MASTERPIECES OF THE SEA
delphia, where their eldest son, named for the friendly Mr. Archer, was born on April 30, 1857, and a little later they moved to Germantown, probably by May or June, 1857, and lived in Church Lane, near Mill Street, for nearly two years.
It was not until the latter part of 1857 or 1858 that the work on gas fixtures was wholly abandoned, and the self-reliant young art student pushed out for himself. Hardly can we conceive in our period, when native art receives some patronage, the boldness of such a step in the Philadelphia of 1858. The early seventies developed in young men a restlessness for other ideals than those of trade or the professions. The exodus to Europe began on the heels of William Hunt's return to Boston from France and was inspired by the stimulating essays of Earl Shinn. But this was a dozen years later, and that dozen years was as hopeless as the Valley of the Dead Sea. The city of the Quakers was drab and grim and tasteless and respectable and the chance for
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