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[238] by a nearer view. I found him modest, intelligent, and above all genuine,—the man as worthy of admiration as the artist. Although I had seen Mr. Booth in a variety of characters, I could only think of representing him as Hippolytus, a beautiful youth, of heroic type, enamored of a high ideal. This was the part which I desired to create for him. I undertook the composition without much delay, and devoted to it the months of one summer's sojourn at Lawton's Valley.

This lovely little estate had come to us almost fortuitously. George William Curtis, writing of the Newport of forty years ago, gives a character sketch of one Alfred Smith, a well-known real estate agent, who managed to entrap strangers in his gig, and drove about with them, often succeeding in making them purchasers of some bit of property in the sale of which he had a personal interest. In the summer of 1852 my husband became one of his victims. I say this because Dr. Howe made the purchase without much deliberation. In fact, he could hardly have told any one why he made it. The farm was a very poor one, and the farmhouse very small. Some necessary repairs rendered it habitable for our family of little children and ourselves. I did not desire the purchase, but I soon became much attached to the valley, which my husband's care greatly beautified. This was a wooded gorge, perhaps

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Lawton's Valley (Rhode Island, United States) (1)

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Alfred Smith (1)
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1852 AD (1)
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