From the Introductory.
I have passed so many pleasant hours in the company of Mr. Richards that the sweet and strong personality has almost replaced in my memory the claims of the distinguished artist. He used to come in to see me for a chat of half an hour or more, and he would discourse on so much that was delightful, yet outside the pale of his art, that I sometimes forgot, and still forget, that the kindly, intellectual gentleman was also a masterful painter.
He would enter almost shyly, so modest and quiet was he?a short, slight frame, little in keeping with the great forces he evoked in his work. He was clad in demurest colors and often wore a soft black hat dented at the top, which crowned his benign white hair as an artist likes. There was nothing of the pose of his craft about him, no eccentric hue or fashion; and yet his manner, the cast of keen observation in his face, and the easy grace of his carriage, denoted the man of original thought and unconstrained opinion, the artist who sees a little deeper into objective life than most people, and whose instincts are, therefore, less confined to convention.
No tame acceptance of authority was his; he thought for himself in his gently self-reliant fashion, and he had evolved a tranquil philosophy that was drawn both from just perception and wide reading.
And the face below the hat?what sweet serenity of expression; what goodness, that would laugh at prudery but sympathize with its limitations; what tolerance and friendliness and acceptance; what invitation to intercourse, and what understanding of human needs! And yet, however much the feelings and heart may have been moved, within that face there was no grief and bitterness; no vain impulses hurried it; no ambition ruffled J. R. Lambdin made a sketch at the same time, not far from where Richards was working. A boy, looking at Lambdins picture, said: Mister, how long did it take you to make that? Lambdin mentioned a few days, when the boy said, Good for you; that fellow up there has been all summer over his. In further illustration of the trait in question, Mr. Willcox tells us that the picture was not more than twenty inches long, but it made a marked impression in art circles, and sold for six hundred dollars. Subsequently the owner became financially embarrassed, and asked Richards to sell it for him. Richards replied by promptly taking it off his hands at the same price. Richards probably knew that he never would do that kind of thing again, and wished to retain it. But it finally cracked, though the faithful work on it is still visible.