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604 LIVING AMERICAN ARTISTS.

party for President at the election of 1869. He failed of election by a single vote; in 1870, by two votes ; but in 1871 the tide of progress had set in too strongly for successful opposition, if such were meditated, and Page was elected. And here ended the brief combat of parties, and a happy fusion followed, the immediate result of which has been an activity in Academy matter full of promise.

This we have William Page the President of the National Academy of Design to-day, and chosen to that position--one of the highest attainable amongst us--by the party of progress.

"The child is father of the man ;" the boy-worker, the art devotee of fifty years ago, is the leader amongst the workers of to-day, with enthusiasm unabated, and with an ardor of pursuit to which the history of but few lives presents a parallel.

Let us enter his studio, Asmodeus fashion, and hear a sermon the text which is laborare es rare.

This is the room he has occupied for several years. You perceive it is approached in the ordinary way by a narrow flight of stairs from the Exhibition Hall beneath, into which we look over the balcony that bounds one side of the studio.

Yes, that white-haired, white-bearded man is he. The plaster model at which he works in the corner there is of a head of Shakespeare, which he is fashioning, aided by photographic views of the celebrated mask of that poet's face discovered in Germany ; by that engraving of the Chandos portrait ; and by the copy of the Stratford bust, half buried among the wonderful litter of his table. To each and all of these he refers in turn, that he may add another truth of form to the face before him. From this model when completed, he will paint a portrait of Shakespeare which, he believes, will be the first that has been better than a caricature of the bard.

Would you believe it! he has been over a year at work upon that lump of paster--at work day in, day out, from dawn to sunset : during the past summer he took no vacation, that he might proceed with it ; and he has set aside much profitable labor lest it should interfere with this work.

That mask has cost him its weight in gold already, and it is not yet finished. This statement is no figure of speech, but a literal truth. Fifteen thousand dollars would not more than pay him for the work upon it, estimating his labor at its present market value.

"Why all this labor?" you may say; "will the end repay it?" Perhaps.

See now, the artist turns, lays down his modeling tool and cup of plaster, and lights his pipe, as conscious of what he is about as the philosopher who used the lady's finger for a tobacco-stopper. He is still the dreamer, you perceive, and if you could hear him talk you would find him quite as speculative on matters of philosophy and religion as he was forty year sago. And whilst he is by no means fluent--on the contrary, rather slow of speech--he is withal one of the best talkers we have ever heard, and we own no rival in our heart to him as a reader of rhythmic composition. It is a rare treat to hear him recite the sonnets of his favorite poet, or a pet passage from the poems of his scarcely less beloved Lowell.

You see how bravely he carries his sixty-odd years ; how cheery and hopeful he looks. Ay ! and he often sings too, in that cage of his !

What a look of the master of color he loves so much he puts on as he grows old ! How the first glance at him sends the student's thoughts back to his books again--to the days when Art sat as upon a throne and men worshiped her for the beauty and the joy, she gave them; when artist were the children of the People, of the States, and not mere mechanics, as most of them, through necessity, now are.

A link 'twixt the old and the new is William Page. Would that there were more, with so much of the old in them--so much of the spirit of self-sacrifice betrayed in the twelve-months' labor on that plaster head !

Is he much interrupted in his work? Yes, very much. Probably no artist living has as many friends to make demands upon his time--whose interruptions are so difficult to dispose of. For his callers are not bankers with whom minutes are as jewels, but orators, poet and literary men, who visit him that they may hear him talk of this or that--the prominent topic of the day; or better still, to listen to his reminiscences of European life,--the men he met, the scenes he visited,--for of treasures of the past he is as inexhaustible as the sea. And he visits his fellow-artist of the building a good deal--that is to say, he rests himself