Theodore Robinson, a Frugal Man

"Angelus" by Theodore Robinson

"Theodore Robinson was endowed with that supremely useful virtue of frugality; and the small salary he received sufficed for his wants - his extremely few wants, in truth, for no one ever rose superior to the ordinary and material comforts of life more than he. Nay, from the time when he found certain advantages in sleeping, curled up in a cupboard in his Paris studio, like some Diogenes in his tub, he scrupulously avoided what he considered pampering luxuries, that were in other eyes the most ordinary comforts.

I have known him to abandon a commodious studio with a living room attached, which had been provided him by well-meaning but too-solicitous friends, for a bare room at the top of four flights of stairs where he could sleep on a cot behind a screen, and 'be free from the tyranny of modern conveniences.'

He derived certain advantages form this Spartan attribute when, in after years, he faced the discomforts of the country inns where he passed his winters in France; and at all times his dignified and self-sustaining frugality enabled him to be more his own master than the majority of mankind."

To be continued

(Excerpts are from Will Low Hicok's "A Chronicle of Friendships, 1873-1900.")