PROFESSOR HUBERT HERKOMER has "dried his impressions," and given them
to the public in a handsome volume brought out by MACMILLAN & CO. It
is all interesting even to a non-artistic laic, for there is much "dry
point" of general application in the Professor's lectures. Yet, amid
all his learning and his light-hearted style, there is occasionally
a strain of melancholy, as when he pictures himself to us as
"etching and scratching on a bed of burr." Painful, very; likewise
Dantesque,--infernally Dantesque. But there is another and a more
cheerful view which the Baron prefers to take, and that is, the
word-picture which the Professor gives us of his little room in his
Bavarian home, where he says, "Under the seat by the table are my
bottles"--ah! quite Rabelaisian this!--"with the mordants, and my
dishes for the plates." Isn't this rare! "I should add, there is a
stove near the door." O Sybarite! Doesn't this suggest the notion of a
delightful little dinner _à deux_! With "the mordants,"--which is, of
course, a generic name for sauces of varied piquancy,--and with his
"dishes" artistically prepared and set before "the plates," as in due
order they should be, he is as correct as he is original. A true _bon
vivant_. The Baron highly commends the book, which only for the rare
etchings it contains, is well worth the attention of every amateur of
Art, and that he, the Baron, may, one of these days, dine with him,
the Professor, is the sincere wish of his truly, and everybody else's
truly,