HENRY THOURON
knew, that "all ancient Art was religious and all modern art is profane," and he therefore worked zealously to restore Art to its sacred function. He stood among the few in his city as a generous and unselfish patron of Art, and he proved that patronage is not the privilege of the rich only, but of all who love beauty, and cultivate a taste for it; that men of modest means may possess gems of modern Art by ever-increasing care and discrimination in selecting them.
He devoted many years to the teaching of composition in the classrooms of the Pennsylvania Academy, where he came into close and friendly relations with all the students, from whom he received to the last the warmest tokens of regard and esteem, and from his colleagues a silent admiration evoked by the invariable gentleness of his disposition.
To me he was particularly sympathetic; and I remember how long I lingered over the little portrait painted in his studio, solely to enjoy the repose of mind his companionship gave me.
After he died, Harrison S. Morris, who, as managing director of the Academy, had been associated with him and his work, wrote:
"He gave so abundantly of all he had—his means, his strength—that I always felt about him as the friends of Saint Francis of Assisi spoke of their saint. He had realized sainthood in a time when even Saint Francis might have been appalled at the lack of beauty and sincerity, and at the noise and shock of life. He was an artist of the beautiful, if ever there was one. His taste was like the taste of Nature that never errs when not thwarted by man. . . . Indeed, his life was one long devotion, either to his faith, in which the old beauty appealed deeply to him, or
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