Augustus Saint-Gaudens: In the Midst of Ill Health

"Cornish Celebration Presentation Plaque"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens*

Homer Saint-Gaudens wrote: "More vital to my father's happiness than his friends about him, aside from the members of his own family, were his studio assistants: Mr. James Earle Fraser, Mr. Henry Hering, Miss Elsie Ward, Miss Frances Grimes, all shared in his play as well as in his work - golfed with him, tobogganed with him, tipped over in sleighs with him, laughed at his desperate efforts at manipulating the flute, and made caricatures of each other in the evenings. 

My father felt the most sincere interest in their futures. So, now, while his sickness increased, instead of the customary egotism of the invalid growing with it, quite the opposite took place. As he hoped more for his own comfort he seemed more anxious for the happiness of others, and consequently there developed in him a deeper and deeper desire to forward their opportunities. Gratefully he recognized not only in them, but in all those others about the studio - such as Mr. Gaetan Ardisson, molder, who had worked for him for twenty years - an untiring skill, self-effacement, and loyalty to his desires in the days when his failing strength made more and more difficult his task and theirs.

Late in 1905 my father's condition was such that he had a trained nurse always by him, and in February, 1906, he went to the Corey Hill Hospital in Brookline, Massachusetts. The following summer a special physician came to Windsor, but by August my father was so ill that he was unable to leave his room for weeks at a time. In the spring of 1907, however, he was much better. He could sit sketching directions for his assistants on a pad and was carried from place to place in an improvised sedan-chair, even coming occasionally to meals at my house, nearly a quarter of a mile from his. By July, however, he was back in his room once more, never to leave it. Knowing that he was not the man to dwell of sickness or misery, I tell of this side of his life as briefly as possible, and only that it may be understood what he had to fight against during those last days."

To be continued

* In commemoration of Saint-Gaudens' twenty years in Cornish, New Hampshire, residents wrote, organized and acted in an allegorical play performed on June 22, 1905. Saint-Gaudens made and distribute silvered bronze plaquettes to express his gratitude to the players and musicians. This large gilded version was a gift to the playwright, who wrote and directed the masque. The inscribed text records the participants' names, while a classical temple framed by pine trees draped with stage curtains and masks recalls the sylvan setting on the sculptor's property."

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