SCRIBNER'S
MAGAZINE
PUBLISHED MONTHLY
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME XXVI JULY-DECEMBER
1899
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & Co. Limited LONDON
Copyright, 1899,
By Charles Scribner's Sons.
Printed by Trow Directory, Printing and Bookbinding Company, New York, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
OF
SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE
Volume XXVI July-December, 1899.
PAGE ACCENT, A QUESTION OF. Point of View, 380 AGUINALDO'S CAPITAL—Why Malolos was Chosen,
Illustrated with drawings by Jules Guérin and F. D. Steele, from photographs. Lieut.-Col. J. D. Miley, 320 "AMERICAN LANGUAGE, THE." Point of View, 762 AMERICAN SOCIETY AND THE ARTIST, Aline Gorren, 628 AMERICAN URBANITIES. Point of View, 121 ANNE. A Story, Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, 116 ANTARCTIC, AMERICAN SEAMEN IN THE,
Illustrations drawn from photographs taken by Frederick A. Cook, M.D., during the recent voyage of the "Belgica." Albert White Vorse, 700 ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION, THE POSSIBILITIES OF,
With drawings from the author's photographs. Frederick A. Cook, M.D.,
(Of the "Belgica" Expedition) 705 ARCHIBALD, JAMES F. J. Havana Since the Occupation, 86 ARCHITECTURE, THE USE AND ABUSE OF DECORATIVE CONVENTIONS IN. Field of Art, Frederic Crowninshield, 381 ART IN THE SCHOOLS—FIRST CONSIDERATIONS. Field of Art, 509 ART IN THE SCHOOLS—THE NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHS, 637 AUNT MINERVY ANN, THE CHRONICLES OF, Joel Chandler Harris. IV. An Evening with the Ku-Klux, 34 Illustrated by A. B. Frost. V. How Jess Went a-Fiddlin', 310 VI. How She and Major Perdue Frailed Out the Gossett Boys, 413 VII. How She Joined the Georgia Legislature, 439 AUTHOR'S STORY, AN, Maarten Maartens, 685 BALZAC, THE PARIS OF HONORÉ DE,
Illustrated by J. Fulleylove. Benjamin Ellis Martin and Charlotte M. Martin, 588 BAXTER, SYLVESTER. The Great November Storm of 1898, 515 BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE. John Wesley—Some Aspects of the Eighteenth Century in England, 753 BROWNE, WILLIAM MAYNADIER. The Royal Intent, 496 A Royal Ally, 221 BROWNELL, W. C. The Painting of George Butler, 301 BUTLER, THE PAINTING OF GEORGE,
With reproductions of Mr. Butler's work. W. C. Brownell, 301 CAHAN, ABRAHAM. Rabbi Eliezer's Christmas, 661 CHANNING, GRACE ELLERY. Francisco and Francisca, 227 CHAT, E. G. The Foreign Mail Service at New York, 61 CHINON,
Illustrated by Mr. Peixotto. Ernest C. Peixotto, 737 COLTON, ARTHUR. The Portate Ultimatum, 713 COLVIN, SIDNEY. See Stevenson Letters. COOK, FREDERICK A., M.D. The Possibilities of Antarctic Exploration, 705 COPLEY BOY, A,
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. Charles Warren, 326 CROWNINSHIELD, FREDERIC. The Use and Abuse of Decorative Conventions in Architecture, 381 CUBA. See Havana Since the Occupation. DAVIS, RICHARD HARDING. The Lion and the Unicorn, 129 DEWEY RECEPTION IN NEW YORK, THE SCULPTURES OF THE. Field of Art,
Illustrated from telephotographs by Dwight L. Elmendorf. 765 DREW, MRS. JOHN, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF. With an Introduction by Her Son, John Drew—I.-II.,
Illustrations from photographs and prints in the collections of Peter Gilsey, Douglas Taylor, and John Drew, and from a Painting by Sully, engraved by H. Wolf; with Biographical Notes by Douglas Taylor. 417, 553 ELMENDORF, DWIGHT L. Telephotography, 457 ENGLISH VOICE ON THE AMERICAN STAGE. Point of View,
Illustrated by Walter Appleton Clark. Grace Ellery Channing, 277 GIBSON, C. D. The Seven Ages of American Women, 669 GORREN, ALINE. American Society and the Artist, 628 GRANT, ROBERT. Search-Light Letters, 104, 364 HADLEY, ARTHUR T. The Formation and the Control of Trusts, 604 HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER. The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann, 34, 310, 413, 439 HAVANA SINCE THE OCCUPATION,
Illustrated with drawings by Jules Guérin, E. C. Peixotto, T. Chominski, and F. D. Steele, and from photographs. James F. J. Archibald, 86 HOAR, SENATOR GEORGE F. Daniel Webster, 74, 213 "HUNDRED THOUSAND COPIES, A." Point of View, 253 INANIMATE OBJECTS, ETIQUETTE TOWARD. Point of View, 636 IRLAND, FREDERIC. Where the Water Runs Both Ways, 259 JAPANESE FLOWER ARRANGEMENT,
Illustrations from paintings by Mr. Wores. Theodore Wores, 205 KNOX, JUDSON. The Man from the Machine, 447 LA FARGE, JOHN. Concerning Painters Who Express Themselves in Words, 254 LA FARGE, JOHN,
Illustrations from unpublished drawings and from paintings by Mr. La Farge. Russell Sturgis, 3 LION AND THE UNICORN, THE,
Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. Richard Harding Davis, 129 MAARTENS, MAARTEN. An Author's Story, 685 MAIL SERVICE AT NEW YORK, THE FOREIGN,
Illustrated by W. R. Leigh. E. G. Chat, 61 MAN FROM THE MACHINE, THE,
Illustrated by F. D. Steele. Judson Knox, 447 MAN ON HORSEBACK, THE,
Illustrated by A. I. Keller. William Allen White, 538 MARTIN, BENJAMIN ELLIS AND CHARLOTTE M. The Paris of Honoré de Balzac, 588 MATTHEWS, BRANDER. In the Small Hours, 502 MAX—OR HIS PICTURE,
Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. Octave Thanet, 739 MILEY, LIEUT.-COL. J. D. Aguinaldo's Capital, 320 MILITARISM AND WOMEN. Point of View, 507 MODERN HOUSE, ONE WAY OF DESIGNING A. Field of Art, 125 NAVY, ON A TEXT FROM THE. Point of View, 763 PAGE, THOMAS NELSON. The Spectre in the Cart, 179 PAINTERS WHO EXPRESS THEMSELVES IN WORDS, CONCERNING. Field of Art, John La Farge, 254 PEACEMAKER, THE,
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. Bliss Perry, 643 PEIXOTTO, ERNEST C. Chinon, 737 PERRY, BLISS. The White Blackbird, 96 The Peacemaker, 643 PHILIPPINES. See Aguinaldo's Capital. "PLAY'S THE THING, THE,"
Illustrations by W. Glackens, reproduced in color. Albert White Vorse, 167 PHOTOGRAPHY, PICTORIAL,
Illustrated by the author's photographs. Alfred Stieglitz, 528 POINT OF VIEW, THE. Accent, A Question of, 380 American Language, The, 762 American Urbanities, 121
Illustrated in color by W. Glackens. Arthur Colton, 713 PRAED, THE EDUCATION OF,
Illustrated by Henry McCarter. Albert White Vorse, 290 QUILLER-COUCH, A. T. The Ship of Stars, 47, 234, 354, 402, 611 RABBI ELIEZER'S CHRISTMAS,
Illustrated by W. Glackens. Abraham Cahan, 661 REAL ONE, THE,
Illustrated by Henry Hutt. Jesse Lynch Williams, 620 ROYAL ALLY, A,
Illustrated by A. I. Keller. William Maynadier Browne, 221 ROYAL INTENT, THE, William Maynadier Browne, 496 ROYLE, EDWIN MILTON. The Vaudeville Theatre, 485 SANDHILL STAG, THE TRAIL OF THE,
Illustrated by Mr. Thompson. Ernest Seton-Thompson,
Author of "Wild Animals I Have Known." 191 SEARCH-LIGHT LETTERS, Robert Grant. III. Letter To a Young Man Wishing To Be an American, 104 IV. Letter To a Political Optimist, 364 SENIOR READER, THE,
Illustrations by Albert Sterner. Arthur Cosslett Smith, 725 SEVEN AGES OF AMERICAN WOMEN, THE,
A series of drawings. C. D. Gibson, 669 SHIP OF STARS, THE. Chapters XIV.-XXIX., A. T. Quiller-Couch (Q.) 47, 234, (Concluded.) 351, 402, 611 SMALL HOURS, IN THE, Brander Matthews, 502 SMITH, ARTHUR COSSLETT. The Senior Reader, 725 SPECTRE IN THE CART, THE,
Full-page illustration by F. C. Yohn. Thomas Nelson Page, 179 STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS, THE LETTERS OF. Edited by Sidney Colvin. From Bournemouth, 1884-85, 20 Drawing by E. C. Peixotto. Bournemouth (continued), 1885-86, 242 Saranac Lake—winter, 1887-88,
Illustrated with drawings from photographs by Jules Guérin. 338 The Voyage of the Casco; Honolulu (July, 1888-June, 1889), 469 Life in Samoa: November, 1890-December, 1894,
(Concluded.) 570 STEVENSON, MRS. ROBERT LOUIS. Anne, 116 STIEGLITZ, ALFRED. Pictorial Photography. 528 STORM OF 1898, THE GREAT NOVEMBER,
Illustrations by H. W. Ditzler. Sylvester Baxter, 515 STURGIS, RUSSELL. John La Farge, 3 SUPERSTITIOUS, A CONVENTION OF THE, Point of View, 634 TELEPHOTOGRAPHY,
Illustrated by the author's photographs and telephotographs. Dwight L. Elmendorf, 457 THANET, OCTAVE. Max—Or His Picture, 739 THOMPSON, ERNEST SETON—The Trail of the Sandhill Stag, 191 TRUSTS, THE FORMATION AND THE CONTROL OF, Arthur T. Hadley,
President of Yale University. 604 VAILLANTCŒUR,
Illustrated by Walter Appleton Clark. Henry van Dyke, 153 VAIN SEEKING, A. Point of View, 506 VAN DYKE, HENRY. Valiantcœur, 153 VAUDEVILLE THEATRE, THE,
Illustrations by W. Glackens. Edwin Milton Royle, 485 VORSE, ALBERT WHITE. "The Play's the Thing, 167 The Education of Praed, 290
Illustrated from drawings by Henry McCarter, Jules Guérin, E. C. Peixotto, W. R. Leigh, C. L. Hinton, G. A. Shipley, and G. W. Peters. Jesse Lynch Williams, 385 WEBSTER, DANIEL. I., II. With Unpublished Manuscripts and Some Examples of His Preparation for Public Speaking,
With a portrait and fac-similes. George F. Hoar,
Senator from Massachusetts. 74, 213 WESLEY, JOHN—Some Aspects of the Eighteenth Century in England, Augustine Birrell, 753 WHERE THE WATER RUNS BOTH WAYS,
Illustrated with photographs by the author, and with drawings by Jules Guérin, H. L. Brown, and Howard Giles from photographs. Frederic Irland, 259 WHITE BLACKBIRD, THE, Bliss Perry, 96 WHITE, WILLIAM ALLEN. The Man on Horseback, 538 WILLIAMS, JESSE LYNCH. The Water-Front of New York, 385 The Real One, 620 WOMEN, THE PUBLIC MANNERS OF. Point of View, 122 WORES, THEODORE. Japanese Flower Arrangement, 205 WORLD WITH NO COUNTRY, A. Point of View, 635
POETRY
ADVERTISING SIGN, AN, Marvin R. Vincent, 751 BALLAD, J. Russell Taylor, 220 CELEBRANTS, THE,Illustrated by Oliver Herford. Carolyn Wells, 85 CRICKET SONG, THE,
Illustrations in color by Harvey Ellis. R. H. Stoddard, 526 ENDURING, THE, James Whitcomb Riley, 103 HERB O' GRACE, THE,
Illustrated by Orson Lowell. Arthur Colton, 401 HEY NONNY NO. A Song, Marguerite Merington, 416 HUSH! A Sonnet, Julia C. R. Dorr, 120 LONELINESS, J. H. Adams, 712 NARCISSUS, Guy Wetmore Carryl, 525 NEMESIS, Benjamin Paul Blood, 72 OLD HOME HAUNTS, THE,
Illustrated by Henry Hutt. F. Colburn Clarke, 289 POPPY-GARDEN, IN A, Sara King Wiley, 325 ROMANCE 363 SILENT WAYFELLOW, THE, Bliss Carman, 446 SLUMBER SONG, A. For the Fisherman's Child,
Illustrated by Maude Cowles. Henry van Dyke, 298 SONG WITH A DISCORD, A, Arthur Colton, 603 SUICIDE, THE, Edwin Markham, 551 TEARS. A Sonnet, Lizette Woodworth Reese, 569 THREE KINGS, THE. A Christmas Ballad,
Illustrated in color by Walter Appleton Clark; decorations by T. Guernsey Moore. Harrison S. Morris, 653 URBAN HARBINGER, AN,
With an illustration by W. Glackens. E. S. Martin, 190 VEERY-THRUSH, THE, J. Russell Taylor, 350 WIND AT THE DOOR, THE, Bliss Carman, 652
Scribner's Magazine
VOL. XXVI. JULY, 1899. NO. 1.
Copyright, 1899, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved.
Printed in New York.
JOHN LA FARGE
By Russell Sturgis
A Study.
The artist of four hundred years ago, or of any great time for individual effort as opposed to the associated and unrecorded work of more primitive times, was a many-sided man. He was probably a traveller, if not a monk; he was almost certainly a man of adventure; a man of thought, whether monk or layman. The artist did not travel far; but he encountered more personal risk between Florence and Naples than our contemporary does in voyaging to the Isles of Summer; he encountered in Sicily, in Hungary, or in Spain a people as remote from him as the Japanese are from us; and he had still Constantinople and Cairo to visit, places more distant and as inaccessible to him as Thibet or Kafiristan in the nineteenth century. The old artist was something of a scholar, too, with a habit of study and meditation, if not master of many books. And, moreover, the old artist was very much in love with his work and loved to play with it as well as to work in it; so that he touched many materials, handled many processes, and used many methods of artistic utterance. Again it is worth noting
Study for Browning's "Men and Women."
All these things have been so much changed of late that it is noticeable in Mr. La Farge's life that he should be, in many ways, like a painter of old time, that is, traveller, reader, collector and student; colorist and decorator; painter in large and in little. He has been a working artist for forty years, and has done many things. He has made many book illustrations which have been published and many which have never been given to the world. The illustrations to Browning's book, "Men and Women," as it was originally published in 1855, are among these; and there are reproduced here the full-page design for the beginning of Protus and also two studies for Fra Lippo Lippi:
The little children round him in a row
Of admiration, half for his beard and half
For that white anger of his victim's son.
This was early work. The illustration to Misconceptions is as mystical as that for Protus; and that which concludes Bishop Blougram's Apology is as realistic as these studies of children.
Study for Browning's "Men and Women."
Then, still of his early days, are to be considered the faithful little studies and close-to-nature drawings which served as a foundation for a structure of knowledge which was to pile itself high enough. Sic itur ad astra; and with a different result from the tower-building recorded in Genesis. The reproduction given [on page 9] is from a sketch-book of 1860; and the work has been a careful drawing in black on white, done in the flat country about Bayou Têche. These are drawings in values, or made for values; that is to say, the relative force of darkness or of light is carefully preserved. A certain green of the trees may be lighter than the blue, still water below, but is very much darker than the same water where it reflects the pale evening sky; the reflection in the water of those same trees is a shade or two darker than the mass of trees themselves; and so on, forever. Of the same epoch is this drawing of a beacon [page 10], a flaming cresset, a signal light seen against a night sky. These are warnings to steamboats on the Mississippi to avoid a shoal or to make a landing. Other studies, those of pure line and those of masses, those of his youth and those of his maturity, are scattered over these pages.
He has produced also a very great number of water-color drawings, generally small, and very commonly having for their subjects pieces of foreground detail, such as one or several blossoms in a pool of water, or a water-lily or two afloat on the surface of a still pond. It might almost be said that his water-colors were generally of such detail as this, except that the work done during his journeys into tropical and oriental lands has resulted differently.
Again he has produced, during those years of work, a few large pictures painted in oil-color or by a process which he learned in his youth and in which melted wax has a part; though this is not the encaustic process of antiquity or of modern revival. One or two of these are portraits, several are landscapes, several are studies of interesting details which he wished to preserve and which for some reason or other had struck him as more easily rendered on a large scale and in the more solid material; and some are, to all appearance, concepts for mural decoration—advance studies for that which was to be painted on a still larger scale, or in combination with other parts of a large composition, and finally to be fixed upon the wall where it was to remain permanently. Some, also, of the water-colors produced in recent years are, though not large in superficies, very large in treatment. A glowing color composition suggested by the mountain country of Fiji, a monochrome study of a river landscape in Japan, may be as grandiose in character and may contain as much matter, both in represented detail and in artistic purpose, as an oil-painting of four times the surface-measurement. Some illustrations given on another page of this treatise may partly show the qualities here suggested.
Panel, from One of the Ceilings in Cornelius Vanderbilt's House. Inlaid glass, ivory, bronze, marble and silver, and mother-of-pearl.
Figure from the Vanderbilt Ceiling.
He has produced, also, a few such mural paintings as those whose intention is assumed in the last paragraph. Of these, much the largest is that which covers the end wall of the Church of the Ascension in New York. There are others in St. Thomas's Church and in the Church of the Incarnation, both in New York City; the interior of Trinity Church in Boston was painted by him with a series of figure subjects, though the chromatic treatment of this interior does not include any large single painting of great importance; and of late years, two lunettes in the Villard-Reid house in New York and one in the Walker Art Gallery at Bowdoin College have been added to this summary list. There is reproduced here the last-named picture [page 17]; a picture of fantastic subject in the "literary" or narrative sense. Athens is its given name; but it represents Pallas making a drawing of the lovely and unadorned genius of the open country or wood, while the robed and crowned impersonated City looks affectionately at both the subject and the recording goddess. To be classed under the head of mural paintings also is the remarkable composition of small pictures involved in a large design with panels and arabesques, which decorates the wooden vaults of that gallery in Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt's house, which used to be called the Water-Color Room, and which now, since the alteration of the house and the removal of this painted vault into the new building, may be considered the gallery of entrance for stately entertainments. To a limited extent, the work of other painters is associated with his own in the last-named achievement, as also in Trinity Church. In this, the work of the artist comes very near to decoration pure and simple. The reader is not to understand that any sharp distinction is made here between decoration and that painting which is not so designated. It is to be hoped that he, the reader, will see as he reads that to deny this distinction is part of the life-purpose of John La Farge; a purpose which his critic is glad
Decoration in the more usual sense has been also a large part of his work. Thus, when in 1878 he contracted with Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt for a carved ceiling, it appeared that his intentions in the matter were those which could have been suggested only by a mind full of the decorative idea. "A carved ceiling" might have been almost anything; but this one was an elaborate composition of colored sculpture, or, if you please, of polychromy in relief; certainly one of the most remarkable undertakings of the time. What seem to be (for the true constructional character of the ceiling is not here guaranteed) what seem to be the beams, the constructional part of the ceiling, were of light-colored walnut. The panels within were filled with figures of armed warriors and of draped women of about half life-size, and these panels were framed by rim within rim, moulding within moulding, of elaborate sculptured pattern. All these sculptured patterns, all these figures, were invested with color in a way which it is hard to describe; for different chosen woods, alloys of metal of which some are of Japanese origin, opaque and colored glass, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and even coral are combined to give delicately tinted color and subtle variety of surface to the work. That ceiling has been broken up; but there has been great good judgment shown in its rearrangement. The panels of the ceiling are now arranged so that they are well lighted both by day and by night, and show admirably. Although the original design has disappeared, the separate panels, each with its enclosing mouldings and woodwork, at least four by six feet in superficies, are well displayed. One of these panels is here engraved [page 6]. Here also is given part of a decorative frieze in which castings specially made of blue glass were used with ivory and with carvings in solid nacre, in combination with the carved walnut.
Dry Bed of the Dayagawa River.
Drawn by John La Farge.
Study for Values.
Similar work has been done by Mr. La Farge in connection with his own paintings, and sometimes where no paintings were used. This use, on a large scale, of rich material, rich in color, in surface and in lustre, as a medium for sculpture, is almost peculiar to this artist among modern men. Others who have cared for color in sculpture have played with it, rather, in small objects of the cabinet; and this remains true in a general way in spite of a pleasant use of enamel in some French work in bronze of a more important or, at least, more pretentious character.
On the Bayou Têche; Study for Values.
At a time not far removed from the undertaking of the ceiling and the mantelpiece above mentioned, a monument was put up in the Newport Cemetery under the direction of Mr. La Farge [page 16]. He associated with himself in this task the sculptor, since so widely known, but then a young man, Augustus St. Gaudens, who had already worked with him on the carved and colored ceiling. Every student of architectural designs will be struck by the informal character of this design: the steps which are clearly not meant to be ascended and which have an obvious symbolic meaning; the horizontal cross sunk in the table of the monument in such a way that few persons can be so placed as to see it favorably; the inscription carved upon the butt or foot of that cross; the apparently disproportionate slenderness of the upright cross with its thin cylindrical shaft; the placing of other inscriptions on the body of the massive base in which no specially arranged panels or medallions have been prepared for them; and, most of all, the treatment of the leaf sculpture which, though composed carefully enough and far enough in itself from being a piece of crude realism, is yet realistic in its disposition—suggesting the natural fall of sprays and branches of leafage allowed to dry and harden in the sun. No architect—as we now understand the term—no architect, even one who had kept himself free from the neo-classic influence and the teaching of the schools, could have designed such a piece as this. It is the more interesting to see how the highly trained decorative artist who has not been fettered by the taught maxims of the architect's school or the architect's office has handled this problem—a problem rarely met by decorators of modern experience.