DEAR MISS SANBORN:

I send you "Ovis Montana" or Mountain Sheep, who never enjoyed
the daily papers or devoured a scrap of poetry. The only
civilized thing he ever did was to give his life for a piece of
cold lead and got swindled at that.

To be grafted in your Album is immortality.

Sincerely yours,
ALBERT BIERSTADT.

This gift was a big surprise to me. I was then corresponding with two
Boston papers and one in the West. I thought it discourteous in the
artists of the new Impressionist school, to sneer a little at
Bierstadt's great paintings, as if he could ever be set back as a
bye-gone or a has-been. And it gave me great pleasure to say so. I
sent several letters to him, and one day I received a card asking me
to call at his studio to look over some sketches. He said he wanted me
to help him to select a sketch out of quite a pile on the table, as he
wished to make a painting of one for a friend. I assured him I did not
know enough to do that, but he insisted he was so busy that I must
tell him which I thought would be most effective. I looked at every
one, feeling quite important, and at last selected the Mountain Sheep
poised on a high peak in a striking pose. A rare sight then.

At Christmas that splendid picture painted by Bierstadt was sent to
our apartment for me. Never before had I received such appreciation
for my amateur scribbling.