Page:Masterpieces of the sea (Morris, Richards, 1912).djvu/37

MASTERPIECES OF THE SEA a litterateur as he was a painter in those days, and with some chosen spirits established a club which they named 'Forensic and Literary Institute.' I had nothing to do with this. Long years after we made a trip to New York together and lay awake far into the night talking over our boyish experiences.

"After his marriage he removed his family to the country and I lost sight of him for a while. Later he occupied a studio in the Art Union building with Alexander Lawrie. Paul Weber was the most successful landscape painter in Philadelphia at the time and represented the Germanesque side of the art, and Richards was reported to have received instruction from him, but I have no knowledge of it, and never thought to ask him if it was true. There was, however, no indication of it in his manner of painting. Turner and English art were in the ascendancy, and Richards became an imitator of the former with large ambitious canvases of which the chief merit lay in the skilful drawing. This, 21