Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Convalescing

Saint-Gaudens' "Little Studio" sits on the grounds of
his Cornish, New Hampshire home, Aspet.

"I was but a day in New York [after arriving from Paris], and a day in Boston before entering the hospital. The note which struck me in the people, and a distinctive note at that, was that the general look of the faces was one of keenness and kindness. There is enough misery in the world without adding to it by a tale of my experiences in the hospital. Gratitude for the great kindness I experienced there and to the men of medicine I was under, only added to my admiration for the generosity of that profession. 

In due time I left, and with Mrs. Saint-Gaudens was driven to the Fitchburg station to take the train for Windsor. We occupied a stateroom, I lying on a couch and she sitting opposite me. The day and the scenery were beautiful, and as we traveled I looked forward with pleasant anticipation to seeing Cornish again after a three-years' absence. Suddenly a series of repeated locomotive whistles, and the putting on of the brakes with violence, revealed something wrong. I was not mistaken. In another moment there was a tremendous crash. Great splinters of cars flew past the window. I was thrown forward on the floor, the children began to scream unmercifully and we were enveloped in a cloud of dust and smoke.

Presently we got out of the car and found ourselves in a beautiful winding gorge, a peaceful brook purling along, the birds singing, a delightful breeze blowing, and the white clouds flying gaily across the blue sky. As we looked forward, we could see what had been our locomotive, a confused mass of wreckage, wood, and twisted iron. On the other side from where I was, they told me that the engineer lay under the locomotive, his legs pinned down by the wheels. He died in the night.

The rest of the story until my arrival in Windsor the following day, is one of unpleasant experiences with the underlings and the railroad employees, who treated us with no more consideration that they would have given a car full of horses - probably less.

Then, through the delightful New Hampshire autumn, followed the pleasure of convalescence, combined with further work upon the statue of General Sherman. For while the principal bronze casting was being made in Paris, I was carrying out alterations later sent to the founders; with the wings which did not please me, with parts of the cloak of the General, with the mane of the horse, and the pine branch on the base, which I placed there to typify Georgia."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.)