But Sargent has been a favoured child of the Muses, and early reached a maturity for which others have to labour long and in the face of disappointments. He, however, had never anything to unlearn. From the first he came under the influence of taste and style, the qualities which to this day most distinguish his work. The son of a Massachusetts gentleman who had retired from the practice of medicine in Philadelphia, he was born in Florence, and there spent his youth. The home life was penetrated with refinement; a good classical and modern education came in due course, and all around him were the dignity and beauty of Florence, its tender beauty of atmosphere and colour and the noble memorials of its galleries and streets. Perhaps no city in the world has so distinctive a spirit, at once stimulating to the intellect and refining to the senses. Those of us who have felt it only after years of buffeting in a grosser atmosphere can but guess what it means to have come under its influence from childhood, during the impressionable period of youth up to eighteen. And not as a mere resident of the place, from the force of habit purblind to its charm, but quickened by parents who themselves were products of another kind of civilization, keen to appreciate, to absorb, and to live in its spirit; possessed, also, of the American temperament so alert and sensitive to impressions, while removed from the dulling influence of our exceeding practicalness. When the young Sargent knocked at the studio of Carolus-Duran in the _Boulevard Montparnasse_ with a portfolio of studies under his arm, drawings from Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, he was no smart young student, full of up-to-date ideas. Very modest he is described as being, of quiet, reflective disposition, pleased that his drawings won the approval of the master and the [Illustration: CARMENCITA. BY JOHN S. SARGENT.] [Illustration: From the Metropolitan Museum of Art. PORTRAIT OF MR. MARQUAND. BY JOHN S. SARGENT.]