Page:Masterpieces of the sea (Morris, Richards, 1912).djvu/18

WILLIAM T. RICHARDS that "he stood for hours in the early days of Atlantic City or Cape May, with folded arms, studying the motion of the sea,—until people thought him insane. After days of gazing, he made pencil notes of the action of the water. He even stood for hours in a bathing suit among the waves, trying to analyse the motion." He could paint the action and color of the water more faithfully than most artists, and his rendition of it was an inspiration to untrained eyes; but he believed that there was a level of truth above his execution, and he kept his youth alive to the end in following this ideal.

His alertness in the business of art was not incompatible with the most unflinching adherence to his standards of perfection. His old friend, Mr. W. H. Willcox, tells an anecdote of a one-time celebrated picture by Mr. Richards which illustrates this. "He painted," says Mr. Willcox, "a blackberry bush in the open air, which almost everybody conversant with art in Philadelphia at that period still remembers. Mr. 10