Early Life and Career
Wills was born at Blackwell lodge in the neighborhood of Kilmurry, County Kilkenny, Ireland, the son of the Reverend James Wills (1790 - 1868), author of Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen, and his wife Katherine Gorman Wills. As a young man, he was educated at Waterford Grammar School and later went to Trinity College, Dublin where he took no degree, but was awarded the Vice-Chancellor's Medal for his poem "Poland." He later left the university and studied at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin where he studied painting.
Though he had originally planned to study law, WIlls preferred the arts. His first novel was Old Times, for which he also drew and engraved the illustrations. After publishing Old Times in an Irish magazine, he traveled to London, and for some time wrote for periodicals without much success. A second novel, The Wife's Evidence was dramatised with some success. Wills then chose to live a bohemian lifestyle, lodging at the Arundel Club. He later joined the Garrick Club.
For a period, he attempted to make a career as an artist. He set up as a portrait-painter in 1868. He had some success, despite limited artistic training, but his disorderly lifestyle and reputation for missing appointments undermined his career. He also painted narrative works.
Read more about this topic: W. G. Wills
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“A two-year-old can be taught to curb his aggressions completely if the parents employ strong enough methods, but the achievement of such control at an early age may be bought at a price which few parents today would be willing to pay. The slow education for control demands much more parental time and patience at the beginning, but the child who learns control in this way will be the child who acquires healthy self-discipline later.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. What men need is as much knowledge as they can assimilate and organize into a basis for action; give them more and it may become injurious. One knows people who are as heavy and stupid from undigested learning as other are from over-fulness of meat and drink.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)