any sort without first laying his paper -or canvas on its side. When the Civil War -broke out, shortly before our marriage, and -he presented himself for the draft, it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -this defect of vision which caused the examiners -to reject him.</p> - -<p>Every attempt at harnessing him to a -beaten track of obvious utility and present -productiveness having terminated disastrously, -from the paternal point of view, -E. D. Palmer, the Albany sculptor, finally -succeeded in persuading the elder Homer -Martin that his son’s talent and inclination -for art were too marked and exclusive to -permit of his success in any other pursuit. -Thenceforward—he was perhaps sixteen—he -was left free to follow the bent of his -genius. I do not know where he painted at -first; perhaps at home. Later on, he had a -studio in the old Museum Building, at the -junction of State Street and Broadway. -James Hart had previously occupied it, and -it was probably there that for a fortnight -he acted as Homer’s instructor.</p> - -<p>There were other painters in Albany at -the time: William Hart, George Boughton, -Edward Gay, perhaps one or two others, -with all of whom he was intimate and whose -studios he frequented. Boughton went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -abroad not long after, and, when he was in -France, once wrote to Launt Thompson in -most enthusiastic terms concerning the -landscapes of Corot, whose great vogue -had hardly yet begun, but with whose work -Boughton was at once enchanted. And, in -describing it, he remarked that “if Homer -Martin had been his pupil he could hardly -paint more like him.” It was not until long -years after that Thompson had the grace to -repeat the observation to Homer, and when -at last he did so, the only reply he got was: -“Why did you not tell me that years ago, -when it would have been of some service -to me?” For Homer, too, was one of the -Corot worshipers from the first.</p> - -<p>It was in the Museum studio that I first -saw Homer Martin. It was not until long -afterward that I learned—and not from -him—that having seen me in the street, he -deliberately sought acquaintance with my -eldest brother, like himself a lover of music -and a frequenter of the local Philharmonic -Society. An invitation to visit the studio -and bring his sisters soon followed. To the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -end of his days, I suppose, Homer had -reticences of that sort with me. At the -time I speak of he was already locally -known as a colorist of no mean capacity -and a man of genius. I had heard his name, -but only in connection with that of a dear -friend and schoolmate of my own, a beautiful, -golden-haired little creature, with a -voice as delightful as her person, whom he -was said to be following everywhere she -went. They never met until after our marriage, -which preceded her own.</p> - -<p>I went one afternoon with my brother to -see his pictures and his studio. The latter -struck me as the most untidy room I had -ever entered. I remember his rushing to -throw things behind a large screen. I was -not used to paintings. Such as I had seen -had seemed to me mere daubs to which any -good engraving would be altogether preferable. -But on that afternoon there was a -large unfinished landscape on the easel, -which even to my unpractised eye conveyed -the promise of beauty. It was a commission, -painted for a Mr. Thomas of Albany,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -if I do not mistake. There were two great -boulders lifting their heads out of a shallow -foreground brook, and one day, much -later, when I was there, he painted his own -initials on one of them and mine on the -other, but—as was always his habit when he -remembered to sign his pictures at all—in -tints differing so slightly from that of the -surface on which he inscribed them as to be -scarcely distinguishable from it.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus3"> - -<img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="600" height="430" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">THE DUNES</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original water color in the collection of Mr. Wm. Macbeth</p> - -</div> - -<p>We were married in my father’s house -during the first year of the Civil War, on -the twenty-fifth of June, 1861, and went -off the same day to Twin Lakes, Connecticut. -I still have the first sketch in oils -which he made out-of-doors that season: a -barley-field, meadow land in the middle -distance, gray-green trees beyond. Two or -three brown boulders, others merely penciled -in, lie on the left of the foreground. -The delicate heads of grain are swaying in -a light breeze. Perhaps he did not do much -in the way of visible work that summer. At -all events, I do not now recall any. But in -some subsequent winter he embodied his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -recollections of the place and time in a delightful -landscape. All his life long, I think, -his results were arrived at more by means of -a slow, only half deliberate absorption when -out-of-doors than by a wilful effort to record -them at the time. Yet the one exception -to that statement which I distinctly -recall is a very great one: the Westchester -Hills, which is thought by many to be his -most perfect landscape. It was painted -entirely <i lang="fr">en plein air</i>, and many a day I sat -close by, reading aloud or knitting while it -was in progress. He never got so much as -an offer for it, nor was it until more than -two years after his death that a purchaser -was found sufficiently venturesome to end -a long hesitation by paying $1,000 to obtain -it. He was presently rewarded for his -temerity, I am happy to say, for when he -put it up at auction a few months later, -it brought him $4,750. The second purchaser -was still more fortunate, reselling it -for $5,300.</p> - -<p>Neither of us ever revisited Twin Lakes. -Later in the season we went to the farmhouse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -of Mr. Thaddeus Dewey, near Fort -Ann, N. Y., where we remained until late -in the autumn.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">My</span> husband retained his Albany studio -until the winter of 1862-63, when he went -to New York and for some months painted -in the studio of Mr. James Smillie. It -could hardly have been earlier than the winter -of 1864-65 that after many efforts he -succeeded in finding an empty studio in the -Tenth Street Studio Building—a little, -skylighted room on the top corridor which -he occupied continuously until he resigned -it before sailing for England the second -time in the fall of 1881. His forty-fifth -birthday came while he was on shipboard. -I followed him to London in the succeeding -June.</p> - -<p>His nearest neighbors in the Studio -Building for many years were Sanford R. -Gifford, Richard Hubbard, C. C. Griswold, -and J. G. Brown. Jervis McEntee and his -charming wife were on the corridor next -below; so was Julian Scott. Eastman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -Johnson and Launt Thompson were on the -ground floor. I think that John La Farge -must have come a little later. At any rate, -I do not remember him before the winter -of 1867-68. Failing, as often happened, to -find my husband in his own studio, I went -one day to that of Mr. La Farge on the -same corridor in search of him. He was -not there either, but I still retain a very -distinct recollection of Mr. La Farge, face -and characteristic attitude of doubtful welcome -for intruders quickly changing as he -divined my identity, asked me to enter, and -so began a friendship still unbroken. Of -course, Homer had talked a good deal to -me about him. Certain questions which had -been pressing on my mind with increasing -persistence ever since my father’s death in -1866, very speedily found expression in a -sort of personal catechism concerning his -hereditary faith which he, perhaps, may -likewise recall.</p> - -<p>We were fairly prosperous in those early -years, or might have been if we had been -constituted differently. “There is much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -virtue in If.” Homer’s landscapes were -often commissioned, and seldom remained -long on his easel in any case after they were -finished. But it was never possible to count -on any definite term as that of their probable -completion. He was a man of many -moods, and that one of them in which he -could paint and be satisfied after a fashion -with what he painted, was the most irregular -and uncertain of them all. He did not -possess his genius but was possessed by it. -His fallow periods were many. When they -passed away, the first sign that seeds had -begun to sprout again was often the entire -scraping out of a landscape that to others -had seemed to need only the final touches. -I asked him once in later years, at a time -when there was every need for exertion -were it possible, why he did not paint. It -was in 1881. “I cannot paint,” said he. -“I do not know where the impulse comes -from, nor why it stays away. All I know -is that when it comes I can do nothing else -but paint; when it goes I can do nothing -but dawdle.” That was absolutely true. It -was also very inconvenient.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> - -<p>But in that earlier period with which I -am still concerned, his pictures for years -brought him an income which averaged between -two and three thousand dollars, -sometimes more than that. It was war-time -and after. Prices were high for everything. -Money came at irregular intervals, -often so prolonged that, when it did come, it -had to be chiefly employed in the process he -once described as “mopping up debts;” a -kind of industry to which he found me -persistently addicted. Neither of us took -as much thought for the morrow as perhaps -we might have done had not the morrows -themselves seemed so uncertain a quantity. -Life used to present itself to me at that -time as a narrow path leading between -precipices, across turbulent brooks, over -stones that were slippery as well as sharp, -and whose end was nowhere in sight. In -fact, it never did become visible until, turning -at some unexpected angle, our cul-de-sac -would prove to have had a hidden outlet -after all. Perhaps this was why our frequently -recurring difficulties troubled us -more and taught us less than they might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -have done under different circumstances. -In the complex of life we ourselves were -circumstances. Once, in later years, he -casually remarked that I had never given -him a chance to get tired of me, because -he never knew what I would do next. Can -any one give what one has not got?</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus4"> - -<img src="images/illus4.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">ON THE HUDSON</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of John M. Robertson, Esq.</p> - -</div> - -<p>Meantime, we found life entertaining as -well as perplexing and difficult. Our little -boys were healthy, intelligent and good-tempered. -Homer’s work, when he could -once settle down to it, was always able to -divert his mind from every other preoccupation. -I had been writing book reviews -occasionally ever since the early spring of -1861 for the “Leader,” to which paper an -article of mine concerning Mrs. Rebecca -Harding Davis’s first novel had been sent -under a pseudonym by the brother I have -already referred to, who was a friend of -that eccentric genius, Henry Clapp. Later -on, I wrote once in a while for the “Round -Table,” and, after some date in 1866, when -Auerbach’s “On the Heights” was sent -me from the “Nation” editorial rooms for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -review, pretty steadily for that periodical. -Our friends were interesting to both of us. -If Homer ever “talked shop,” at least I -never heard him, and the men whose company -he instinctively sought were never -painters; or, since I must make an exception -in the case of John La Farge, they -were never merely that. He had a great -capacity for love, and the two men whom -he loved best were critics in the large sense: -John Richard Dennett, from the first time -they met until his untimely death in 1874; -and William C. Brownell from that period, -or perhaps before it, until the end.</p> - -<p>Painting was his own sole means of adequate -expression. Perhaps I ought not to -say that. I may not be an adequate judge, -and certainly I have heard great things -about his reputation as a talker at the -Century Club. But to me, from first to -last, he never talked about impersonal subjects—perhaps -because he could not consider -anything that affected me in a purely -impersonal light. I always read aloud to -him a great deal, but the books and topics<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -which interested me most after 1870 never -interested him at all. Until then we had -both been turning our intellectual searchlights -in every conceivable intellectual -direction. At that period mine steadied on -its proper centre and veered no more. But -to the very end I continued to read to him -whatever he desired to hear.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, even though he was too -many-sided not to find issue in more than -one direction, his pictures are the only permanent -result of his imperative need for -self-expression. He always detested what -he called literary pictures—pictures, that -is, that told or tried to tell a story. And -yet I think it true to say that if he is supreme -as a colorist it is largely because -color was to him an instrument, not an -end. He used it as a poet uses words. He -made it reflect not so much what is obvious -in nature as that duplex image into which -external nature fused itself with him, who -was also a part of nature. To me, this is -what individualizes his pictures. I think it -impossible to mistake them. When he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -in England the second time, I went to the -art rooms of Mr. Lanthier, whom I had -authorized to obtain from William Schaus -a landscape I had never seen, and which -had been for some months tucked away in -an upper room inaccessible to visitors. I, -at least, had been refused a sight of it when -I went to the Schaus gallery for that purpose. -The attendant told me they did not -exhibit American pictures. Lanthier obtained -possession of it, and when I saw it -I remarked that, as usual, it was unsigned. -“Unsigned!” protested he. “It is signed -from the top of the canvas to the bottom. -No one in the world could have painted it -but Homer Martin.” He sold it a few -days later to Mr. Sidney de Kay, whose -family, I believe, still possesses it.</p> - -<p>Homer went abroad for the first time in -1876, in company with the late Dr. Jacob -S. Mosher, an Albany friend of both of us -since before our marriage, and at that -period quarantine physician of the port of -New York. They went to France and Holland, -perhaps to Belgium, as well as to England.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -How far they penetrated into France -I do not remember, but I do recall—though -when Mr. Charles de Kay wrote to ask the -question some three years since I had forgotten—that -they visited Barbizon and -probably some of the painters whose classic -ground it was, and that Homer made some -pencilings both there and at Saint-Cloud. -They were absent for some considerable -time, and it was at this period that he made -acquaintance with the late James McNeill -Whistler.</p> - -<p>He sailed for England the second time in -October, 1881, and I joined him in London -early in the next July. On the “glorious -Fourth” we visited Mr. Whistler’s studio, -where Homer had occasionally painted. I -think it must have been there that he -painted, late in the previous autumn, a delightful -Newport landscape which was -bought at the Artist Fund sale of that season -by Mr. Lanthier for Mr. Charles de -Kay. Whistler’s beautiful portrait of his -mother—which I afterward saw in Paris -at the Salon—was on the easel, and it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -the only one of his pictures which I distinctly -recollect. There were some “nocturnes” -on the walls, and they were doubtless -worth remembering. But I never went -there again, and on this occasion my -attention was riveted by the artist and his -surroundings, alike spectacular and bizarre, -the man grotesque as a caricature in attitude -and aspect, the rooms all pale blue and -lemon-yellow, even to the many vases and -the flowers therein contained. He said a -good many things, not one of which was I -able to recall, so lost was I in contemplation -of the general oddity of him and his chosen -environment. “What did you think of -him?” asked Homer after we came away. -“Why didn’t you talk? You never said a -thing.” “I was afraid to open my lips,” -said I, “lest I should involuntarily tell him -to shake that feather out of his hair. He -must have had his head buried in a pillow -before we went in.” “I wish you had!” -said he with a laugh. “That is Jimmy’s -feather. He delights in having it noticed.” -I had observed that he bowed profoundly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -on our introduction and so brought it into -staring evidence; but I could scarcely believe, -even on testimony, that the premeditated -effect was produced by a quite unpremeditated -lock of gray hair.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus5"> - -<img src="images/illus5.jpg" width="600" height="380" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">BLOSSOMING TREES</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Mrs. Charles O. Gates</p> - -</div> - -<p>The especial occasion for this second -visit to England was the making of some -drawings illustrative of places mentioned -in the novels of Thackeray and George -Eliot. He had been there for some months -and they were hardly more than begun, but -after I came he worked at them pretty -steadily. It was an undertaking which he -did not at all enjoy, but which circumstances -had made imperative. When he -first told me of it in the previous summer, -he made it evident that he thought such a -commission derogatory to his dignity as a -painter. Whether it was that his pictures -were selling less readily, or because the -painting mood came with less imperative -frequency, I do not know, but he was -unusually despondent. The idea of the -voyage was pleasant in itself. One of -his never fulfilled longings was to cross<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -the ocean in a sailing vessel. His Artist -Fund picture was nearly due and could -be painted on the other side; he thought -the price of the drawings would pay all -his other expenses. And when an unexpected -stroke of good fortune made it -possible for me to join him, his sky cleared -up. I do not remember whether the English -drawings were successful; I do know -that they were tardy in reaching the New -York office of The Century Company, for -whose magazine they had been destined, -and that when, in the ensuing year, he sent -the same publishers a set of Villerville -drawings, accompanied by a sketch he had -suggested my writing about that delightful -haunt of painters, Mr. Gilder wrote me, -after some delay, that they had been much -interested in my article, but that their art -department was not satisfied with the drawings. -It was subsequently published in the -“Catholic World,” unaccompanied by the -illustrations, that magazine not then having -begun to produce any.</p> - -<p>In October of that year, the completion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -of the last drawing coincided with the arrival -in London of an old New York friend, -the late Mr. Bryant Godwin, and an invitation -to spend some weeks in Normandy with -the family of another, W. J. Hennessy, the -well-known artist and illustrator. There -was no further reason for delay in England, -and the three of us crossed the Channel -one night by the Southampton boat. I -have never forgotten my first sight of the -French shore next morning. “I don’t -wonder now at Rousseau’s color,” I said to -Homer; “how could he help it?”</p> - -<p>It had been our intention to return to -New York after a brief visit with the Hennessys, -who had been living for years in a -picturesque and pleasant way at Pennedepie, -an agricultural hamlet on the road between -Honfleur and Trouville, where they -occupied a roomy and quaintly furnished -old manor just opposite the village church. -But we found the place, the people, and the -neighboring views alike delightful, and -when news arrived, early in our stay, of a -considerable sum to his credit which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -been lying for some months uncalled for at -the American Exchange, London, where it -had been sent to his first address by Mr. -James Stillman, Homer decided on remaining -in Normandy. To have returned -to New York just then would have been a -distinct loss to both of us in many ways. -I look back on the time we spent in Villerville -as the most tranquil and satisfactory -period of our life together.</p> - -<p>That little fishing village, dominated by -the tower of a church erected when the eleventh -century was young, in thanksgiving -because the foreboded end of the world had -not come in the year 1000, lies about midway -between Honfleur and Trouville, at an -easy walk from Pennedepie. Equidistant -from either place stands the ivy-grown -church of Criquebœuf, beloved of artists, -and made by Homer the theme of one of his -best pictures. In the same grassy enclosure -on the right of the pond into which this old -church dips its foot, he found two more -delightful subjects. One of them is embodied -on one of his last canvases, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -“Normandy Farm,” now owned, I believe, -by Mr. Bloomingdale of New York. It -was bought in the first place by Mr. W. T. -Evans, a week or so before my husband’s -death. The other, a view of a deserted -manor, showing dimly through a veil of -ghostly trees, which Mrs. Hennessy declared -ought to be called “The Haunted -House,” was finished in New York after -his return for an early friend, Dr. D. M. -Stimson, to whom for many years he had -been greatly attached. I think it was exhibited -at the Chicago World’s Fair.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus6"> - -<img src="images/illus6.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">THE HAUNTED HOUSE</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Dr. D. M. Stimson</p> - -</div> - -<p>Villerville had for years been thronged -in summer and fall by painters, French, -English, and American; perhaps it is so -still. Guillemet had been there for twenty -consecutive seasons; Duez had built himself -a house and studio with a Norman tower. -Stanley Reinhart came both summers while -we were there, with that most sweet wife of -his and their pretty little children. The -Forbes-Robertsons had a little villa for a -while,—the parents, that is, and Miss -Frances, then a girl of sixteen; and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -actor son must have spent some considerable -part of his vacation with them, for -I recall a rather animated discussion we -had one night, pacing up and down the -<i lang="fr">estacade</i> in the moonlight, when he declaimed -in so ardent a fashion about the -intrinsic and extrinsic glories of England, -that a mere sense of equilibrium made the -interjection of a “What about Ireland? -What about India?” seem to me inevitable. -“Oh! unjust, if you insist,” said he. “But -I am an Englishman—Scotch as a matter -of fact, I suppose. And you must admit -that a man is bound to stand up for his -country, right or wrong.” It is a sentiment -I have never been able to understand. -Some of us, I suppose, are born cosmopolitans, -or else look forward to “an abiding -city wherein dwelleth justice,” since not -even patriotism can insist that it has a local -abiding place here.</p> - -<p>And that reminds me of another incident -belonging to the winter time, when, as there -was not an English-speaking soul in the -entire neighborhood except ourselves, our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -landlord one day brought me in despair a -lady whose vernacular it was, accompanied -by a French <i lang="fr">bonne</i> and two little children -as apple-faced and ruddy as Polly Toodles’ -babies. She explained that she was the -wife of a major in the English army, and -had but just returned with him from India; -also, that while there she had read such a -glowing description of the beauties of Villerville -in a copy of “The Queen,” that -she had determined to examine them for -herself. I did what I could for her in the -way of finding a furnished apartment, and -before they had removed to it, went one -morning to return her call at one of the -hotels. I found her and the major at a -late breakfast, with the English newspapers -lying about. The period antedated -Mr. Joseph Chamberlain’s change of his -political coat, the Irish question was well to -the front, and my new acquaintances spoke -English with one of the most sonorous -brogues that had ever greeted my ear. -Here was a case in which my own sympathies -and the presumable ones of my audience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -seemed naturally to invite a moderate -expression of views on a current topic. -Dead silence fell for a moment after I had -stopped speaking. Then the major said -with an accent that positively projected: -“Excuse me, but I am English: that is to -say, I am Irish, <em>but of the landlord class</em>!” -It was simply a matter of the point of view.</p> - -<p>It was this question of the seasons, I -think, which chiefly necessitated my learning -the language which was afterward of so -much use to both of us up to the very end. -It also necessitated a more incessant companionship -than at any period was ever possible -in the city of the Century Club. It was -easy to pick up French enough to carry on -such intercourse as was absolutely necessary -with the people about us, but my serious -study of it was undertaken in the first -place in order that I might continue to -read aloud to Homer in the evenings -after the available supply of English novels -and periodicals had been exhausted. I -began with About’s “Roi des Montagnes,” -my method being to read a sentence to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -accustom his ear and my tongue to the unfamiliar -sounds, and forthwith to translate -it literally. Of course, I had teachers, one -of whom had taught this, her native language, -in a London private school, while -a second was at the time professor of English -in the College of Honfleur. Curious -English it must have been! But he was -praiseworthily anxious to increase his own -knowledge as well as mine. But the best -one of the three was a delightful woman, -Mademoiselle Lemonnier, the village postmistress, -who did not know a word of -English although her mother had been an -Englishwoman. She was very well read -and intelligent as well as companionable -and kindly. I had applied to her, when my -first instructress found it impossible to -come any longer, to find me another. We -already knew each other pretty well, and -when she said, “If you will let me teach -you <em>for love</em>, I will do it myself, but if you -insist on paying, I will inquire for some one -else,” it was simply a new version of Hobson’s -choice. I could not have done better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -in any case. When Homer went abroad -for the last time, he made a point of crossing -the Channel to visit Mademoiselle -Lemonnier. Slender as were their means -of communication, they had managed to -understand and sympathize with each other -very completely, a strong sense of humor -on either side helping greatly to that consummation.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus7"> - -<img src="images/illus7.jpg" width="600" height="410" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">THE CRIQUEBŒUF CHURCH</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original drawing through the courtesy of Dr. D. M. Stimson</p> - -</div> - -<p>We lived in Villerville for nineteen -months. An excellent studio with two adjacent -rooms had been arranged for us -before our arrival, and we lunched and -dined at Madame Cornu’s hotel, providing -our breakfast in our own quarters. A -quaint old English priest whom I knew in -London, and who had to the full the hereditary -prejudice against “Johnny Crapaud,” -had warned me not merely of what -he believed to be the prevalent Jansenism -which would prevent so frequent an approach -to the sacraments as I had been -accustomed to, but against the cheating, the -conscienceless thievery to which he assured -me we would be subjected on all sides. “I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -would not spend a farthing in France!” -said he. Well, in Paris, perhaps, though -I had no personal experience of it even -there. But in Villerville, and afterward -in Honfleur, there was absolutely no exception -to the perfect cordiality, absolute -trust, and gentle politeness which greeted -us on all sides. I have never met anything -like it elsewhere save in the parish of the -Paulist Fathers in New York. I speak -from what may be called exhaustive knowledge, -since there was a period, before we -left the former place, when we were out of -money for so long that when at last we -were able to settle Madame Cornu’s bill -it amounted to the considerable sum of two -thousand francs. I had asked her some -time previously if she were not in need of -it, but only to receive the smiling answer: -“When Madame pleases. We are neither -of us robbers.” So in Honfleur, where, -after we had been domiciled for a month or -so, and had found our fresh bread and rolls -on the kitchen-window ledge every morning, -I went to the baker to inquire for and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -settle his account. “But, Madame,” objected -the fresh-cheeked young woman in -charge, “we have kept no account. Does -not Madame know how much it is herself?” -“Why, yes,” said I; “you have brought so -much for so many days at such a price.” -“<i lang="fr">C’est ça</i>” she smiled. “Whatever Madame -says.” And this, again, reminds me -of Madame Cornu and her remarkable -bill. There had been a price set in the first -place of so much a day for our two meals, -which were always abundant and well-cooked. -I knew the dates and was ready -with the exact sum. But when my tally -was placed beside her bill there was a discrepancy -arising from the fact that Homer -would sometimes be absent from the midday -meal by reason of a sketching excursion -or something of the sort, and she was -never notified beforehand. Yet on every -such occasion a deduction had been scrupulously -made. Such an experience never -befell us elsewhere.</p> - -<p>To Homer also Villerville was as delightful -as any place could be while lacking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -that social intercourse with men of brains -and cultivation which was always his chief -pleasure and relaxation. Years afterward, -Mr. Brownell said one evening when we -were all dining together in those pleasant -apartments of theirs on Fifty-sixth Street, -that the three weeks which he and his wife -had spent there with us seemed to him more -like his idea of heaven than anything he -remembered. And he asked me whether I -would not like to live it all over again. In -retrospect, yes; as I have just been proving. -But, were it possible in reality? O -no! Never have I seen a day that has -tempted me to say to it: “Stay, thou art -fair!”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus8"> - -<img src="images/illus8.jpg" width="600" height="390" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">GOLDEN SANDS</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Mrs. Wm. Macbeth</p> - -</div> - -<p>Our sojourn in Villerville was a particularly -important one for both of us, but in -different ways. For him it was a period of -absorption rather than of production, while, -on that very account, exactly the reverse -process went on in me. I have already said -it was at his suggestion that I accompanied -his Villerville drawings with an article -which, Mr. Brownell afterward wrote me,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -was like “a Martin landscape put into -words.” Homer perhaps thought so himself, -for he had already said: “I see that -you can paint with words. I wonder if you -can set people in action. Why not try?” -Whereupon I made a character sketch -which Mr. Alden, of “Harper’s Magazine,” -declined because “it was too -painful,” but which the then editor of -“Lippincott’s”—I think his name was -Kirk—found too short, and wrote me that -if I would lengthen it out so that it should -bear less resemblance to a truncated cone, -he would be glad to avail himself of it. -Whereupon I recalled it, fished up my heroine -out of an earthquake on the island of -Capri which I had allowed to swallow her, -but whom I now unearthed, none the worse -except in the matter of a broken wrist,—I -think it was a wrist,—and in a month or so -received a very fair-sized check for the tale -of her experiences.</p> - -<p>The same sort of exterior pressure, not -any interior need of expression, was what -led to the production of a tale which ran<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -for eighteen months as a serial in the -“Catholic World” under the title of -“Katharine,” and during that period provided -for our necessary expenditures. -Henry Holt republished it with a new -name which he himself suggested. I liked -the first one better, but it made too little -difference to me to make it worth while to -adhere to my own views. Mr. Kirk, by the -way, had also renamed my sketch: that -seems to be a privilege with literary sponsors, -the literary parent not being present. -Almost an entire chapter was also eliminated -from the book, because the reader, -whose name I never knew, objected to it -on the ground that it showed too plainly -that “Mrs. Martin really believed” that a -certain tenet of her faith was absolutely -true.</p> - -<p>I began a second story on the heels of -this one, but when it had run to some thirty -thousand words, Homer objected to it as -certain to split upon the same dogmatic -rock as its predecessor, and I laid it aside -for a third one which attained the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -proportions and pleased every one who then -or thereafter read it better than either of -its predecessors. But it had the misfortune -of not specially interesting me; and yet -there was a baby in it with the second sight, -who bade fair to develop into something -“mystic, wonderful,” in course of time, if -not interfered with. Meantime, the imperative -need for production on my part -having ended, I put the unfinished manuscript -in the fire some three years ago. The -second one I completed after our return -to New York, and it was published under -the title of “John Van Alstyne’s Factory,” -in the “Catholic World.”</p> - -<p>To Homer our life in France was chiefly -seed-time. There germinated his “Low -Tide at Villerville,” the “Honfleur Lights,” -the “Criquebœuf Church,” the “Normandy -Trees,” the “Normandy Farm,” -the “Sun Worshipers,” and the landscape -known in the Metropolitan Gallery of -New York, where it now hangs, as a -“View on the Seine,”—which, in strictness, -it is not,—but for which his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -title was “The Harp of the Winds.” -I had asked him what he meant to call -it, and, with his characteristic aversion -to putting his deeper sentiments into -words, he answered that he supposed it -would seem too sentimental to call it by the -name I have just given, but that was what -it meant to him, for he had been thinking -of music all the while he was painting it. -And this reminds me of a commission given -him by a music-lover among his friends -during our early days in New York to -“paint a Beethoven symphony” for him. -He did it, too, and to the utmost satisfaction -of its possessor.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus9"> - -<img src="images/illus9.jpg" width="600" height="420" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">ON THE SEINE (“HARP OF THE WINDS”)</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original painting in the Metropolitan Museum, New York</p> - -</div> - -<p>He used to carry about with him in those -days a pocket sketch-book in which he noted -his impressions in water-color. Mr. Brownell -must remember it, and so, I think, must -Mr. Russell Sturgis, for, being at our rooms -during my husband’s last sojourn on the -other side of the Atlantic, when he was -known to be afflicted with an incurable malady, -he said to me that if Homer’s things -were ever put up for sale, he would like to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -become the purchaser of this book. My -husband never got over his chagrin when -it became evident that it must have fallen -a prey to some unscrupulous packer of our -household goods at the time when he concluded -to follow me to St. Paul, in June, -1893. He had a suspicion that it might -have found its way to a pawnbroker, and -never gave up hoping for its ultimate recovery. -It had in it some delightful miniature -bits of character and color.</p> - -<p>It was in Villerville also that he began -the “Sand Dunes on Lake Ontario,” now -hanging in the Metropolitan Museum, New -York, with the intention of sending it to -the Salon. But before it was completed he -got into one of those hobbles which were -not uncommon in his experience, when the -more he tried to hurry the less he was in -reality accomplishing. It was in no condition -to be seen when the last day for -sending came, as we both agreed, yet he -sent it. Naturally enough, it was rejected. -I think that result surprised him less than -it momentarily annoyed him. He put the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -canvas aside and for months never touched -it. But one day during the next season, -while he was painting on it, a French -landscapist and his wife came to call -upon us. I forget his name. He studied -it in silence for a long time. Then -turning to me, he said: “Your husband’s -work reminds me strongly of that of Pointelin. -He must send this canvas to the next -Salon.” “It has been there once,” said -I, “and the jury rejected it,” adding, because -of his evident surprise, “It was not -then in its present condition.” “Nevertheless,” -he replied, “I cannot understand -a French jury rejecting such a picture in -any state in which Mr. Martin would have -sent it in at all.”</p> - -<p>I do not remember just why we removed -from Villerville. Perhaps because Homer -was able to obtain in Honfleur a roomy and -well-lighted studio apart from our dwelling-place, -an arrangement which he always -preferred. The little city from which William -the Norman set out on his conquering -expedition in 1066 had not the picturesque<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -charm of the village we left, but possessed -compensating features in the way of English -and American neighbors. Our whole -sojourn in France was, in fact, delightful, -and perhaps even more so to me than to -my husband. Through my mother there -was a good deal of French blood in my -veins, and in its ancestral environment it -throbbed with a rhythmic atavism unknown -elsewhere to my pulses.</p> - -<p>I think that notwithstanding the excellent -lighting arrangements of his studio, -my husband did not complete much work -in Honfleur. “The Mussel Gatherers,” to -me one of the most impressive of his later -canvases, was finished there, and though -I do not recall another for the Artist Fund -Sale, I suppose there must have been one. -A never-completed studio interior with a -portrait of me, and reproductions in miniature -of the studies hanging on the walls; -still another small portrait, a number of -panels, one of which, “Wild Cherry -Trees,” was in the Clarke Sale in 1897, and -various water-colors belong likewise to this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -period. Meanwhile his note-books were -filling up with material for future use.</p> - -<p>I sailed for New York at the end of -August, 1886, and Homer, who had remained -to finish some of the things I have -just named, followed me three months -later, arriving December 12th of that year. -In the following spring he secured one of -the studios in Fifty-fifth Street, having -previously utilized for that purpose a room -with a north light in an apartment we had -in Sixty-third Street. In his more convenient -quarters he painted a few great -pictures, among them the “Low Tide at -Villerville,” the “Sun Worshipers,” and -still another, the title of which I never -knew, and which I never saw until much -later, when going one day with the late Miss -a’Becket to the Eden Musée,—I think to -see something of her own in an exhibition -then in progress, of paintings belonging to -private owners,—this great canvas faced -me on the line of the opposite wall, and -startled me into the exclamation: “That -must be one of Homer’s!” It was full of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -light and color. The land on the left sloped -gradually down nearly to the middle of the -foreground, and the wonderful sheet of -water behind and beyond it that fairly rippled -out of the frame, was dazzling. What -he called it I do not know. To each other -we never gave his landscapes any name, nor -did he to any one else unless a purchaser required -a title, or there was question of a -catalogue. I think, however, that this canvas -may be one which was completed in -January, 1889, while I was in Toledo, and -which was bought almost as soon as finished -by Mr. Thomas B. Clarke. If so, it -changed hands very soon, and was possibly -taken away from New York. Homer -wrote me at the time about the sale. From -all I could learn of the Memorial Exhibition -at the Century Club in the spring of -1897—an exhibition which, to my lasting -regret, closed just before I was able to -reach New York—this picture was not included -in it.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus10"> - -<img src="images/illus10.jpg" width="600" height="430" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">TREES NEAR VILLERVILLE</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original water color in the collection of Mr. Wm. Macbeth</p> - -</div> - -<p>His last studio in New York—occupied -from 1890 until he went to St. Paul in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -June, 1893—was in a house belonging to -the Paulist Fathers and adjoining their -Convent in Fifty-ninth Street. There he -painted the “Normandy Trees,” the -“Haunted House” I have already referred -to as belonging to Dr. D. M. Stimson, -the “Honfleur Lights” now owned by -the Century Club, and began the “Criquebœuf -Church,” afterward completed in -St. Paul. In that house I first observed -that his eyesight, always imperfect, was becoming -still more dim. Never till then had -I known him to ask any one to trace an outline -for him. He thought, moreover, that -some serious internal trouble threatened -him, and consulted both an oculist and a -physician. In the early summer of 1892, -believing that an ocean voyage would benefit -him, he availed himself of the opportunity -afforded by the sale to the Century -Club of the “Honfleur Lights” and -sailed for the last time to England. He -spent a very considerable part of his absence -at Bournemouth, where resided the -family of Mr. George Chalmers, friendship<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -with whom must, I think, have been -coeval with his entire life in New York, and -lasted, on the part of the survivor, far beyond -it. Concerning this visit, Mr. Chalmers -wrote me a few years later, in reply to -my request that he should tell me about it: -“I do not feel that I can do Homer the -justice he deserves. Certainly that visit -greatly endeared him to me and to my wife, -and even to our Harold, who was then a -little mite, but who remembers him well. I -wish I could remember some of Homer’s -talk, always so charming, on our various -outings during that happy time—especially -about pictures, a subject with which he was -eminently so familiar. Two visits to the -National Gallery in London I recall in a -general sort of way, to be sure. I remember -how stirred he was as we stood before -the two Turners in the National Gallery, -presented by the artist on condition that -they should be placed next to the Claudes. -Homer regarded Turner’s challenging -comparison with the great Frenchman as -the sheerest audacity, and called attention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -to the fussiness and labored work of the -Turners compared with the ease and serene -dignity and splendor of the Claudes.”</p> - -<p>Curiously enough, Mr. Chalmers arrived -in New York from London the next day -after my own arrival from St. Paul, in -April, 1897, and took what I am sure could -not have been altogether agreeable pains in -order to render me a very important service.</p> - -<p>During this last absence of my husband -from America, I spent a part of my own vacation -in Ottawa, and while there received a -letter in which he asked me to write to the -oculist who had examined him—I think it -was Dr. Bull—and find out from him precisely -what was the condition of his eyes. I -did so, and received the painful verdict that -the optic nerve of one of them was dead, -while the other was partially clouded by a -cataract. I mention these facts in order that -my readers may get an adequate conception -of the enormous difficulties under -which his latest paintings were begun and -finished. Among these is the autumnal -known as “The Adirondacks,” exhibited at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -the Century Club Memorial Exhibition, -and bought shortly afterward by Mr. Untermyer -at the sale of Mr. T. B. Clarke’s -collection. Looking at it when he was giving -his final touches, I said to him: -“Homer, if you never paint another -stroke, you will go out in a blaze of glory!” -“I have learned to paint, at last,” he -answered. “If I were quite blind now, and -knew just where the colors were on my -palette, I could express myself.” Another -belonging to this period is the “View on the -Seine” already referred to, and which in an -earlier stage was, to my mind, still more -beautiful than it is at present. In its primitive -condition—and, indeed, from the moment -when it was first charcoaled on the canvas, -the trees so grouped that they suggested -by their very contour the Harp to which he -was inwardly listening—it was supremely -elegant. Elegance is still its characteristic -feature, but I wish he had left it as I saw it -first. “The trees were about four hundred -feet high!” he objected, when I told him -so, and I did not then, and do not now, see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -the force of the objection. It was a thing -of beauty, anyhow, and who but a pedant -measures those except by the optical illusion -and spiritual impression they produce?</p> - -<p>It was I who went first to St. Paul, -where our elder son resided, hoping to recover -by means of a long rest from the -fatigue entailed by incessant mental labor. -I had been editing, reviewing, translating, -finishing a novel, besides keeping house, -and began to feel as if my own mainspring -were liable to snap at any moment. This -was at the end of December, 1892. I -went, intending to return, and to continue -the writing of book reviews during my -absence. But in February I broke down -completely, gave up all work and all expectation -of resuming it in New York. In the -following June, Homer resigned his studio -and followed me, stopping on the way to -see the Chicago Exposition, where several -of his paintings were on view.</p> - -<p>In St. Paul he had for a while a very -good studio in one of the life insurance -buildings, and while there completed several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -pictures, among them that of the -“Criquebœuf Church,” selling it, almost as -soon as it reached New York, to Mr. William -T. Evans. This building was sold, -soon afterward, and converted to uses which -made it impossible as a studio.</p> - -<p>If my memory serves me correctly, it was -in the spring of 1894 that the Century Club -had a reunion of more than ordinary importance. -The special date and occasion I do -not recall, but I know that Homer’s presence -was so urgently desired by some of his -friends that he then paid his last visit to -New York, and to the place and associates -in it which had given him most satisfaction. -He was absent some six weeks, possibly -more, and I have since been told that -when he left, his physical condition was -such that his friends not merely gave up -hope of seeing him again, but expected -speedy tidings of his death. But the end -was not so near. It was to be preceded by -such a conquest of mind over matter, of -sheer will over propensities both inherited -and acquired, of triumphant performance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -in the face of physical obstacles apparently -insurmountable as is altogether unique in -my experience. Such efforts are never -made, I take it, except under the stimulus -of hope, and even that sheet-anchor often -fails when the soul is pusillanimous. But -Homer Martin was no coward. Moreover, -he had always been his own severest critic. -Mr. Montgomery Schuyler has quoted him -as saying in earlier years when the hangmen -exalted him “above the line” in exhibitions, -and buyers accepted that verdict as -conclusive: “If I could only do it, they -would see it fast enough.” Mr. Schuyler -adds: “But this was more modest than exact. -Even after he had attained the capacity -to ‘do it,’ to make canvas palpitate with -light and color, as the visitors to the Memorial -Exhibition know, the picture-buyers -of twenty years ago still failed to ‘see it.’”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus11"> - -<img src="images/illus11.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">CAPE TRINITY</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original drawing in the collection of Mr. Wm. Macbeth</p> - -</div> - -<p>But, at the period of his life with which -I am now concerned, he was not only conscious -that he had attained full mastery of -his own power of artistic expression by -means of color, but he had reason to believe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -that an opportunity had been afforded him -to make that mastery triumphantly evident. -Although his faith turned out to be ill-founded, -yet his belief to the contrary was -sufficient to make him rise at once to his full -strength and shake off without apparent -effort whatever other shackles had hitherto -confined him. He was like nothing so much -as blind Samson after his hair had grown, -and he carried off the gates of old habits -and flung them aside as easily as if he had -never felt their weight. In the late spring -of that year he went away alone to a quiet -farm, taking with him the canvases on -which “The Adirondacks,” the “Seine -View,” and the “Normandy Farm” were -already charcoaled, and set to work at -their development and completion. From -time to time he would come into the city, -his step alert and his physical improvement -so apparent in every way, that -my apprehension that his health was already -shattered irreparably gave way to -confidence that years of life and successful -achievement were still before him. As<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -for him, I think he never fully believed that -the doctors were right in considering his -bodily condition hopeless until a short time -before his death. He had always looked -confidently forward to such length of days -as both of his parents and others of his more -remote forbears had attained. “I never -thought,” he said to me one night, a week -or two before his death, “that I was shortening -my life in this way.” As to his -blindness, it never became entire, and having -been accustomed from the beginning to -defective vision while yet absorbing his -material through the eye and appealing to -it in his production, he had, in a measure -bewildering to hear of and barely credible -to us who beheld it in its final efforts, -learned to rely almost entirely on his inward -vision and the hand which responded as it -were instinctively to its impulse and suggestion.</p> - -<p>The pictures I have named went to New -York in the late autumn of 1895, and were -at once acknowledged with hearty words of -praise and a preliminary check. My husband<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -was back at home by this time, and, -full of vigor and the anticipation of assured -success, had begun three or four other -landscapes. Only one of these was -ever completed, but that was so present -to his imagination, and his steady hand -moved in such obedience to his will, that -it took visible shape almost without an -effort. He had begun making plans for -the future and seemed to have renewed his -youth. And then, when the year was -nearly ended, his hopes were shattered by -the tidings that the pictures were found to -be unsalable, and had been, or were to be, -transferred to other hands which might or -might not be more successful in finding -purchasers for them.</p> - -<p>This was the end, so far as further work -was concerned. My Samson fell once more -into the hands of the Philistines, and this -time not to rise again.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;" id="illus12"> - -<img src="images/illus12.jpg" width="600" height="360" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption1">A NEWPORT LANDSCAPE (The Artist’s Last Work)</p> - -<p class="caption2">Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Frank L. Babbott, Esq.</p> - -</div> - -<p>Over those final days, I have not the -heart to linger. In all ways, they were -inexpressibly painful. In August of the -following year, a growth in his throat made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -its appearance. Although it never caused -him intense physical anguish until a few -days before his death, when it seemed to -have made its way to the brain, it caused -him great discomfort. So long as hope remained -that it was not malignant and -might be removed, he felt and expressed an -irritation which, under the precise circumstances, -was only natural. But when, late -in October, about the time of his sixtieth -birthday, the specialist who was attending -him pronounced it cancerous, his mood -changed. Certain thoughts, certain memories, -certain injustices of which he had felt -himself the victim, would still move him to -indignation when the recollection of them -recurred, but he bore his physical trials with -wonderful and unalterable patience. A -Unitarian clergyman in the neighborhood -began calling on him in the early winter -and contributed much to his entertainment -in some of my unavoidable absences. But, -as Christmas was approaching, my husband -asked me to request the Reverend Doctor -Shields, now Professor of Psychology in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -the Catholic University at Washington, -D. C., to pay him a visit. Said he: “L⸺ is -a good fellow; he thinks just as I do about -the tariff and the civil service, and he likes -good books. But, what all that has to do -with his profession, considered as a profession, -I do not clearly see.” Therefore I -preferred his request to Dr. Shields, who -might reasonably have refused it, as he was -not doing parish duty but employed in -laboratory work at the Ecclesiastical Seminary -in St. Paul. He came, nevertheless, a -number of times, paying his last visit on the -Saturday evening before Homer died. And -then, before leaving, he said to me: “There -is not the ghost of a hope that your husband -will do just exactly what you wish him to -do. And, for my part, I am content to -leave him in the hands of God just as he is. -He is absolutely honest. If he could take -another step forward, he would do it.” -And, on his part, Homer said to me, -“Father Shields has the clearest mind of -any man I ever met. I wish I had known -him three years ago. But now my head is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -in such anguish that I can no longer keep -three or four threads of argument in my -mind at the same time.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">One</span> day in Honfleur, Homer broke a -protracted silence by saying, “I hope that -I shall die before you do.” To which I -answered, “I hope so too.” “You think -that you could get along better without me -than I could without you?” he asked, and -I said, “I know I could.” And now, two -days before he died, he said, “I am glad -that I am going first”; adding a few more -words which it pleases me to remember, -but which I shall not repeat. And again -I told him that I was glad also. Later -still, he asked me what I meant to do when -he was gone, and when I said I hoped to -enter a convent, he replied, “That is just -what I supposed. Well, it is a beautiful -life.”</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Homer Martin, by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMER MARTIN *** - -***** This file should be named 55498-h.htm or 55498-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/4/9/55498/ - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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