Stewart Hubbard was a most admirable example of the best type of an
American gentleman. Arthur Fenton once described him as "a genuine old
Beacon street, purple window-glass swell;" a description expressive, if
not especially elegant. Tall and well-built, with the patrician written
in every line of his handsome face, his finely shaped head covered with
short hair, snowy white although he had hardly passed middle age, his
clear dark eyes straightforward and frank in their glances, he was a
striking and pleasing figure in any company. He had graduated, like his
ancestors for three or four generations, at Harvard; and if he knew
less about art than his place on the committee made desirable, he at
least had a pretty fair idea of what authorities could be trusted.
Peter Calvin's place in Boston art matters has already been spoken of.
He took himself very seriously, moving through life with a sunny-faced
self-complacency so inoffensive and sincere as to be positively
delightful. He was too good-natured and in all respects of character
too little virile to meet Irons with anything but kindness, but as he
was a trifle less sure of his social standing than Hubbard, he was
naturally more annoyed at the choice of the third member of the
committee. He made not a few protests to his friends, and gently
represented himself as a martyr to his devotion to the cause of art
from having accepted the place he held.
When one considered, however, the way in which committees upon art
matters are made up at City Hall, it becomes evident that the wonder
was not that the present body was no better, but that it should be so
good. The truth was that the choice of Hubbard and Calvin had been
considered a great concession to the unreasonable prejudices of the
self-appointed arbitrators of art affairs in town. A short time before,
a committee consisting of a butcher, a furniture dealer and a North End
ward politician, had been sent to New York on a matter connected with a
public monument, and their action had been so egregiously absurd as to
bring down upon their heads and upon the heads of those who appointed
them such a torrent of ridicule that even the tough hide of City Hall
could not withstand it. It was felt that the public was more alive on
art matters than had been suspected; and when a South Boston
liquor-dealer manifested a singular but unmistakable desire to be
appointed on the _America_ committee, he had been promptly suppressed
with the information that this was to be "a regular bang-up, silver-top
committee," and was forced to soothe his disappointed ambition with
such consolation as lay in the promise that next time he should be
counted in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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