after all," said Mrs. Colesworthy, "but as to that man Corbridge, I
believe he would have kept poor Mr. Kilbright dancing backward and
forward between this world and the other as long as a dollar could be
made out of him. But there is only one way in which he can do us any
harm now, and that is by materializing the first Mrs. Kilbright; but,
knowing us, as he now does, I don't believe he will ever try that."
"No," said I, "I don't believe he ever will."
Should you ever meet with Mr. Amos Kilbright, you need not hesitate to
entrust him with any surveying you may have on hand. Mr. Corbridge
cannot dematerialize him, the German scientist will not, and there is no
one else in the world who would even think of such a thing. Therefore,
you need feel no fear that he may suddenly vanish from your sight,
leaving nothing behind him but his clothes and the contents of his
pockets; unless, indeed, he should again be so foolish as to go to swim
in the ocean at a point where there is a strong ebb tide.
THE REVERSIBLE LANDSCAPE.
To look at me no one would suppose it; but it is, nevertheless, a fact
that I am a member of a fire company. I am somewhat middle-aged,
somewhat stout, and, at certain times of the year, somewhat stiff in the
joints; and my general dress and demeanor, that of a sober business man,
would not at all suggest the active and impetuous fireman of the period.
I do not belong to any paid department, but to a volunteer Hook and
Ladder Company, composed of the active-bodied or active-minded male
citizens of the country town where I live. I am included in the
active-minded portion of the company; and in an organization like ours,
which is not only intended to assist in putting out the fires of burning
buildings, but to light the torch of the mind, this sort of member is
very valuable. In the building which we occupy, our truck, with its
hooks and ladders, stands upon the lower floor, while the large room
above is used as a club and reading-room. At the beginning of the first
winter of our occupancy of the building, we found that this room, which
had been very pleasant in summer, was extremely uncomfortable in winter.
The long apartment had been originally intended for purposes of storage;
and although we had ornamented it and fitted it up very neatly, a good
deal of carpentry and some mason's work was necessary before it could be
made tight and draught-proof for cold weather. But lately we had spent
money very freely, and our treasury was absolutely empty. I was chairman
of the committee which had charge of everything pertaining to our rooms,
and I felt the responsibilities of my position. The necessary work
should be begun immediately, but how could the money be raised to pay
for it? Subscriptions for this and that had been made until the members
were tired of that sort of thing; and the ill success of the last one
showed that it would not do to try it again.
I revolved in my mind a great many plans for raising the sum required,
and one morning, as I was going to my place of business in the city, I
was seized with a happy idea. At the moment of seizure I was standing in
front of a large show-window, in which were a number of oil paintings,
all of them very fresh and bright. "How would it do," thought I to
myself, "to buy a picture at a moderate price and put it up at a
raffle? People who are not willing to give money outright will often
enter into a scheme of this kind. I will go in and make inquiries."
When I entered I found myself in a large showroom, the walls of which
were covered with paintings. A person advanced to meet me who, as it
soon became evident, was the proprietor of the place. He was a large
man, dressed in black, with an open shirt-front and an expansive
countenance. His eyes and hair were black, and his ears stood out from
his head in a manner which, according to a recent writer, indicates the
money-getting faculty; and he plainly belonged to that class of persons
who in the Middle Ages did not, as is the present custom, pay money for
having their teeth extracted, but often disbursed large sums for the
privilege of retaining them. When I asked him if I could procure a good
and effective picture at a moderate price, he threw out his chest and
waved his arms toward his walls. "There, sir," he said, "you can see oil
paintings of every subject, of every style, and of every class; and at
prices, sir, lower than they can be found elsewhere in the known world.
Mention the kind of picture you want, and I can accommodate you."
I replied that I did not know exactly what I wanted, and that I would
see what he had. I now began to look at the pictures on the walls,
occasionally mentioning my ideas in regard to their merits, when
suddenly my companion turned to me and said:
"Are you connected with the press, sir?"
I replied that I was not, although I occasionally wrote for periodicals.
"Upon art subjects?" he asked.
I answered in the negative.
"Then you are unprejudiced," he said, "and I believe from your
appearance that you are a man of influence, and there is nothing I would
like better than to exhibit the workings of my art organization to a man
of influence, unprejudiced on the subject. My object is, sir, to
popularize art; to place high art within the reach of the masses, and
thus to educate the artistic faculties of even the poorest citizens."
I said that I supposed the chromo movement was intended to do all that.
"No, sir," he replied, warmly; "chromos cannot accomplish the object.
They are too expensive; and, besides, they are not the real thing. They
are printed, not painted; and what the public wants is the real thing,
the work of the brush; and that is what I give them. The pictures you
see here, and an immense stock besides, are all copies of valuable
paintings, many of them in the finest galleries of Europe. I sell no
originals. I guarantee everything to be a copy. Honesty is at the bottom
of all I do. But my copies are exactly like the originals; that is all I
claim. I would like, sir, to show you through my establishment, and let
you see how I am carrying on the great work of art education. There are
picture-dealers in this city, sir, plenty of them, who try to make the
public believe that the vile daubs they sell are originals, and the
works of well-known painters; and when they do admit that the picture is
a copy, they say it is the work of some distinguished student; that
there is no other copy in the country; or they make some other
misstatement about it. These people conceal their processes, but their
tricks are beginning to be well known to the public. Now, sir, I conceal
nothing. The day for that sort of thing is past. I want men of influence
to know the facilities I have for the production of art-work upon a
grand scale. We will first go into the basement. Sir," said he, as I
followed him down-stairs, "you know how the watch-making business has
been revolutionized by the great companies which manufacture watches by
machinery. The slow, uncertain, and expensive work of the poor toilers
who made watches by hand has been superseded by the swift, unerring, and
beautiful operations of machinery and steam. Now, sir, the great purpose
of my life is to introduce machinery into art, and, ultimately, steam.
And yet I will have no shams, no chromos. Everything shall be real--the
work of the brush. Here, sir," he continued, showing me into a long room
filled with workmen, "you see the men engaged in putting together the
frames on which to stretch my canvases. Every stick is cut, planed, and
jointed at a mill in Vermont, and sent on here by the car-load. Beyond
are the workmen cutting up, stretching, and preparing the canvas, bales
upon bales of which are used in a day. At the far end are the mills for
grinding and mixing colors. And now we will go to the upper floors, and
see the true art-work. Here, sir," he said, continuing to talk as we
walked through the rooms on the various floors, "is the landscape and
marine department. That row of men are putting in skies; they do nothing
else. Each has his copy before him, and, day after day, month after
month, paints nothing but that sky; and of course he does it with great
rapidity and fidelity. Above, on those shelves, are sky-pots of every
variety; blue-serene pots, tempest pots, sunset pots in compartments,
morning-gray pots, and many others. Then the work passes to the
middle-ground painters, who have their half-tone pots within easy reach.
After that the foreground men take it up, and the figurists put in the
men and animals. That man there has been painting that foreground cow
ever since the first of August. He can now put her in three and a half
times in fifteen minutes, and will probably rise to sixteen cows an hour
by the end of this month. These girls do nothing but put white-caps to
waves. There's a great demand at present for the windy marine. This next
room is devoted to portraits to order. You see that row of old ladies
without heads, each holding a pair of spectacles, and with one finger in
the Bible to keep the place; that's very popular, and we put in a head
when the photograph is sent. There is a great rage at present for
portraits of babies without any clothes on. Here is a lot of undraped
infants with bodies all finished, but with no heads. We can finish them
to order at very short notice. I have one girl who puts in all the
dimples. You would be surprised to see what a charming dimple she can
make with one twist of her brush. Long practice at one thing, sir, is
the foundation of the success of this great establishment. Take that
girl away from her dimple-pot, and she is nothing. She is now upstairs,
putting dimples into a large Correggio order from the West. This next
room is our figure department, battle-pieces, groups, single figures,
everything. As you have seen before, each man only copies from the
original that part which is his specialty. In addition to its other
advantages, this system is a great protection to us. None of my men can
work at home at nights and Sundays, and forge pictures. Not one of them
can do a whole one. And now, sir, you have seen the greater part of my
establishment. The varnishing, packing, and storage rooms are in another
building. I am now perfecting plans for the erection of an immense
edifice with steam-engines in the cellar, in which my paintings shall be
done by machinery. No chromos, mind you, but real oil-paintings, done by
brushes revolving on cylinders. I shall have rolls of canvas a mile
long, like the paper on which our great dailies are printed, and the
machines shall do everything; cut off the picture, when it has passed
among the cylinders, whereupon fresh canvas will be rolled in for a new
one; another machine will stretch them; and they will pass through a
varnish bath in the twinkling of an eye. But this is in the future. What
I want of you, sir, and of other men of influence in society, is to let
our people know of the great good that is ready for them now, and of
the greater benefit that is coming. And, more than that, you can do
incalculable good to our artists. Those poor toilers on the solitary
canvas should know how to become prosperous, great, and happy; tell them
to go into some other business. And now, sir, I must see what I can do
for you. We will return to my gallery, and I will show you exactly what
you want."
When we reached the back part of the showroom, down-stairs, he brought
out an unframed picture about three feet long and two high, and placed
it in a favorable light. "There," said he, "is a picture which will suit
you. It is what we call a reversible landscape, and is copied from the
only genuine picture of the kind in the world. It is just as good as two
pictures. In this position, you see, a line of land stretches across the
middle of the picture, with trees, houses, and figures, with a light sky
above and a lake, darker in hue, below. Everything on the land is
reflected accurately in the water. It is a landscape in morning light.
Turn it upside down, so, and it is an evening scene; darkening sky
above, light water beneath; the morning star, which you saw faintly
glimmering in the other picture, is now the reflection of the evening
star."
I do not pretend to be a judge of pictures, but I fancy I appreciate an
original idea when I see it, and I thought that this picture might
answer my purpose.
"What is the price of the painting?" I asked.
"Well, sir," said he, "to you, as a man of influence, I will fix the
price of this great painting, from a comparatively unknown work of
Gaspar Poussin, at four dollars and a half."
In spite of what I had seen of the facilities possessed by this
establishment for producing cheap work, I must confess that I was
surprised at the smallness of the sum asked for an oil-painting of that
size; I had expected to give forty or fifty dollars. But, although I am
not a judge of paintings, I am a business man, and accustomed to make
bargains. Therefore I said:
"I will give you two dollars and fifty cents for the picture."
"Done," said he. "Where shall I send it?"
I gave him my city address, and paid the money. As he accompanied me to
the door, he said: "If you would like more of these pictures, I will
sell you one dozen for eighteen dollars, or the whole lot of one
hundred, just finished--and there will be no more of them painted--for
one hundred dollars." I told him one was all I wanted, and departed. I
carried the picture home that afternoon, and in the evening exhibited it
at our club-room, and made known my scheme for raising the money we
needed by getting up a raffle with this painting as the prize; one
hundred tickets at the low price of two dollars each. The reversible
landscape was set up, first one way and then the other, a great many
times, and created quite a sensation.
"I don't think it's worth the half of two hundred dollars," said Mr.
Buckby, our president, "but as the money is for the use of our
Association, I don't mind that. But my objection to the scheme is that,
if I should gain the prize, I should be laughed at by all my
fellow-members: for, to tell the truth, I think that painting is a good
deal more funny than otherwise. It's not what I call high art."
The other members generally agreed with him. They were very much amused
by the picture, but they did not care to possess it, imagining that
those who ridiculed it might also ridicule its owner. This opposition
discouraged me, and I retired to reflect. In about five minutes I
returned to the company, which had now greatly increased, as it was one
of our regular meeting nights, and I asked if they would consent to this
raffle if I would engage that the winner of the picture should not be
laughed at by any other member.
"How will you guarantee that?" asked Mr. Buckby.
"I will put the matter in the hands of the Association," I answered.
"If, after the raffle is over, a majority of the members shall decide
that any of us have reason to laugh at the winner of this painting, I
will refund all the money paid for tickets."
There was something in this proposition which aroused the curiosity of
my fellow-firemen; and when the meeting was called to order, a
resolution was adopted that we would have the raffle, and that the
management of it should be placed in my hands, subject to the conditions
mentioned above. There were a good many surmises as to what I was going
to do to keep the people from laughing at the prize-winner, the general
opinion being that I intended to have the picture altered so that it
would be like an ordinary landscape, and not reversible. But the affair
was something novel, and promised to put the much-needed money into our
treasury; and several gentlemen assured me that they would make it their
business to see that every member took a ticket, one generous man
promising, in the interests of the Association, to present them to such
of the few members as might decline to buy them for themselves. This
offer was made in consequence of my insistance that every one of us
should have a chance in the raffle.
The next morning I went to the art-factory and told the proprietor that
I would take the lot of reversibles he had on hand, if he would include
the one already purchased, and receive ninety-seven dollars and a half
as the balance due.
"All right!" said he. "I have the ninety-nine still on hand. Are you in
the tea business, sir?"
"Oh, no," said I; "the pictures are intended for a large Association."
"No better way of extending the influence of art, sir," he said,
heartily. "I shall charge you nothing for boxing. The same address,
sir?"
"No, they must be forwarded to my residence," and I gave him the needful
directions, and a check.
The next day the ninety-nine pictures arrived and were stored in my
barn. My wife, to whom I had told my plan, made some objections to it,
saying it did not seem right to use half the money paid in to buy so
many pictures; but I told her that no one could expect in a raffle to
clear all the money subscribed, and that although we should not gain as
much as I had hoped, we should clear a hundred dollars, and every man
would have a picture. This was surely fair, and the fact was that the
unsympathetic state of mind of our members made it necessary for me to
do something of this kind, if I expected to raise the needed money at
all.
The raffle was announced, and on the appointed evening there was a full
attendance. The prize was won by a Mr. Horter, an art-collector of a
nervous temperament, who had objected to the raffle, and who had
consented to buy a ticket only after repeated solicitations.
"Now mind," he said to me, "you promised that the other men should not
laugh at me, and I hold you to your contract."
I answered that I intended to stand by it, and that the painting should
be sent to him in the morning from my house, whither it had been
removed. Every member present announced his intention of calling on
Horter the following evening to see why he should not be laughed at.
All the next forenoon my man, with a horse and light wagon, was engaged
in delivering the reversible landscapes, one to every member of our
club. These gentlemen were, in almost every case, absent at their places
of business. When they came home in the evening each found his picture,
with his name on the back of it, and a printed slip informing him that
in this raffle there had been no blanks, and that every man had drawn a
prize.
Not a man called upon Mr. Horter that evening, and he greatly wondered
why they did not come in, either to laugh or to say why they should not
do so; but every other member of our club was visited by nearly all his
fellow-firemen, who ran in to see if it were true that he also had one
of those ridiculous reversible landscapes. As everybody knew that Mr.
Horter had one, there was no need to call on him; and even if they had
hoped to be able to laugh at him they could not do so, when each of them
had drawn one of the pictures himself. A good many called on me, and
some were a little severe in their remarks, saying that although it
might be a very pretty joke, I must have used up nearly all the money
that they had given for the good of the Association, for, of course,
none of them cared for the absurd prize.
But when, on the next meeting night, I paid in one hundred dollars to
the treasury, a sum more than sufficient to make our room comfortable,
they were quite satisfied. The only thing that troubled them was to know
what to do with the pictures they had drawn. Not one of them was
willing to keep his preposterous landscape in his house. It was Mrs.
Buckby, our president's wife, who suggested a way out of the difficulty.
"Of course," she said to her husband, "it would have been much better if
each one of you had given the two dollars without any raffle, and then
you would have had all your money. But one can't expect men to do a
thing like that."
"Not after we had all paid in our regular dues, and had been subscribing
and subscribing for this, that, and the other thing for nearly a year,"
said I, who was present at the time. "Some extra inducement was
necessary."
"But, as you have all those horrid landscapes," she continued, "why
don't you take them and put them up along the top of your walls, next
the ceiling, where those openings are which used to ventilate the room
when it was used for storage? That would save all the money that you
would have to pay to carpenters and painters to have those places made
tight and decent-looking; and it would give your room a gorgeous
appearance."
This idea was hailed with delight. Every man brought his picture to the
hall, and we nailed the whole hundred in a row along the top of the four
walls, turning one with the darker half up, and the next the other way,
so as to present alternate views of morning and evening along the whole
distance. The arrangement answered admirably. The draughts of air from
outside were perfectly excluded: and as our walls were very lofty, the
general effect was good.
"Art of that kind cannot be too high," said Mr. Horter.
A week or two after this, when I arrived at home one afternoon, my wife
told me that there was a present for me in the dining-room. As such
things were not common, I hurried in to see what it was. I found a very
large flat package, tied up in brown paper, and on it a card with my
name and a long inscription. The latter was to the effect that my
associates of the Hook and Ladder Company, desirous of testifying their
gratitude to the originator and promoter of the raffle scheme, took
pleasure in presenting him with the accompanying work of art, which,
when hung upon the walls of his house, would be a perpetual reminder to
him of the great and good work he had done for the Association.
I cannot deny that this pleased me much.
"Well!" I exclaimed to my wife, "it is very seldom that a man gets any
thanks for his gratuitous efforts in behalf of his fellow-beings; and
although I must say that my services in raising money for the
Association deserved recognition, I did not expect that the members
would do themselves the justice to make me a present."
Unwrapping the package, I discovered, to my intense disgust, a copy of
the Reversible Landscape! My first thought was that some of the members,
for a joke, had taken down one of the paintings from our meeting-room
and had sent it to me; but, on carefully examining the canvas and frame,
I was quite certain that this picture had never been nailed to a wall.
It was evidently a new and fresh copy of the painting of which I had
been assured no more would be produced. I must admit that I had felt a
certain pride in decorating our hall with the style of picture that
could not be seen elsewhere; and, moreover, I greatly dislike to be
overreached in business matters, and my wrath against the manufacturer
of high art entirely overpowered and dissipated any little resentment I
might have felt against my waggish fellow-members who had sent me the
painting.
Early the next morning I went direct to the art-factory, and was just
about entering when my attention was attracted by a prominent picture
in the window. I stepped back to look at it. It was our reversible
landscape, mounted upon an easel, and labelled "A Morning Scene." While
I examined it to assure myself that it was really the landscape with
which I was so familiar, it was turned upside down by some concealed
machinery, and appeared labelled, "An Evening Scene." At the foot of the
easel I now noticed a placard inscribed: "The Reversible Landscape: A
New Idea in Art."
I stood for a moment astounded. The rascally picture-monger had not only
made another of these pictures, but he was prepared to furnish them in
any number. Rushing into the gallery, I demanded to see the proprietor.
"Look here!" said I, "what docs this mean? You told me that there were
to be no more of those pictures painted; that I was to possess a unique
lot."
"That's not the same picture, sir," he exclaimed. "I am surprised that
you should think so. Step outside with me, sir, and I'll prove it to
you. There, sir!" said he, as we stood before the painting, which was
now Morning side up, "you see that star? In the pictures we sold you the
morning star was Venus; in this one it is Jupiter. This is not the same
picture. Do you imagine that we would deceive a customer? That, sir, is
a thing we never do!"
DUSKY PHILOSOPHY.
IN TWO EXPOSITIONS.
FIRST EXPOSITION: A STORY OF SEVEN DEVILS.