Pepero the Boy-artist Author:James Jackson Jarves Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: JAMES JACKSON JARVES. The subject of this biographical sketch was born at Florence, Italy, March loth, 1869. He was named after the writer, his father, James ... more »Jackson Jarves. Owing to his vivacious disposition, physical energy and activity, he speedily acquired the pet nickname of Peperone, contracted into Pepero, which was first given by the Italian domestics, but soon adopted by everyone. It was so characteristic that it clung to him, and he was never called amongst us by his proper name. A poetical neighbor, P. Pietrocola Rossetti, a cousin of Dante Rossetti, with whom he became a great favorite, was so impressed by his sprightliness that he composed the following jeu d'esprit and subsequently printed it in a little volume of his poems at Florence in 1876. Mr. Rossetti had been the first to call him peperone, or great peppercorn, on account of his vigor and forcible, jocose self-assertion whilst at play. Before he could stand alone and was obliged to be supported by his cestino—a wicker cage broad at the bottom and narrow at the top, used in Italy for babies — he would dart across the room gyrating with outspread arms like a whirling dervish, with a rapidity that made one giddy to look at him; his handsome features and dark eyes gleaming with fun as he escaped his pursuers and evaded their caresses. Putting aside the partiality of a parent and looking at him as he Was then, solely in an artistic and physical aspect, I venture to say that a handsomer, healthier and more harmoniously developed infant in body and brain it would -have been difficult to find. At this period no one surmised the direction his mind would take in its rapid growth. All loved him for his genuine boyish nature; his roguery and agilty; the sparkle of his intelligence; the ingenuity with which he divert...« less