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Then followed–much of which was news to me–an account of the painter’s earlier life and successes.

He was born in Paris, August 3, 1873; his father, Ridgway Knight, the distinguished painter, and his mother, who was Rebecca Morris Webster, both being Philadelphians. Not only is he, therefore, of true American descent, but his eight great-grandparents were Americans, dating back to Thomas Ridgway, who was born in Delaware in 1713. Thus by both the French and American laws he is an American citizen.

At fourteen he was sent to Chigwell School in England by his father, to have “art knocked out of him” by the uncongenial surroundings of the quiet old school where the great William Penn had been taught to read and write. He left in 1890, having won the Special Classical Prize, Oxford and Cambridge certificate Prize, besides prizes for carpentering, gymnasium, running, and “putting the weight.”

At home the boy always drew and painted for pleasure, as well as at school during the half-holidays. Some water-colors made during a holiday trip in Brittany in 1890 decided his father to allow him to follow art as a career. He entered Julian’s studio, with Jules Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury as professors in 1891, and studied from the nude during the five following winters. His principal work was, however, done in the country at and around Poissy, under the guidance of his father.

His exhibits in the Paris Salon (artistes Francais) were twenty-four oils and water-colors from 1894 to 1906, obtaining an honorable mention in 1901 with the “Thames at Whitchurch”; a gold medal, third class, in 1905, with “The Torrent”; and a gold medal, second class, in 1906, with his triptych “The Giant Cities” (New York, Paris, London), which makes him hors concours, with the great distinction of being the first American landscape painter to get two Salon gold medals in two consecutive years. He won also a bronze medal in the American section of the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900 with a water-color, and a gold medal of honor at Rheims, Cherbourg, Geneva, and Nantes.

His most important pictures are: “The Torrent,” 4 1/2 x 6 feet, owned by the Toledo Art Gallery; “The Abandoned Mill,” 4 1/2 x 6 feet; “The End of the Island,” 6 x 8 feet; “Clisson Castle,” 3 x 4 1/2 feet, a water-color; “After the Storm,” 3 x 5 feet; and “Winter in Holland,” 3×4 feet.

I had listened to the Sculptor’s brief account of his friend’s progress with calm attention, but it had not altered my opinion of the man or his genius. None of it really interested me except that somebody beside myself had found out the lad’s qualities–for to me he is still a lad. None of the jury who made the awards ever looked below the paint–that is, if they were like other juries the world over. They saw the brush-mark, no doubt, but they missed the breeze that came with it–was its life, really–a breeze that swept through and out of him, blowing side by side with genius and good health–a wind of destiny, perhaps, that will carry him to climes that other men know not of.

But what a refreshing thing, this breeze, to come out of a man, and what a refreshing kind of a man for it to come out of! No pose, no effort to fill a No. 8 hat with a No. 7 head; just a simple, conscientious, hard-working young painter, humble-minded in the presence of his goddess, and full to overflowing with an uncontrollable spontaneity. This in itself was worth risking one’s neck to see.

Again the cry rang out, “Marie!” and two half-drowned water-rats stepped in; the Man from the Quarter in his underpinning–his pair of boots leaked and he had stripped them off–and Knight with his own half full of water. Both roared with laughter at Marie tugging at the huge white-rubber boots, the floor she had scrubbed so conscientiously spattered with sand and water.

Then began the customary recriminations: “Hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have lost him!” “What had I to do with it?” etc., etc.–the same old story when neither gets a bite.

That night, bumping over the thank-you-marms, flashing through darkened villages, and scooting in a dead heat along ribboned roads ghostly white in the starlight, on the way back to my garden–and we did arrive safely, and the chauffeur had his magnum (that is, his share of it)–I could not help saying to myself:

“Yes, it’s good to be young and bouyant, but it’s better to be one’s self.”