Page:Masterpieces of the sea (Morris, Richards, 1912).djvu/28

WILLIAM T. RICHARDS interview, and a long career of brilliant success justified the step and reconciled opposing views. It was, perhaps, this self-reliance and quiet courage of attitude toward daily life which gave the slender frame, the unadventurous cast of mind, a bias for painting the most savage seas and the most overpowering cliffs. It was always a problem to me why this small, quiet gentleman should have found his joy along the wildest of coasts. We associate the big muscular man with such employment. But Mr. Richards, light and delicate of mould, was fascinated by the grim scenery of Tintagel and Staffa and loved the cliffs he found in Maine and Rhode Island.

Indeed, it was he who first built a house on the bare granite front of Conanicut Island opposite Newport, and it is told of him that he was one day painting on this rugged shore when a tidal wave rolled in and almost carried him back with it. I do not remember to have seen him swim in the salt, though he 16