_Indian Chief_ (_to his people_): This wide plain, which the Spanish
priests taught our fathers to irrigate, was a smiling field, whose
fruitage made our homes prosperous and happy. The white American has
damned our river, taken away our water for his own valley, and
turned our field into a desert; wherefore we starve.
_The Dervish_: I perceive that the good intention did really bring
both good and evil results in equal measure. But a single case
cannot prove the rule. Try again.
_The Offensive Stranger_: Pardon me, _all_ cases prove it. Columbus
discovered a new world and gave to the plodding poor and the
landless of Europe farms and breathing space and plenty and
happiness----
_The Dervish_: A good result.
_The Offensive Stranger_: And they hunted and harried the original
owners of the soil, and robbed them, beggared them, drove them from
their homes, and exterminated them, root and branch.
_The Dervish_: An evil result, yes.
_The Offensive Stranger_: The French Revolution brought desolation
to the hearts and homes of five million families and drenched the
country with blood and turned its wealth to poverty.
_The Dervish_: An evil result.
_The Offensive Stranger_: But every great and precious liberty
enjoyed by the nations of continental Europe to-day are the gift of
that Revolution.
_The Dervish_: A good result, I concede it.
_The Offensive Stranger_: In our well-meant effort to lift up the
Filipino to our own moral altitude with a musket, we have slipped on
the ice and fallen down to his.
_The Dervish_: A large evil result.
_The Offensive Stranger_: But as an offset we are a World Power.
_The Dervish_: Give me time. I must think this one over. Pass on.
_The Offensive Stranger_: By help of three hundred thousand soldiers
and eight hundred million dollars England has succeeded in her good
purpose of lifting up the unwilling Boers and making them better and
purer and happier than they could ever have become by their own
devices.
_The Dervish_: Certainly that is a good result.
_The Offensive Stranger_: But there are only eleven Boers left now.
_The Dervish_: It has the appearance of an evil result. But I will
think it over before I decide.
_The Offensive Stranger_: Take yet one more instance. With the best
intentions the missionary has been laboring in China for eighty
years.
_The Dervish_: The evil result is----
_The Offensive Stranger_: That nearly a hundred thousand Chinamen
have acquired our Civilization.
_The Dervish_: And the good result is----
_The Offensive Stranger_: That by the compassion of God four hundred
millions have escaped it.
INSTRUCTIONS IN ART
(With Illustrations by the Author)
The great trouble about painting a whole gallery of portraits at the
same time is, that the housemaid comes and dusts, and does not put
them back the way they were before, and so when the public flock to
the studio and wish to know which is Howells and which is Depew and
so on, you have to dissemble, and it is very embarrassing at first.
Still, you know they are there, and this knowledge presently gives
you more or less confidence, and you say sternly, “_This_ is
Howells,” and watch the visitor’s eye. If you see doubt there, you
correct yourself and try another. In time you find one that will
satisfy, and then you feel relief and joy, but you have suffered
much in the meantime; and you know that this joy is only temporary,
for the next inquirer will settle on another Howells of a quite
different aspect, and one which you suspect is Edward VII or
Cromwell, though you keep that to yourself, of course. It is much
better to label a portrait when you first paint it, then there is no
uncertainty in your mind and you can get bets out of the visitor and
win them.
I believe I have had the most trouble with a portrait which I
painted in installments--the head on one canvas and the bust on
another.
[Illustration: THE HEAD ON ONE CANVAS]
The housemaid stood the bust up sideways, and now I don’t know which
way it goes. Some authorities think it belongs with the breastpin at
the top, under the man’s chin; others think it belongs the reverse
way, on account of the collar, one of these saying, “A person can
wear a breastpin on his stomach if he wants to, but he can’t wear
his collar anywhere he dern pleases.” There is a certain amount of
sense in that view of it. Still, there is no way to determine the
matter for certain; when you join the installments, with the pin
under the chin, that seems to be right; then when you reverse it and
bring the collar under the chin it seems as right as ever; whichever
way you fix it the lines come together snug and convincing, and
either way you do it the portrait’s face looks equally surprised and
rejoiced, and as if it wouldn’t be satisfied to have it any way but
just that one; in fact, even if you take the bust away altogether
the face seems surprised and happy just the same--I have never seen
an expression before, which no vicissitudes could alter. I wish I
could remember who it is. It looks a little like Washington, but I
do not think it can be Washington, because he had as many ears on
one side as the other. You can always tell Washington by that; he
was very particular about his ears, and about having them arranged
the same old way all the time.
[Illustration: AND THE BUST ON ANOTHER]
By and by I shall get out of these confusions, and then it will be
plain sailing; but first-off the confusions were natural and not to
be avoided. My reputation came very suddenly and tumultuously when I
published my own portrait, and it turned my head a little, for
indeed there was never anything like it. In a single day I got
orders from sixty-two people not to paint their portraits, some of
them the most distinguished persons in the country--the President,
the Cabinet, authors, governors, admirals, candidates for office on
the weak side--almost everybody that was anybody, and it would
really have turned the head of nearly any beginner to get so much
notice and have it come with such a frenzy of cordiality. But I am
growing calm and settling down to business, now; and pretty soon I
shall cease to be flurried, and then when I do a portrait I shall be
quite at myself and able on the instant to tell it from the others
and pick it out when wanted.
I am living a new and exalted life of late. It steeps me in a sacred
rapture to see a portrait develop and take soul under my hand.
First, I throw off a study--just a mere study, a few apparently
random lines--and to look at it you would hardly ever suspect who it
was going to be; even I cannot tell, myself. Take this picture, for
instance:
[Illustration:
FIRST YOU THINK IT’S DANTE; NEXT YOU THINK IT’S EMERSON; THEN YOU
THINK IT’S WAYNE MAC VEAGH. YET IT ISN’T ANY OF THEM; IT’S THE
BEGINNINGS OF DEPEW
]
First you think it’s Dante; next you think it’s Emerson; then you
think it’s Wayne Mac Veagh. Yet it isn’t any of them; it’s the
beginnings of Depew. Now you wouldn’t believe Depew could be
devolved out of that; yet the minute it is finished here you have
him to the life, and you say, yourself, “If that isn’t Depew it
isn’t anybody.”
Some would have painted him speaking, but he isn’t always speaking,
he has to stop and think sometimes.
That is a _genre_ picture, as we say in the trade, and differs from
the encaustic and other schools in various ways, mainly technical,
which you wouldn’t understand if I should explain them to you. But
you will get the idea as I go along, and little by little you will
learn all that is valuable about Art without knowing how it
happened, and without any sense of strain or effort, and then you
will know what school a picture belongs to, just at a glance, and
whether it is an animal picture or a landscape. It is then that the
joy of life will begin for you.
When you come to examine my portraits of Mr. Joe Jefferson and the
rest, your eye will have become measurably educated by that time,
and you will recognize at once that no two of them are alike. I will
close the present chapter with an example of the nude, for your
instruction.
This creation is different from any of the other works. The others
are from real life, but this is an example of still-life; so called
because it is a portrayal of a fancy only, a thing which has no
actual and active existence. The purpose of a still-life picture is
to concrete to the eye the spiritual, the intangible, a something
which we feel, but cannot see with the fleshy vision--such as joy,
sorrow, resentment, and so on. This is best achieved by the
employment of that treatment which we call the impressionist, in the
trade. The present example is an impressionist picture, done in
distemper, with a chiaroscuro motif modified by monochromatic
technique, so as to secure tenderness of feeling and spirituality of
expression. At a first glance it would seem to be a Botticelli, but
it is not that; it is only a humble imitation of that great master
of longness and slimness and limbfulness.
[Illustration: THAT THING IN THE RIGHT HAND IS NOT A SKILLET; IT IS
A TAMBOURINE]
The work is imagined from Greek story, and represents Proserpine or
Persepolis, or one of those other Bacchantes doing the solemnities
of welcome before the altar of Isis upon the arrival of the annual
shipload of Athenian youths in the island of Minos to be sacrificed
in appeasement of the Dordonian Cyclops.
[Illustration: THE PORTRAIT REPRODUCES MR. JOSEPH JEFFERSON, THE
COMMON FRIEND OF THE HUMAN RACE]
The figure symbolizes solemn joy. It is severely Greek, therefore
does not call details of drapery or other factitious helps to its
aid, but depends wholly upon grace of action and symmetry of contour
for its effects. It is intended to be viewed from the south or
southeast, and I think that that is best; for while it expresses
more and larger joy when viewed from the east or the north, the
features of the face are too much foreshortened and wormy when
viewed from that point. That thing in the right hand is not a
skillet; it is a tambourine.
[Illustration: EITHER MR. HOWELLS OR MR. LAFFAN. I CANNOT TELL WHICH
BECAUSE THE LABEL IS LOST]
This creation will be exhibited at the Paris Salon in June, and will
compete for the _Prix de Rome_.
The above is a marine picture, and is intended to educate the eye in
the important matters of perspective and foreshortening. The
mountainous and bounding waves in the foreground, contrasted with
the tranquil ship fading away as in a dream the other side of the
fishing-pole, convey to us the idea of space and distance as no
words could do. Such is the miracle wrought by that wondrous device,
perspective.
The portrait reproduces Mr. Joseph Jefferson, the common friend of
the human race. He is fishing, and is not catching anything. This is
finely expressed by the moisture in the eye and the anguish of the
mouth. The mouth is holding back words. The pole is bamboo, the line
is foreshortened. This foreshortening, together with the smoothness
of the water away out there where the cork is, gives a powerful
impression of distance, and is another way of achieving a
perspective effect.
We now come to the next portrait, which is either Mr. Howells or Mr.
Laffan. I cannot tell which, because the label is lost. But it will
do for both, because the features are Mr. Howells’s, while the
expression is Mr. Laffan’s. This work will bear critical
examination.
The next picture is part of an animal, but I do not know the name of
it. It is not finished. The front end of it went around a corner
before I could get to it.
[Illustration: THE FRONT END OF IT WENT AROUND A CORNER BEFORE I
COULD GET TO IT]
[Illustration: THE BEST AND MOST WINNING AND ELOQUENT PORTRAIT MY
BRUSH HAS EVER PRODUCED]
We will conclude with the portrait of a lady in the style of
Raphael. Originally I started it out for Queen Elizabeth, but was
not able to do the lace hopper her head projects out of, therefore I
tried to turn it into Pocahontas, but was again baffled, and was
compelled to make further modifications, this time achieving
success. By spiritualizing it and turning it into the noble mother
of our race and throwing into the countenance the sacred joy which
her first tailor-made outfit infuses into her spirit, I was enabled
to add to my gallery the best and most winning and eloquent portrait
my brush has ever produced.
The most effective encouragement a beginner can have is the
encouragement which he gets from noting his own progress with an
alert and persistent eye. Save up your works and date them; as the
years go by, run your eye over them from time to time, and measure
your advancing stride. This will thrill you, this will nerve you,
this will inspire you as nothing else can.
It has been my own course, and to it I owe the most that I am to-day
in Art. When I look back and examine my first effort and then
compare it with my latest, it seems unbelievable that I have climbed
so high in thirty-one years. Yet so it is. Practice--that is the
secret. From three to seven hours a day. It is all that is required.
The results are sure; whereas indolence achieves nothing great.
[Illustration:
IT SEEMS UNBELIEVABLE THAT I HAVE CLIMBED SO HIGH IN THIRTY-ONE
YEARS
]
SOLD TO SATAN
(1904)
It was at this time that I concluded to sell my soul to Satan. Steel
was away down, so was St. Paul; it was the same with all the
desirable stocks, in fact, and so, if I did not turn out to be away
down myself, now was my time to raise a stake and make my fortune.
Without further consideration I sent word to the local agent, Mr.
Blank, with description and present condition of the property, and
an interview with Satan was promptly arranged, on a basis of 2½ per
cent, this commission payable only in case a trade should be
consummated.
I sat in the dark, waiting and thinking. How still it was! Then came
the deep voice of a far-off bell proclaiming midnight--Boom-m-m!
Boom-m-m! Boom-m-m!--and I rose to receive my guest, and braced
myself for the thunder crash and the brimstone stench which should
announce his arrival. But there was no crash, no stench. Through the
closed door, and noiseless, came the modern Satan, just as we see
him on the stage--tall, slender, graceful, in tights and trunks, a
short cape mantling his shoulders, a rapier at his side, a single
drooping feather in his jaunty cap, and on his intellectual face the
well-known and high-bred Mephistophelian smile.
But he was not a fire coal; he was not red, no! On the contrary. He
was a softly glowing, richly smoldering torch, column, statue of
pallid light, faintly tinted with a spiritual green, and out from
him a lunar splendor flowed such as one sees glinting from the
crinkled waves of tropic seas when the moon rides high in cloudless
skies.
He made his customary stage obeisance, resting his left hand upon
his sword hilt and removing his cap with his right and making that
handsome sweep with it which we know so well; then we sat down. Ah,
he was an incandescent glory, a nebular dream, and so much improved
by his change of color. He must have seen the admiration in my
illuminated face, but he took no notice of it, being long ago used
to it in faces of other Christians with whom he had had trade
relations.
... A half hour of hot toddy and weather chat, mixed with occasional
tentative feelers on my part and rejoinders of, “Well, I could
hardly pay _that_ for it, you know,” on his, had much modified my
shyness and put me so much at my ease that I was emboldened to feed
my curiosity a little. So I chanced the remark that he was
surprisingly different from the traditions, and I wished I knew what
it was he was made of. He was not offended, but answered with frank
simplicity:
“Radium!”
“That accounts for it!” I exclaimed. “It is the loveliest
effulgence I have ever seen. The hard and heartless glare of the
electric doesn’t compare with it. I suppose Your Majesty weighs
about--about----”
“I stand six feet one; fleshed and blooded I would weigh two hundred
and fifteen; but radium, like other metals, is heavy. I weigh nine
hundred-odd.”