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This little anecdote of an occurrence at one of his last public exhibitions in his studio in Park Square Mr. Hunt told one evening with most hearty enjoyment. The exhibition was a large one; there were a good many oil-paintings beside a great number of charcoals, the latter reaching to the ceiling and covering one side of the great studio. A stranger was observed to look the things over earnestly, and finally to make a broad sweep of the eye over the collection as a whole. He then turned to his companion, and asked, “Is the man that did all these pictures here?”

“Yes,” said his friend; “that’s the artist there,” pointing to Mr. Hunt.

“What! You don’t mean to say that old feller in the corner, there, did all these pictures?”

“Yes, that’s the artist.”

“Wal,” said the stranger, giving Mr. Hunt another good look, “he’s had time enough to do ‘em in.”

Mr. Hunt was at this time about fifty-four years old, but looked nearly twenty years older. This aged appearance was due chiefly to his long gray beard, that made him resemble the portraits of Leonardo and Cellini taken when they were very old men.

Mr. Hunt was very amusing about his growing old sight, for which he had permitted me to prescribe proper eye-glasses that he bought at Thaxter’s. One evening, proposing to read us a letter that he had received, he took from his pocket an unpleasantly common-looking pair of glasses, and anticipating my inquiry, said, “These eye-glasses I bought in the street for twenty-five cents. They seem to be about as good as those you prescribed. The fact is those were a little too good. I broke the spring, and carried them to be mended. They were to be done the next day, which was a week ago, but I don’t think I shall call for ‘em. I might break ‘em if I had ‘em, and Thaxter will take good care of ‘em.” He then, as usual for some weeks at this period, hung the eye-glasses on the end of his prominent nose, wrong side up, so that the spring lay over his mustache, and gravely began to read.

He carried at this time a cheap silver watch. It was “hermetically sealed,” as he called it. You could, if you wished, put it in a tub of water over night. There could never be any necessity for opening it, as it was wound and its hands set by the stem. It made a noise in winding like a watchman’s rattle, and if the stem were turned the wrong way it made just as much noise, and did the machinery no harm. He was constantly taking this remarkable watch out of his pocket, swinging it around by its chain, and winding it both ways as noisily as possible, remarking that it was “the most amusing watch he ever had; very companionable too; worth more than its cost as a toy to play with.”

SOURCE: Material used in this test passage has been adapted from the following source – Angell, H.C. (1880). Records of W.M. Hunt. The Atlantic Monthly, 45 (272), 753-759. This material is in the public domain.