MR G. F. WATTS, R.A.

New Zealand Mail, 20 August 1902, Page 6 (Supplement)

MR G. F. WATTS, R.A.

Tlie character sketch in the June “He. view of Reviews” is concerned with Mr G. F. Watts, R.A., and contains some very interesting passages. Mr Watts is 86 years old, but. although so advanced in years, he carries himself erect, we are told, and his eyesight is undimmed. _ “Ho uses no glasses, walks without a stick, and until the last, three or four years he was known as one of the best riders in Surrey.” His residence, Limner.slease, on the Hog’s Back, some four miles from Guildford, is described by Mr Stead as a “terrestrial with a spacious studio, admirably lighted, in which lie is to be found at work every morning with sunrise.” As Mr Watts rises with the sun, lie goes to bed with it —“at least in summer time, when he is often up and at work with his pictures or his statues as early I as half-past three o’clock in the morn-i mg.” THK SECRET OF A LONG LIFE, j When asked what was the secret of 1 his extraordinary longevity or unabated vitality. Mr Watts made the paradoxial reply, "I have always been very sickly” : —“From my earliest years (lie went on to say) I have never been robust, and, I indeed, for this reason I was compelled j to refrain from most of the violent exercises of youth. I neither drank, nor smoked, nor did anything, in fact. I am a very negative sort of person. I have just lived—with the exception, of course, of my work. But although I have been successful, far beyond anything T ever hoped when I began life. I cannot, say that the joy of life has ever been mine. I enjoy my work: 1 am intensely interested in it, and am con-: tinually endeavouring to improve, for,” said Mr Watts, with a delightful smile, “if I don’t improve now, when shall I ever have a chance of doing so?” Mr W atts added that what he meant was that “the buoyant exuberance of animal spirits which leads many people to re-; joiee in life, for the mere sake of living." : lie has never known.

DEATH AS “A KINDLY FRIEND.” Hr i.afts says he has never shrunk 1 from death, and in his works lias en-, deavoured to destroy the rear of death, | “to cause him to bo regarded, not as a j dread enemy, but as a kindly friend” :—! “I should, of course, regret to leave'

condition of things ill this world, so far as I can see it, full of suffering and sor- ' row, saddens me. I feel it might have i been so much better arranged in many lings ; and the burden of it weighs upj on me.” That is one reason why he | holds that every theological student, be--1 fore lie applies himself to theology,

soul lives in good working order”: — ‘ How many generations have lived and died in the belief that piety consists in Eg maceration of the body, and in spend, mg many hours upon their knees crying to God to do this, that, and the other, m ! Instead, how much better it would have been if they had looked

"ork undone and to part from those I friends whom I love; blit a sense of ; the weariness of tho world and the suf-I ferine; and sadness which seem to be j inherent- m.mortal things have weakened, i if not destroyed, that joy of life which j is common to most voting things. The 1

should bo thoroughly grounded in physiology. THE TIRST DUTY. Tho first duty of the religious man Mr Watts holds to be “to live a healthy Iffp. to have the body in which your

after their own health and looked after their neighbours’! In the long run. the body avenges itself upon the soul which neglects or abuses its habitation. Being naturally sickly, I had orders to take care of my body. I have never smoked. Greater things were done in

the world, immeasurably greater, before tobacco was discovered than have ever been done since. The cigarette is the handmaid of idleness.” For a long time Mr _ Watts has never touched any form of alcohol. At meals he never drinks anything, but takes tea in moderation.

[For Letterpress see pai;e 31