Paul Potter

“ The earliest dated picture of importance is “Abraham Entering Into Canaan” (1642) , at the Germanic Museum in Nuremberg, in which he makes the Scriptural subject an excuse for painting the patriarch's herds, just as in his “Orpheus” of 1650 (Rijks Museum, Amsterdam) he makes similar use of the Greek myth. Among his finest works on a small scale are a cattle piece (1653) in the Duc d'Arenberg's collection, and a similar, though earlier, picture in the Munich Pinakothek. In spite of his early death Paul Potter produced a great number of works. ”

“ In this picture, we see Cuyp in every respect at his culminating point of excellence. Not less fine, and of singular force of colour, is the landscape, with a broad river running through it, and a horseman under a tree in conversation with a countryman.
Paul Potter, born at Enckhuysen 1625, died at Amsterdam 1654. Although the scholar of his father, Pieter Potter, who was but a mediocre painter, he made such astonishing progress as to rank at the age of 15 as a finished artist. ”

“ It is not the largest of Paul Potter's canvases; but it is, at least, the only one of his great pictures that merits serious attention. The Bear Hunt in the Museum of Amsterdam (supposing it to be authentic) , even by ridding it of the retouches which disfigure it, has never been anything else save the extravagance of a young man, the greatest mistake he committed. The Bull is not priced. Estimating it according to the present value of Paul Potter's other works, nobody doubts that in a European auction it would fetch a fabulous sum. Then is it a beautiful picture? ”

“ There were many excellent Dutch landscape painters whom we have not mentioned.
Paul Potter (1625-1654) was born at Enkhuysen, and though he died young he made himself a great and enduring reputation by his pictures of animals. “Paul Potter’s Bull,” which is in the gallery at the Hague, is as well known as any one picture the world over. He left one hundred and eight pictures and eighteen etchings. He was most successful in representing cattle and sheep; his horses are not as fine. ”

“ Potter was one of the four bishops who, with Ussher, advised the king upon the attainder of Strafford on 9 May 1641, and, like Ussher, Williams, and Morton, took the popular side. Potter died in January 1641–2 in his lodgings in Covent Garden, and was buried apparently in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, then a chapel of ease to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The opinions expressed by Hall and Lloyd show that he was a man of consistent views, and that he was both independent and pious. Potter married, on 21 Aug. ”

“ Paul, and enjoined him to resist putting away childish things until he was on the way to become a man. Then he dropped a sly hint that if the youthful artist really had to draw improper subjects it would be a good thing to keep them from his mother. There was other good advice to the effect that it was both harder and more practical to draw people the way they were usually seen in life, but this passed largely over Potter’s head.
He promptly diagnosed the interview as a vindication and he saw no harm in telling the adventure to Ellen, but to his utter surprise she was inexpressibly shocked ”

“ Potter, coming back from his thoughts; “I always enjoy myself, and I find that other people do the same.” Then he again relapsed into meditation.
“Isn’t he just as horrid as can be?” raged Frances, inwardly. “He believes just because some women think him clever, and because men like him, and because he’s a good business man, and because mama’s always praising him to his face, as she would any one who was papa’s partner, that he is perfect. And no matter how you try to snub him, he is so conceited that he won’t see it. ”

“ Potter is at the bottom of it.” (Frances was not alluding to the trunk before which she knelt.) “He’s always doing mean things, yet he never will acknowledge them. He won’t even pay me the respect of denying them.” Frances slapped a shawl she was packing, viciously. “To think of having to travel with him! He won’t even look at me. No. He doesn’t even pay me the compliment of looking at me. I don’t believe he’s even noticed my eyes and eyelashes.” Frances gazed into a hand-glass she was about to place in the trunk, and seemed less cross for a moment after the scrutiny. ”

“ The high plains; poems. © 28Nov38; A125331. Kenneth Porter (A) ; 1Nov66; R395931.
PORTER, MARY CORNELIA ALDIS. All the year round. SEE Aldis, Dorothy.
PORTER, S. F. How to make money in Government
bonds. Foreword by Morris S.
Tumoine. © 23Mar39; A127627.
S. F. Porter (A) ; 8Dec66;
R398388.
POTTER, CHARLES FRANCIS. Beyond the senses. © 6Oct39; A135364. Clara Cook Potter (W) ; 14Oct66; R395421.
POTTER, CLARA COOK. Beyond the senses. SEE Potter
Charles Francis.
POTTER, GLADYS. Without machinery. SEE Hanna,
Paul R.
POTTER, LLOYD G. Collected papers of the Mayo Clinic and the Mayo Foundation. ”

“ I reckon you has, caze when I starts out, suthin' mighty nigh sho ter happen. Whoop—shove 'em ole boys! Whoop, push 'em!"
"Hold on a minute," said Potter, stopping. "What is the cause of that bright light over yonder?"
"Bresh heep er burnin' whar somebody cl'arin' up new groun', I reckon," Alf replied.
"Not that," John remarked. "A brush heap would hardly send its light so high."
"Dat's er fack," the old man admitted.
"That is someone's house on fire," said Potter. "Who lives over that way?"
"Miz Forest's house is ober dat way ef I ain't turned 'roun'." ”

“ And who would envy my fate, here in a desert, without a friend, and in the raiment of a priest, which if I cast off I shall look like a clown, which will not do for the man who has ruled a kingdom. Therefore, I say, seeing that it is good to be an honest man, that if heaven spare me and get me safely out of this snare, I will go to my home, and there live so good a man that the neighbors shall say, Roger Potter is a Christian. Faith of my father, I begin to have a hate for these rogues of rulers, and would give a dozen kingdoms of the size of Kalorama to be safe beside my good wife Polly. ”

“ Potter hastened back to Downs. “Did those papers name Herman von Essen?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“He is dead.... I found him dead on his library floor. That girl was his daughter—she’s going to be my wife.”
“I understand. You’re entitled to some reward, Mr. Waite, and this is a small one. No one shall ever know. His record will be clean.”
“Thank you,” Potter said. “I’m tired.... Good night.”
“Good night,” said the Secret Service man, and he stood looking after Potter until the young man disappeared up the stairs. “That,” he said to himself, “is America....” ”

“ Steadily, swiftly it sped to take its place as sentinel at those high gates; to bar the roads of the sky; to ride the clouds a challenger, a champion, a winged guardian, steadfast, courageous, eagerly dauntless....
Potter felt the splendor of it; it uplifted him. Soaring there above the lake, he knew a strange sense of detachment from the fetters of the flesh. He felt, not like a man, liable to weaknesses, ills, death, but like an immortal upon a mission for Olympus. ”

“ Oh, Mr. Potter, how I wush I wuz at de house drinkin' butter milk. Lawd, yo' ole servant wushes you'd strike deze pant'ers wid lightnin'. Oh, Lawd, I'd ruther die den ter be killed by er pant'er."
The panthers stood gazing at them.
Potter's pallor was gone, and on his face there rested an expression of resignation. "If they intend to do anything," said he, "I wish they would not put it off any longer. This delay is awful."
"Oh, doan say dat, Mr. Potter; oh, sweet Mr. Potter, doan say dat. Doan make no sich subjestions ter 'em, fur doan you see da's jes' waitin' fur dar mines ter git made up. ”

“ Have you no sense—to be seen in public with this man whose picture is in the papers? For a girl to be with him is to lose her reputation.... And you”—he turned on Potter furiously—“take your car out of my grounds. Never speak with my daughter again. Do you hear? You are a drunken young ruffian.” He launched himself into a tirade of great circumstantiality.
Potter’s eyes were dark with the brooding expression which his friends counted a signal of danger, but he remained motionless, save to turn toward Hildegarde.
“I am sorry, Miss von Essen,” he said. ”

“ I said, "nothing could suit me better; and as for luxury, I assure you I shan't grumble at anything. As I told your son, I should like to pass as a rich man as long as I stay here."
This reply pleased Mr. Perry, and he proposed that we should go to his house at once. "I shall take a tram," he said; "but I dare say you and Edward would prefer to walk."
At this point Lord Potter came out of the police court. Two young men in smart clothes, with silk hats and patent leather boots, were standing on the steps smoking cigarettes, and did not notice him. ”

“ They started on their burdensome and solemn march, and must have gone two miles, when Alf said:
"We mout ez well put him down now an' rest erwhile."
"No," replied Potter; "let us hurry on so that a physician may be summoned."
"Dar ain't no use'n er doctor," said Alf. "De man is dun dead."
So he was. They put down the stretcher. The sounds of hoofs attracted their attention.
"Yonder comes Mrs. Forest," said John.
"Yes," replied Potter, "and I will meet [Pg 122] her and guide her away from this awful sight."
"You are the very man I want to see," cried Mrs. ”

“ Alf said, closing the book. "I wouldn' git outen de way ef I wuz ter meet er L in de road. De J an' de S wuz whut I was airter."
"Do you not want to know the other letters?"
"No, sah; I dun got ernuff. Airter wile, ef de J an S wars out, I mout call fur some more, but I'se fixed ez long ez da lasts. Jule, wouldn' you like ter know er bout de J?"
"I knows 'em all," the girl replied.
"Take ere; take ere. I neber did see so much edycation; man kaint step round yere widout trampin' on it."
"These cool days, when we have no important work to perform," said Potter, "can be well spent." ”

“ Trotbridge. "Things, maybe, ain't as nice as yer used to havin' 'em, but poor folks must do the best they can, and hope better 'll come."
And while the good woman set about lighting a fire in the great open fireplace, Major Potter got between two chairs, into each of which an urchin mounted, with a broom in his hand, and so belabored his jacket as to fill the room with dust. "The major is always at home in this house," dryly ejaculated the good woman, taking down her bellows and commencing to blow the fire. ”

“ In 1846 Potter married Mary, daughter of Samuel Ashton of Gee Cross, Hyde. They had four sons and one daughter, of whom, the third and fourth sons, Arthur and Richard, and the daughter Edith survive their father. Mrs. Potter died at Cannes in 1885, and Potter, in 1887, married Helena, daughter of John Hicks of Bodmin, who survives him.
Potter was popular in the House of Commons with men of all parties. ”

“ The name of Potter, however, is one of high authority, and we have no reason to suspect that he has not executed his task as well as any man living could have done it. But that these, or that any poetic versions can convey to the mind of the merely general reader the most remote conception of either the manner, the spirit, or the meaning of the Greek dramatists, is what Mr. Potter does not intend us to believe, and what we certainly should not believe if he did. ”

“ You ought to take up a hobby, like expert book-binding or watch-repairing. That would give you a sense of power and you wouldn't feel the need for sinking ships. Ten to one, you can't even shoot a decent game of golf."
"I'm pretty good at poker," I defended myself.
"That's not power, Mr. Tompkins, that's just shrewdness. You have a profound sense of physical inadequacy. The record says you're married. Any children?"
I shook my head.
"That's it," Potter declared. "We had a case like that in Jung's clinic—a baker named Hermann Schultz, who insisted that he was the Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa. ”

“ Handle this thing right—let them get over the first shock of it—and the excitement will die down. The people are sheep.... Yes, you’re perfectly right about delay.”
Potter had hurried to his father, his soul a flame of emotion. The flame was being quenched. The boy stood silent, looking from one to the other of these men, hurt, amazed. Just why he had come or what he had expected his father to do he did not know. Impulse had brought him. The word patriotism was not in his vocabulary, as it was not in the vocabularies of millions of Americans on that seventh day of May. ”

“ Potter replied. "You are an excellent shot, I suppose?"
"Wall, I mout not hit er pin-head, but I reckon I could hit er steer."
"Mr. Potter," said Alf, as he stood over the fire frying the turkey breast, "wush I had axed you ter fetch de ole man some fiddle strings."
"Well, if I didn't bring you some I [Pg 44] hope, as John's aunt would say, 'I may never stir agin.' Here they are."
"Wall, fo' greshus, ef you ain't de thoughtfules' white man I eber seed. Thankee, sah, thankee. Man mus' almos' be 'spired ter think erbout ever'thing diser way. ”

“ There is an oil painting of him at the University of Maryland, pronounced a faithful likeness. He was an implicit believer in the resources of medicine; and relied especially upon calomel and the lancet, carrying the use of both far beyond what would be considered allowable at this day. He did not believe in the vis medicatrix natura, and is said to have told his pupils that if nature came in the door he would pitch her out of the window. Potter was a man of wonderful skill in diagnosis and of national fame. ”

“ Potter, with a smile. “You don't get a chance like that every day.”
He filled Uncle Gussie's glass for him, and that gentleman at once raised it and proposed the health of the young couple. “If anything was to 'appen to break it off now,” he said, with a swift glance at his sister, “they'd be miserable for life, I can see that.”
“Miserable for ever,” assented Mr. Potter, in a sepulchral voice, as he squeezed the hand of Miss Spriggs under the table.
“It's the only thing worth 'aving—love,” continued Mr. Price, watching his brother-in-law out of the corner of his eye. “Money is nothing.” ”