Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/94

 254 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candor never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation ; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse. " His talents of every kind — powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated in letters — his social virtues in all the relations and all the habitudes of life, ren- dered him the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable so- cieties, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow." BENJAMIN WEST By Martha J. Lamb* (I 738-I 820) I n the wilds of the new world, a century and a half ago, there was, apparently, no spot less likely to produce a famous painter than the Quaker province of Pennsylvania. And yet, when George Washington was only six years old there was born, in the little town of Spring- field, Chester County, a boy whose interesting and remarkable career from infancy to old age has provided one of the most instructive les- sons for students in art that America affords. Perhaps Benjamin West's aptitude for picture-making in his infancy, while he was learning to walk and to talk, did not exceed that of hosts of other children, in like circum- stances, in every generation since his time. But many curious things were remembered and told of this baby's performances after he had developed a decided talent for reproducing the beautiful objects that capti- vated his eye. It was in the summer of 1745, a few months before he was seven years old, that his married sister came home for a visit, bringing with her an in- fant daughter. The next morning after her arrival, little Benjamin was left to keep the flies off the sleeping baby, while his mother and sister went to the gar- den for flowers. The baby smiled in its sleep, and the boy was captivated. He must catch that smile and keep it. He found some paper on the table, scram-
 * Reprinted by permission, from the Magazine of American History.