40In two images titled: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw150346/Leopold-Hamilton-Myers-as-TheCompassionateCherub?set=247%3BPhotographs+by+Eveleen+Myers&wPage=0&search=ap&rNo=6.
41“Battleground” . . . “a war of boys”: Dorothy Comyns Carr diary, February 5, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection.
41“probably 50 or 60” . . . “Only 2 years ago”: Ibid., March 2, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection.
41One evening after dinner: Ibid., March 6, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection. In response to Doll’s tears, “General Palmer [was] disappointed & thought us squeamish.”
42“that burning time”: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer, December 20, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection.
42“I touched the sky”: Ibid., November 19, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection.
42What Elsie and Peter didn’t know: Dorothy Palmer to Marjory Palmer, November 29, 1902, Tim Nicholson Collection. “Tell me everything,” she writes.
42A keen student of emotions: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer, undated, Tim Nicholson Collection.
42“My Marje”: Dorothy Palmer to Marjory Palmer, November 29, 1902, Tim Nicholson Collection.
43“Oh! For a day”: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer, December 5, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection. Peter often refers to Elsie in his letters as “Else,” but for purposes of clarity I’ve changed it to “Elsie.”
43“that very calm expression” . . . “I belong to you.”: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer, November 4, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection.
44torrent of letters “is life to me”: Ibid., October 29, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection.
44Yet at times Elsie wondered: Ibid., November 19, 1903, and December 2, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection. She has expressed “heavy doubts” in an earlier letter to him. Peter, fearing she will break off their relationship, writes, “No one comes anywhere near you. Else you mustn’t leave me now. I couldn’t bear it: you are in my bones.”
44Increasingly brazen: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer, November 23, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection. He tells her about keeping photographs of her in open sight, and that one guest was “horrified . . . & wondered you allow them to be seen!”
44Dos knows about us: Ibid., December 6, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection.
44her beautiful voice (like a “meadowlark”): Ibid., December 17, 1903, Tim Nicholson Collection.
44“Tell me of Dos: always”: Ibid., January 15, 1904, Tim Nicholson Collection.
44“For plain love”: Ibid., March 7, 1904, Tim Nicholson Collection.
44Can you imagine “that Dos” . . . “with your ‘quiet way’ ”: Ibid., January 30, 1904, Tim Nicholson Collection.
45“I am walking on the clouds”: Ibid., in Paris, April 22, 1904, Tim Nicholson Collection.
45“poetess: for everything shared”: Ibid., April 28, 1904, Tim Nicholson Collection. After having visited Colorado, “Señor” was Peter’s preferred signature to Elsie.
45twenty-three-year-old Dos as his “standard”: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer, May 11, 1904, Tim Nicholson Collection.
45Peter urged Elsie to send Dos: Ibid., May 8, 1904, Tim Nicholson Collection. “I shall be sorely disappointed for her (and myself) if she doesn’t come soon: You just ought to send her and risk it.”
46“delicious lines of throat”: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer, July 2, 1904, Tim Nicholson Collection.
46In a way, Sargent put his stamp of approval: Ormond and Kilmurray, Sargent: Portraits of Artists, 216.
47“It seems to be a sort of paradise”: Gustafson, “General William Jackson Palmer,” in Blevins et al., Legends, Labors & Loves, 85. For descriptions of the newly renovated castle: McGilchrist, “The Gardens of Glen Eyrie,” in Blevins et al., Legends, Labors & Loves, 226–27, 233; Black, Queen of Glen Eyrie, 123; Dorothy Comyns Carr diary, February 21, 1903, and May 10, 1903; http://www.fortcarsonmountaineer.com/2016/05/city-founders-castle-glen-eyrie/; and https://www.gleneyrie.org/Visit-The-Castle/GlenEyrieHistory/Glen-Eyrie-Castle.
47His idea of introducing adventure: Elsie Palmer diary, September 1, 1895, Tim Nicholson Collection.
48The year ended tragically: Nicholl, “William Jackson Palmer: Living while Dying,” in Blevins et al., Legends, Labors & Loves, 273, 275–79.
48A battery of doctors: Lynn A. Gilfillan-Morton, “General Jackson Palmer’s Riding Accident, Palliative Care & Death, 1906 to 1909,” in Blevins et al., Legends, Labors & Loves, 293, 297, 301, 305.
49He ordered a “Stanley Steamer”: Nicholl, “William Jackson Palmer: Living while Dying,” in Blevins et al., Legends, Labors & Loves, 280–81. Description of his car being driven “at breakneck speed” in Wolcott, Heritage of Years, 157.
49“On this couch lay”: Garland, Companions on the Trail, 355–56.
49Like a duke of old: Nicholl, “William Jackson Palmer: Living While Dying,” in Blevins et al., Legends, Labors & Loves, 282–83. Photograph of reunion, Special Collections and Archives, Tutt Library, Colorado College.
50Out of the blue, Elsie announced: Rowena Bell to Elsie Palmer, January 11, [1908], Tim Nicholson Collection. Rowena Bell, a friend, was so surprised she asked Elsie how long she had known Leo.
50One thing is certain: He was not after Elsie’s money: Fitzgerald, Introduction to Myers, The Root, viii.
50On the evening of January 20, 1908: “Bride’s Wrap of Bronze,” New York Times, January 21, 1908, 1.
51“was like dew”: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer Myers, summer 1908, Tim Nicholson Collection.
51Under the headline: “Not a $1,000,000 Baby,” New York Times, December 26, 1908, 2.
51The New York Times immediately began: “Gen. Palmer Dies Leaves $15,000,000,” New York Times, March 14, 1909, 11. “$6,000,000 to Palmer Heirs,” New York Times, March 15, 1909, 1.
51Peter wrote back saying: Peter Harrison to Elsie Palmer Myers, March 15, 1909, Special Collections and Archives, Tutt Library, Colorado College.
52From Corfu, Greece: John Singer Sargent to Elsie Palmer Myers, October 31, [1909], Tim Nicholson Collection.
53World War II Liberty Ship: Lt-Colonel George H. Krause to Elsie Palmer Myers, December 11, 1943, Special Collections and Archives, Tutt Library, Colorado College.
53“a very over-rated pleasure”: Bantock, L. H. Myers, 152.
53She was helped in her final years: 1949 photograph of Elsie Palmer Myers and “Harvey,” the groom at Glen Eyrie, with a description by Tim Nicholson, Elsie’s grandson. Special Collections and Archives, Tutt Library, Colorado College.
CHAPTER TWO: THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE
54“greatest thing”: Lucia Fairchild Fuller to Harry Fuller (hereafter Lucia, Harry, respectively), June 18, [1898], Fairchild-Fuller Papers. Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth.
54scrapbook: Mary Newbold Patterson Hale, “The Sargent I Knew,” published originally in The World Today (November, 1927). Hale described herself as Sargent’s constant companion when he was in Boston between 1916 and 1925.
55The snapshots are . . . round: The earliest version of the Kodak camera produced circular images.
55“ever-hospitable” . . . “wonderfully decent”: John LaFarge, S.J., The Manner Is Ordinary (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1954), 43–44.
56Years later, Sally Fairchild: Mount, John Singer Sargent, 1957 ed., xii, 152–53.
56“legend”: Ormond and Kilmurray, Early Portraits, 206.
57“One look”: Interview with owner.
57Broadway: While in Broadway during the summers of 1885–1886, Sargent painted his masterpiece Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, the dreamlike evocation of two young girls lighting Japanese lanterns amidst a garden of lilies and roses.
58Sally’s memory: Mount, John Singer Sargent, 1955 ed., 155–56.
59“knights of the quill”: Boston Globe, December 16, 1874.
59high-brow commune: Blair Fuller, Art in the Blood (Berkeley, CA: Creative Arts Book, 2001), 168.
59Fairchild built a house: Charles Fairchild to W. D. Howells, April 6, 1877, bMS Am 1784 (59
2). Houghton Library, Harvard University.
59“fairy abode”: Van Wyck Brooks, Howells: His Life and World (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1959), 128.
61“goddess of my childhood”: Clippings 1910–1924, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
61“Things I must learn” . . . “Courage”: Lucia Fairchild 1890 diary, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
61“He is so great”: Miller, “John Singer Sargent in the Diaries of Lucia Fairchild,” 4.
61eccentric author: Maud Howe Elliott, This Was My Newport (Cambridge, MA: Mythology, 1944), 101. Ernest Mehew, ed., Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 344.
61“very intense”: Stevenson to Sidney Colvin, September 24, 1887, Mehew, Selected Letters of Stevenson, 345.
62“salvation of your souls”: Robert Louis Stevenson to Lily Fairchild, September 1890. Sidney Colvin, ed., The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson to His Family and Friends, vol. II (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1907), 246.
62published poetry: Fuller, Art in the Blood, 119.
62father made a deal: Clara Fuller Taylor, “To all Lucia Fairchild Fuller’s Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren,” 2. Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
62“grand cubic chords” . . . “dreadfully morbid”: Miller, “John Singer Sargent in the Diaries of Lucia Fairchild,” 5.
63“Very green, those trees”: Ibid., 13.
63inky silhouettes: Ibid., 5.
63“Portrait painting” . . . “a dangerous thing”: Ibid., 7.
63“wonderfully handsome & tanned”: Ibid., 11.
64“Terrific love”: Ibid., 13.
64Henry Fuller: Fuller, Art in the Blood, 164–65.
64“Leading Artist”: Ibid., 155.
65Harry’s talent: Ibid., 180–82.
65kowtow to the rich: Ibid., 179.
65“You are a God”: Ibid., 183.
65mural for the Woman’s Building: Charlene G. Garfinkle, “Lucia Fairchild Fuller’s ‘Lost’ Woman’s Building Mural,” American Art 7 (Winter 1993), 2.
66“greatest gathering”: Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1848–1907: A Master of American Sculpture (Toulouse, France: Musée des Augustins, 1999), 11.
66simple wedding: Fuller, Art in the Blood, 190–91.
66romantic plan: Taylor, “To all Lucia’s Grandchildren,” 1, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
66Lucia sought refuge: Lucia to Harry, August 30, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
66“Luddy, you lazy girl”: Ibid.
67“fleshing up”: Ibid., September 10, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
67“hob-goblins”: Ibid., August 31, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
67“Dearest dearest Harry”: Ibid., August 29, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
67She fretted: Ibid., August 31, 1894, and September 9, 10, and 17, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
67“Harry you make me so afraid”: Ibid., October 30, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
67“It makes me respect you”: Ibid.
68“Dearest little Harry”: Ibid., October 1, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
68she’d made a mistake: Ibid., October 30, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
68Lucia had an idea: Ibid., September 9, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers. A Mrs. Smith asked how much she’d charge for a miniature and Lucia said thirty-five dollars.
68ranging in size: Kathryn Rawdon Senior thesis, Art History, Smith College, 1996, 12. Philip Read Memorial Library, Plainfield, New Hampshire.
68“a miniature brings”: Lucia Fairchild Fuller, “The Miniature as an Heirloom,” [undated], 1. Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
68Producing a miniature: Rawdon thesis, 12–13.
69“There she is” . . . “I hope you find it pays”: Lucia to Harry, October 11, 1894, postmarked “Jefferson Hotel overlooking Union Square,” Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
70“Release me”: Lucia to Harry, [October 1894], Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
70He wrote back: Ibid., October 12, 1894, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
70She gave birth: Taylor, “To all Lucia’s Grandchildren,” 2, Fairchild-Fuller Papers. Clara was born March 17, 1895.
70The doctor warned her: Ibid., 3. Charles was born January 11, 1897.
70“my arms ache to hold her”: Lucia to Harry, July 12, 1896, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
70“the dear birds”: Ibid., [undated 1898, probably June 1898], Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
70“mama all gone”: Harry to Lucia, May 13, 1897, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
70“very florid” . . . “impious”: Ormond and Kilmurray, Portraits of the 1890s, 24.
71“economize”: Lucia to Harry, July 12, 1896, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
71stand up to Dunham: Harry to Lucia, July 16, 1896, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
71“I don’t like the way”: Lucia to Harry, June 17, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
73“Huggins’ Folly”: A Circle of Friends: Art Colonies of Cornish and Dublin, (Durham: University Art Galleries, University of New Hampshire, 1985), 33–34.
74“state of mind”: Fuller, Art in the Blood, 199.
74“high thinking and perfection”: Undated newspaper clipping, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
74“Geographically in Plainfield”: Philip Zea and Nancy Walker, eds., Choice White Pines and Good Land: A History of Plainfield and Meriden, New Hampshire, 327. Philip Read Memorial Library, Plainfield, New Hampshire.
75Lucia created the scenery: “Children Mummers of the Cornish Colony,” The Theatre 8, (January 1907), 18, clipping in Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
75Isadora Duncan: Virginia Reed Colby and James B. Atkinson, Footprints of the Past: Images of Cornish, New Hampshire & The Cornish Colony (Concord, NH: New Hampshire Historical Society, 1996), 187.
75“Chickadees”: A Circle of Friends, 50.
75“Philistines” . . . “natives”: Fuller, Art in the Blood, 206.
75boys and girls to swim naked: Clara Fuller Taylor to her niece Jane Sage “Sagie” Fuller Cowles, May 5, 1967, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
76preferred bison: Zea and Walker, Choice White Pines, 334–35. For further descriptions of the Cornish Colony, Christine Ermenc, “Farmers and Aesthetes: A Social History of the Cornish Art Colony and Its Relationship with the Town of Cornish, New Hampshire, 1885–1930” (University of Delaware, Winterthur Program, MA, 1981).
76“too small”: Harry to Lucia, May 10, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
77Family members later blamed: Fuller, Art in the Blood, 220.
77began a slow descent: Ibid., 196–97, 220.
77“I will whisper”: Lucia to Harry, May 23, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
77“Her movements” . . . “a rum sort of chap”: Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1872–1914 (Boston: Little Brown, 1967), 200–201.
78Sally would later admit: Sally Fairchild (hereafter Sally) to Lucia, February 2, 1924, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
78One day Lucia jumped: Taylor, “To all Lucia’s Grandchildren,” 2, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
78“thought like a man”: Ibid., 1.
79“I am too weak”: Lucia to Harry, May 23, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
79art lessons . . . unable to pay: Ibid., June 2 and 18, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
79“I have so little faith”: Ibid., June 18, [1898], Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
80renovations: Ibid., July 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
80doctor in New York visited daily: Ibid., July 14, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
80“It is simply burning here”: Ibid., July 5, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
80“Artists have a more fortunate life”: Ibid., July 14, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
81“the financial Moses”: Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), ix. Quoting B. C. Forbes, founder of Forbes magazine.
81“financial bully”: Ibid., x. Quoting Senator Robert W. La Follette.
81Morgan’s daughter-in-law: Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, John Singer Sarge
nt: The Later Portraits (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 163–64.
82“cold roast Boston”: Strouse, Morgan: American Financier, 333.
82“barony” . . . Cragston was set: Ibid., 147.
82Morgan had purchased: Ibid., 147–48, 235; New York Times, July 1, 1894.
82L-shaped dock: Strouse, Morgan: American Financier, 206.
82Corsair: Ibid., 371–72.
82kind of clubhouse: Ibid., 206.
83“charming and artistic”: New York Times, July 1, 1894.
83“one of the regular Deadly Bores” . . . “a discreet air”: Lucia to Harry, October 21, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
84Charley advised Lucia: Ibid., October 21, 1898, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
84He urged Sargent: Strouse, Morgan: American Financier, 649.
84fire started: Colby and Atkinson, Footprints of the Past, 207. Taylor, “To all Lucia’s Grandchildren,” 3, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
84Bells in the village rang: Ibid., 3.
85The result: a pool: Frances Duncan, “A Swimming Pool in Cornish,” Country Life in America (July 1906), 303; Fern K. Meyers and James B. Atkinson, Images of America: New Hampshire’s Cornish Colony (Portsmouth, NH: Arcadia, 2005), 95.
85“and the fit shall be as God wills”: Colby and Atkinson, Footprints of the Past, 135.
85“Mrs. Fuller!”: Taylor, “To all Lucia’s Grandchildren,” 1, Fairchild-Fuller Papers.
86“Drat it, Dash it”: Ibid., 1.
87next day he drowned: Ibid., 5.
87his double life: Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler, Maxfield Parrish: A Retrospective (San Francisco: Pomegranate Communications, 1995), xi, 10–12.
87Gussie: Augustus Saint-Gaudens: A Master of American Sculpture, 109, 122. By all accounts, Augusta was a prickly personality. Virtually deaf from the time she was a teenager, plagued by tinnitus and recurrent abdominal pains, she often avoided social gatherings and fretted constantly about her health. She and Augustus lived apart for long stretches of time. In an especially unflattering portrait, one of the sculptor’s assistants at Aspet, Frances Grimes, described her as “unassimilated, with her extreme deafness, her barbaric manners and temper, she was too difficult to get on with.” Grimes, “Reminiscences” excerpted in A Circle of Friends, 70.
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