Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1882-10-19
TOM GALWAY.

AS general thing we believe that
there are few truly sublime natures, and
that this is true is due to the fact that
SO few cases Of true sublimity are sur
rounded by circumstances calculated to
bring them into the general notice of
the world. There are widely different
ideas, too, as to what constitutes truly
sublime nature.
I happened to be a personal friend
of the man of whom am going to
write, and know that but for my pen
hewould have lived and died unknown
outside of the small circle in which he
moved. He ewas an artist by nature
and mechanic from force Of circum-
stances-lack of confidence in himself
in the first place and failure by no
fault of his own, when the opportu-
nifty came that would have placed him
where he presumably belonged. At
the time when young Galway and 1
were fast friends and shared the same
rooms, sat at the same table, walked
together, rode together, and in fact
were so inseparable that we came to be
called "the twins" / was struggling
along toward mediocre fame as lit
erary man, and Tom was using paint
brush alternately ON the neigh
boring houses and a large can
vas stretched across one of our
rooms-th former for bread, the latter
for fame. In those days Tom had a
widowed mother and young sister to
support, and it was hard enough to
make both ends meet. Toms mother
and sister occupied the first floor of the
dwelling and our rooms were above.
Tom and | had lived together for about
three years, and he had begun three or
four pictures, destined to make him
famous, as we both thought, and had
given them up and daubed them all
out again because he hadn't sufficient
confidence in his talents to believe he
could ever succeed, when I one day be-
came acquainted with Hugh O'Neill, a
young actor Of whom I at once became
an admirer, and forthwith introduced
him to Tom. Tom was as bad as /. and
it wasn't long till our new acquaint-
ance was installed with us and we
three might soon have been called " the
triplets' on the same hypothesis that
caused Tom and to be demonstrated
+" the twins
Tom and l were. both rather sedate
and grave, while Hugh was as unlike us
as it was possible to be almost. Viva
cious, witty, quick at repartee, he was
a fine type of the whole-souled, gener-
GUS Irishman. His ambition lowered
over ours as the sturdy, fulI-grown oak
towers over the sapling of tender
growth. Booth, Mccullough, Irving
were to appear as pygmies beside
O'Neill when he should have attained
his full growth in fame. His
sanguine temperament acted like a
tonic upon Tom. He seemed to -four
ish and develop under it until it did
my heart good, and congratulated
myself upon having been the means of
bringing them together. I have lived
to wish that / might have died before
1 ever saw Hugh O'Neill, although I
loved him as long as | knew him, and
love him yet, though our paths have
diverged and have not seen him for
years.
Tom began his grand picture-the
grand picture soon after he came I'M
der Hugh's influence, and I was re-
joiced to see how he seemed to feel in
spiration under Hugh's glowing
pictures of what he was capable of
accomplishing if he tried. I have
reason to believe, however, that even
Hugh's influence would have failed at
a certain stage Of Toms work but for
something else that occurred about the
time the huge canvas began to assume
some dim outlines Of aspicture. There
was nothing startling in the last occur
renee; it was only new arrival-or
rather, three new arrivals in our i'm
mediate neighborhood just across the
street, in fact. A middle-aged man Of
rather commanding appearance a
motherly- ooking woman, his wife, and
a young lady. Tom and I having
witnessed the arrival, late one even
ing, crossed over and passed the
house after dark, and read
the door-plate (Which had been nailed
on within a hour after the new neigh
bors had taken possession by the light
Of the street lamp. We madeit out to
be Thorn borough d rather high-sound-
ing name and discovered the letters
N. b, Immediately following IT, and