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Hawker, the delectable Vicar of Morwenstowe, used in celebrating a marriage to take the ring and toss it in the air before restoring it to the bridegroom, probably to symbolize that marriage is always more or less of a toss-up. His congregations had unfailing opportunities of making acquaintance with old truths in new guises. Possibly it was from his mouth that the Cornishman learned that Sodom and Gomorrah were places, having hitherto regarded them as man and wife.

A Matrimonial
Anthology

Massachusetts Colony, and received one, in the prophet shall abstain from all mourning
every twenty for his pay.
for his beloved wife-a sign of the silent stupe-
faction which Jerusalem's fall should bring
with it. Even the Roman code was more mel-
low. To the widow of Agricola, Tacitus, their
son-in-law, wrote: "Keep sacred the memory
of the husband by pondering all that
he said or did, and let the expression
of his character rather than of his
person be enshrined there. The soul's image
is imperishable. All of Agricola that we loved
and admired abides." To make public the vir-
tues of a companion gone is somewhat to ease
one's personal grief. In the introduction to the
"Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson" his lady
hopes she "may be pardoned for drawing an
imperfect image of him, especially when even
the rudest draft-that endeavors to counterfeit
him will have much of delightful loveliness in
it." Mrs. Huxley took upon herself the task
of writing for the scientist's tombstone an
epitaph that should not misrepresent him:

Very admirable persons, however, are subject to confusion in historical allusion. Of Mrs. Disraeli her husband said, "She is an excellent creature, but she never can remember which comes first, the Greeks or the Romans." Possibly her very lack of omniscience had its charm, since "for thirty-three years she has never given me a dull moment." How happy, too, were his great contemporaries in their helpmates. "It would not be possible to unfold in words," said Gladstone, on his sixtieth wedding anniversary, "the value of the gifts which the bounty of God has conferred upon me through my wife." In Germany about the same time Bismarck wrote to his wife: "You are my anchor on the good side of the shore"; while Hohenlohe, on his golden wedding-day, declared that "during the many years of my official life my wife has helped me through painful and anxious times with her courage and counsel, and when political struggles pursued us even into society, she returned pin pricks with blows of a moral bludgeon and smoothed the path by which I could reach my goal."

E

XCITEMENT is a short thing and marriage a long, and it is the unclouded ray which is wanted even in the happiest to gild the inevitable hours of gloom and sickness. "Ah, my dear," said Lord Dufferin, "you have been everything to me in my prosperous days, and they have been many, and now you are even more to me in my adversity." "Come, let us seek a new capitol elsewhere," said Bunsen to his wife when he was dismissed from Rome after living twenty-one years on Capitol Hill; and on his death-bed he murmured to her, "If I have walked toward the throne, it was by your help.”

One of the most appealing episodes in that strange book of Ezekiel is the command that

Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep,
For still he giveth his beloved sleep,
And if an endless sleep he wills, so best.

The list of royal marriages is not without delightful episodes. The Little Princess of Mecklenburg wrote a letter to young George III, a beautiful letter without a single blot, on the horrors of war and the blessings of peace; and he replied, It did credit to her head and heart; come over and be queen of England; which she did, and they lived happy ever after. Mercy told Marie Antoinette that it was for her to cultivate and excite in her husband all ideas that tend to elevate the soul and that could give him the spirit of prudence and judgment necessary to remove present evils and avert those in the future. "My words astonished the dauphine," the ambassador wrote Maria Theresa, "and made an impression upon her." An illuminating comment on the young husband's character is that he was so occupied in finding little means of pleasing Marie Antoinette that he could not think of the great ones. Their daughter, the sweet child of the Temple prison, grew up cold and tactless, "lacking savoir vivre, as her husband, the son of Charles X, lacked savoir dire." She sacrificed her conscience to her duties as a wife and ignored the art of gaining hearts. When Louis XVIII died, the duchess, who had always taken precedence of her husband, as daughter of a king, fell behind at the door, saying, "Pass on, M. le Dauphin."

The beautiful Margaret of Austria was betrothed at the age of three to the dauphin of France, lived in Paris, and was treated as a little queen, but at fourteen was sent back to Flanders. Her second marriage was to the eldest son of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, a lovely prince who died the second year. Her third marriage to Philibert of Savoy was no less a love match. He, too, died in the flower of his youth, though Margaret had her finest pearls ground up to make him an elixir to save his life. Three successive devices she adopted. After her first marriage, a high mountain with a hurricane about its summit; after the death of John of Spain, a tree laden with fruit struck in half by lightning; and after Philibert's death, a motto meaning "Plaything of fortune." Henry VII of England begged her to accept him as her fourth husband, but she refused, devoting the remainder of her life to the care and welfare of her nephew Charles V.

Andrew Lang says that the reason literary characters are often unhappy in marriage is that theirs is a home industry and they and their wives see too much of each other. The Carlyles rise to the front as a rueful instance; the Grotes more humorously. "I like Mr. Grote," exclaimed Sydney Smith; "he's so ladylike; and I like her, she's such a perfect gentleman!" Jenny Lind compared the historian to a fine old bust in a corner which one longed to dust. "And," commented Hare, "Mrs. Grote dusted him!"

More aggressive in defence was the Rev. R. C. Maturin who, when in the throes of composition, would be seen with a red wafer stuck on his forehead, a sign to his wife and numerous family that he was not to be spoken to. That the home industry is not, however, the sole cause of conjugal ennui is suggested by the famous letter of the French wife: "I am writing to you because I do not know what to do, and I am ending my letter because I do not know what to say."

The traffic in kind speeches and occasional sips from the chalice prepared for other lips are potent factors in the pleasantness of married life. When Harm Jan Huidekoper and his wife added up the same column of figures to see if the results corresponded and they

would sometimes differ, he would always say, "Dear, I must have made a mistake." Less tact was shown by the autograph collector who, perceiving that the house was on fire, scrambled out of bed crying to his wife, “You save the children and I will save the autographs." Obviously if an important thing is to be done one should do it one's self.

Wordsworth on one occasion, when talking to his wife, referred to a time when "as you know, I was better looking." "But, my dear," replied she, “you were always very ugly.”

Lady Dacre on her eighty-third birthday wrote to her granddaughter: "I do assure you that if I had been a lovely young bride striking nineteen, more affectionate and gratifying speeches could not have flown from my bride. groom's lips of twenty-three. I am so little worthy of it. It belongs to his nature: I have nothing to do with it"; a delightful instance of the dormant qualities which come out in elemental partnerships.

The companions of our lives become a literal part of ourselves, sit enthroned in our hearts, work with us, and all that we do is their tribute. "Wendell, no shilly-shallying to-night. Your wife, Ann,” ran the note to Phillips, the suffering invalid urging her husband to his duty while the mobs howled furious epithets at him. "I should never have cared for the Indian if my wife had not forced me to it," declared two senators who have done exceptionally good work along that line.

Of "Liberty," the most carefully executed of all John Stuart Mill's writings, he said: "My wife was its joint producer, going over every sentence of it with me again and again.” And he remarked elsewhere, "Those who are associated in their lives tend to become associated in character. In the closeness of relation between the sexes men cannot retain manliness unless women acquire it." That man and woman under the sane and steadying experiences of married life grow to look alike and think alike is not surprising to students of psychology; and I have a theory that if the very apple leaves were evergreen instead of deciduous, not so quickly divorced by the changing seasons, they might grow as like as two pine needles, and so win dollars for little girls who yearn to match them.

THE FIELD OF ART·

PAINTER-WOOD-ENGRAVING: A

T

REVIVAL

HE possibility of a revival of the art of wood-engraving is an ever-recurring subject of discussion. It will be found to lie in painter-engraving, that is original effort, rather than in the reproductive art in which so consummate an achievement was attained in our days.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the United States witnessed a development of reproductive wood-engraving carried to what was apparently the limit of its possibilities in the suggestion of tones and textures. The glorious period of

success was as re

markable in its product as it was short in duration. The photomechanical processes, particularly the now ubiquitous half-tone, swept all before them, and only two noteworthy members of

expression. Painter-wood-engraving is coming to its own.

In this country, the desire for original work first took the form of engraving direct from nature by some of the men who had helped to bring reproductive wood-engraving to its high state of development. Elbridge Kingsley, W.

A Hopi Chief.

Drawn and engraved by Howard McCormick.

the group of men who made American woodengraving famous-Cole and Wolf-are to-day still regularly practising the art.

The decay of wood-engraving has been deplored in print and speech not a few times, and not infrequently in apparent forgetfulness of the fact that not only will necessity insure the survival of that which fits its case, but in this case the revival is already with us. But the art has arisen in a new form, or rather there is a renaissance of an old form. It is an open question whether there will ever again be a general use of wood-engraving for the purpose of reproducing paintings or drawings or photographs. But there is no doubt that an increasing number of artists have been turning to the wood block, as they have to etching or lithography, as a means of original, direct

VOL. L.-10

B. Closson, the late Victor Bernström, Henry Wolf, and Frank French, long known as discerning interpreters of the designs and paintings of others, felt the im pulse of original creation and brought to its service their long training and artistic temperament. In the result there is completeness of effect, the natural outcome of their previous activity. The spaces of their composition are filled with lines to indicate tone or local color.

In the hands of the artists who are not professional wood-en

[graphic]

gravers, but who turn temporarily to wood and graver as one of the means through which to find an outlet for what they see and feel, the medium is usually employed in a somewhat different way. Here, there is indication rather than fulfilment, decorative effect of line or space rather than wealth of detail. The rendition of form is simplified. Simple designs, flat tints of gray or black or color, are generally used. Two elements are noticeable particularly: a reversion to the line of the fac-simile engraving (as we see it in cuts after Dürer, for instance), with occasionally a touch of archaism; and the influence of the Japanese chromo-xylograph, or wood-engraving in color. But these influences, in the work which is worthy of serious consideration, appear in assimilation, not in imitation. The key-note in these prints is modern

[graphic]
[graphic]

Half-tone from an Ipswich print, by Arthur W. Dow. The original printed in two tints. The block was engraved on the face of the wood, not as in the usual method on the end of the grain.

ity; they are of to-day, and none the less original because based on experience of the past. Vallotton, Lepère, Guérard, Orlik, Strang, Gordon Craig, Ricketts, are a few of the Europeans who have exemplified the widely varying possibilities of individual expression in this art of simple, straightforward, and yet subtle effects. Even a cursory examination of their work will show how responsive this art can be to the personal touch. Yet all this display of variety in conception, treatment, and result is based primarily on an understanding of the peculiar nature of the tools used, on a recognition of both the range and the limits of their inherent potentiality. To know how to produce effects without torturing the instrument beyond its proper functions is as necessary in art, as it is in literature to produce wordpictures without straining the language.

Technical matters cannot be overlooked in the enjoyment of a work of art. Some knowledge of the process by which it was produced enables one to approach it with a clearer idea of the problem that was before the artist, and a keener appreciation of the product. And these same processes circumscribe the possibilities of the art. Thus, the result attained in woodengraving is essentially affected by the circumstance that we have to do here with a so-called "relief process" (in contrast to the "intaglio" process of the engraving or etching on copper). In this, the lines to print in black are produced by cutting away the wood around them so that

they stand out in relief, and when inked will leave an impression on paper pressed against them. Originally, all designs were drawn in lines on wood and then engraved line for line, a method usually referred to as “fac-simile.” Subsequently, the matter of tones and tints began to be regarded, and the engraver strove to reproduce the effect of wash-drawings, and later of the photograph. Explanations without examples are barren perforce, but examination of actual specimens is not so difficult in these days of museums and of print-rooms and art departments in large public libraries.

A few, at least, among American artists have heeded the appeal of the wood block, have tested its possibilities in quite varied styles and moods. And the result is most satisfactory where the artist does not lose his better self in the pursuit of the close imitation of other models, where foreign influences are absorbed in a healthy manner while the artist's own personality predominates. This is apparent, for instance, in the works of Arthur W. Dow (among them the "Ipswich prints," which he himself calls "simple color themes"), in which the principles of color-printing from wood blocks are well illustrated. The late Ernest F. Fenollosa, writing of Dow's experiments in printing pictures in a few flat tints, emphasized the characteristics of the process, its limits, its salient features, the delicacy which lies in its very simplicity. "The artist," said he, "is as free with his blocks as the painter with his palette. . . .

Pigment washed upon the wood, and allowed to press the sheet with a touch as delicate as a hand's caress, clings shyly only to the outer fibres,... leaving the deep wells of light in the valleys, the whiteness of the paper's inner heart, to glow up through it and dilute its solid color with a medium of pure luminosity." And farther: "This method. . . strengthens the artist's constructive sense in that it forces him to deal with simple factors. It stimulates the faculty of design.... Mr. Dow's application of it to Western expression and use remains an epochmaking event."

It is this Western expression which forms the interest of these prints, the independent adaptation of the Japanese technique for the presentation of a point of view which carries no hint of mere imitation, but is the outcome of personal conviction. The Japanese manner is very much more in

form is there, but not the spirit. The gesture is Japanese, the language is English. And it is well that Miss Hyde, despite her Japanese robes, does speak her mother tongue-though occasionally with just a hint of an accent.

An entirely different point of view is evidenced in the work of Howard McCormick, rugged, yet aiming in its way at full pictorial effect, covering the surface of the block with lines. Still, his is not the manner of the professional wood-engraver, and not suited to microscopical examination any more than the impressionistic canvases of Monet cr Pissarro or Sisley. It is a method well adapted in its vigor to his reproduction of the bust of Lincoln in which that homely, honest character has been pictured by the virile directness of Gutzon Borglum. Usually, however, he engraves after his own designs, as in some magazine covers, or in his

[graphic]

From a book-plate drawn and engraved by Allen Lewis

sisted upon in the case of Miss Helen Hyde, who, furthermore, lives in Japan and chooses Japanese subjects. She has presented some delicate and subdued color harmonies, such as we see them in old Japanese prints as they appear to-day, with the colors toned down by time or exposure. Yet with all this there is in her pictures an element of Occidental observation. This gives to her Eastern mothers and children a touch of human ity which we do not so readily feel in the native prints, unless we have probed below the exotic strangeness that lies over them as a result of many years of systematized, formalized methods of design. To a Japanese, indeed, her work seems strange, despite the fact that we are told that she won a prize in Tokio in competition with native artists. The Japanese

series of Mexican subjects. In these latter he handles the graver (burin) with the sweep of the brush, using legitimate burin methods, but applying them with a free, flickering touch which gives a noteworthy impression of life and action and pulsating tone.

Where McCormick fairly hews out his way in a distinct style of his own, A. Allen Lewis shows a touch of frank archaism, joined, however, to an equally honest individuality of expression. His frequent use of tints of color, flat, but with the mottling of delicate variations produced by the texture of the wood, is reminiscent of the old "chiaroscuro" engravings. It is merely a matter of method, however; the work is essentially of to-day. Rud. Ruzicka fairly bathes his designs in black, exec with both vigor and lightness,

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