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His alertness in the business of art was not incompatible with the most unflinching adherence to his standards of perfection. His old friend, Mr. W. H. Willcox, tells an anecdote of a one-time celebrated picture by Mr. Richards which illustrates this. "He painted," says Mr. Willcox, "a blackberry bush in the open air, which almost everybody conversant with art in Philadelphia at that period still remembers. Mr.

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STORM AT POINT JUDITH, R. I.

​ ​J. R. Lambdin made a sketch at the same time, not far from where Richards was working. A boy, looking at Lambdin's picture, said: 'Mister, how long did it take you to make that?' Lambdin mentioned a few days, when the boy said, 'Good for you; that fellow up there has been all summer over his.'" In further illustration of the trait in question, Mr. Willcox tells us that "the picture was not more than twenty inches long, but it made a marked impression in art circles, and sold for six hundred dollars. Subsequently the owner became financially embarrassed, and asked Richards to sell it for him. Richards replied by promptly taking it off his hands at the same price. Richards probably knew that he never would do that kind of thing again, and wished to retain it. But it finally cracked, though the faithful work on it is still visible."