He did not paint much, and the
few who knew his pictures deplored the fact that no temporal inducement
called upon him to handle his brush oftener. A few excused him on the plea
of his health, which was at all times indifferent, but he never excused
himself. It needed something far from the beaten track to inspire him, and
inspiration was rare. But let a subject once grip him and the artist's life
centered and fastened upon it until his work was done. He sacrificed
everything at such a time; he slaved; labor was to him as a debauch to the
drunkard, and he wearied body and mind and counted his health nothing while
the frenzy held him. Then, his picture finished, at the cost of the man's
whole store of nervous energy and skill, he would probably paint no more
for many months. His subject was always some transcript from nature,
wrought out with almost brutal vigor and disregard of everything but truth.
His looks belied his work curiously. A small, slight man he was, with
sloping shoulders and the consumptive build. But the breadth of his head
above the ears showed brain, and his gray eyes spoke a strength of purpose
upon which a hard, finely-modeled mouth set the seal. Once he had painted
in the West Indies: a picture of two negresses bathing at Tobago. Behind
them hung low tangles of cactus, melo-cactus and white-blossomed orchid;
while on the tawny rocks glimmered snowy cotton splashed with a crimson
turban; but the marvel of the work lay in the figures and the refraction of
their brown limbs seen through crystal-clear water.
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