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 Arthur Atkins:Extracts from the letters 
 
 3 1924 008 741 831 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008741831 
 
KIUVR-.ATKIN/. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS 
 
 WITH NOTES ON PAINTING AND 
 
 LANDSCAPE : WRITTEN DURING 
 
 THE PERIOD OF HIS WORK AS A PAINTER IN 
 
 THE LAST TWO YEARS OF HIS LIFE .... 
 
 1896 : 1898 
 
 A. M. ROBERTSON : SAN FRANCISCO : CALIFORNIA 
 MDCCCCV1II 
 
 L 
 
 \ 
 
Copyright by BstJCE PORTER 
 
 December 1908 
 
 Printed by 
 
 (Eie fetanUp.flUplor Comvanp 
 
 San Francisco 
 
THE LETTERS OF ARTHUR ATKINS 
 
ARTHUR ATKINS 
 1873-1899 
 
 For the friends of Arthur Atkins, these 
 extracts from his letters, from the notes writ- 
 ten upon the margins of his sketches, will have 
 a real and touching value. They will recall 
 for them, his talk, his interests, the lovely 
 charm of the serious and noble friend they 
 knew. For those to whom he was unknown, 
 the pages may reveal something of the sensi- 
 tive mind and heart of the artist : his response 
 to the beauty and dignity of the visible world. 
 
 The publication rests upon the desire of his 
 associates, to supplement the pictures with 
 whatever remains as a record of his gifts: — 
 obscured as these gifts were, by the circum- 
 stances of life, by the last sad circumstance 
 of death in early manhood. 
 
 It is with the belief that his place in art, 
 his influence upon painting in California, 
 will, in the future, be perceived as distinctive 
 and important, that these written words are 
 preserved; in deep affection for him, and in 
 trust for that future. 
 
THE LETTERS 
 
 If I have avoided mentioning the hardships Piedmont^ 
 and discouragements of my work, yet the Oct., 1896. 
 hardships are very real; but why detail all 
 I have to do without? Surely the incubus 
 of discouragement — the accumulation of the 
 expressions of despair and defeat, both writ- 
 ten and spoken, — is heavy enough upon 
 humanity, without my adding to it. 
 
 I have made my choice: from this on the 
 only pleasure I count upon is the pleasure in 
 work, in books, in the open country: and if 
 I have good food, and good clothes upon my 
 back, I will thank God and feel happy. 
 
 The hope that sustains me is that my work 
 may some day rank as the work of an honest 
 man, who painted as he saw and felt. Don't 
 think it is all plain sailing; if I did not keep 
 the whip-hand on myself, this problem of the 
 future would ruin the possibilities of the 
 present; and if I do not speak of discourage- 
 ment, do not think it is because it is easy. I 
 remember always, that littleness of life means 
 littleness of an additional sort in the work: 
 that if one cares for one's work, one cannot 
 be careless about one's life — that the artist 
 who would be sincere in his work, must learn 
 above all else, to be honest with himself. 
 
On the Red plush — lots of cinders — the prairie out- 
 7Va«, gjdg. a man> burdened by the thought that it 
 1897. 1S Sunday, dismally whistles "Beulah Land." 
 This prairie country is peculiarly Sunday-like 
 — absolutely without interest or incident. 
 Five hundred miles from St. Louis, Spring 
 begins to show, and while it has a beauty of 
 its own, the character of the landscape is 
 monotonous and the colour very acid, the 
 greens sharp where they show: but the bare 
 trees are of a very delicate purple, accented 
 here and there by almond blossoms of a gentle 
 pink. The country now, for the first time 
 since leaving the San Joaquin Valley, begins 
 to be interesting — lived in. 
 
 New York, This city is a most wonderful and beautiful 
 
 Apr., 1897. pi acCj w ith noble masses of building, green 
 
 squares, hazes of purple-grey trees, now 
 
 flushed with a delicate golden-green — the 
 
 breaking of Spring. 
 
 I have seen the exhibitions; many of these 
 men can paint: many can draw, too: few 
 have anything of importance to say: so these 
 exhibitions are filled with affectations, some- 
 times well painted, oftener not — with the 
 fantastic and the commonplace. These men 
 love nothing, and their tools only in a half- 
 hearted way. Here and there, like a jewel, 
 one finds a beautiful thing — a panel by 
 Whistler and a canvas by Muhrman. . . . 
 The Bach fugue is still with me: any one 
 using a feather duster briskly, sets it careering 
 through my head. 
 
I am able to manage the memory of things Dynas 
 I have seen well enough, but when I try to ^ z f s ' 
 hear you, the Bach fugue comes back to me Mar. S 'i8o7. 
 in spasmodic fragments : then the swirl of 
 that other big thing, or the Widor (which I 
 heard twice and refused to hear a third 
 time) ; it is a very faint memory now, but 
 faint as it is, it comes with great dignity and 
 beauty . . . 
 
 It is Arthur Atkins who writes: not what 
 he might be; I'm trying hard to accept him 
 and make the best of it, but it takes time. It 
 is the vile artificial conscience he is cursed 
 with, that gives all the trouble: but there is 
 always the comfort that we have only fifty 
 years, at the most, before we get a new start, 
 and it really ought to be great fun. I'm hop- 
 ing that they will set me to work on the form- 
 ing planets — making the new landscapes and 
 arranging better colour schemes for the sun- 
 sets. You will have placed at your command 
 the thunders and the high winds of heaven, 
 to compose as you will; — what fun it will be 
 to go! But like the "Jolly, jolly Mariners," 
 I say "take back your golden fiddles, and give 
 me paints and oils" — but golden fiddles, with 
 splendidly dressed players in the full evening 
 light — we won't quarrel with that sort of 
 thing ! 
 
 Last Sunday morning I went to Bristol 
 Cathedral. There was no postlude, and I 
 heard the organ only during the service and 
 at some distance. These great cathedrals 
 have a way of giving every sound a very 
 positive value (just as certain lights give 
 every object a distinct note of colour) so 
 
 3 
 
that if the playing were more or less me- 
 chanical, I should, probably, be none the 
 wiser. 
 
 There is much that is very beautiful about 
 these lawn-like meadows, covered with prim- 
 roses and spotted with great elms : the sky is 
 often beautiful, too, in a delicate way, but 
 the line is not the line of the Piedmont 
 country, and the colour as a whole is thin and 
 sharp. 
 
 One nice thing about this place is the long 
 quiet evenings, and when they are clear, there 
 comes over everything the most wonderful 
 subdued light, which embraces and trans- 
 figures the whole world: and this light fades 
 quietly — about ten o'clock it has gone. 
 
 Penarth, England is much more beautiful now, than 
 June, 1897. w hen I landed: the green less acid and the 
 long evenings with their golden light, drive 
 me utterly daft. The fields with the grass 
 just being cut, and the wonderful wonderful 
 scents of the pink clover, of the woodbine 
 from the hedges, make me want to shriek 
 aloud — for I cannot paint scents. . . . 
 
 All this seeing has encouraged me greatly: 
 I know I see and feel things beautifully 
 enough: what I lack is the power to state it 
 all in a direct way. It will come in time. 
 . . . Heaven only knows what I am! "a 
 blooming cosmopolouse" I suppose: I don't 
 care — I like this roving round the world — it 
 suits me well. I have just finished a fairly 
 large landscape, looking down from the cliffs 
 high above, with just the thin white line of 
 
 4 
 
breakers — quiet and low in colour, with some 
 of the solemnity of the sea. But after all, it 
 is Piedmont I want to paint: every now and 
 then the desire to see it, "sweeps gustily thro' 
 my soul," but the whole world is beautiful, 
 and as some one has said, "It is by the grace 
 of God that we are artists." I leave for 
 Paris in a week: if Paris is more beautiful 
 than this, I shall go off with an intense flash 
 and an explosion, for my enthusiasm has 
 reached the top notch! 
 
 Your letter from Inverness, fragrant with Paris, 
 the odor of sun-burnt hills, of the sea and Jul y> lS 97- 
 wind-blown woods, was hailed with joy on its 
 arrival here, last night. 
 
 W. and I had just returned from dinner, 
 and as the sun went down with pomp and 
 purple behind the Louvre, we sat upon the 
 wall over the river, seeing the swirl of the 
 sea from the hills above Tomales Bay. It 
 was a fine letter : for me, full of sights of big 
 landscape and the sea: what shall I tell you, 
 in return? This morning we were at St. 
 Sulpice. On going in from the hard white 
 glare of the street, one is struck and quieted 
 by a pervading opulence: the air is soft 
 and slightly perfumed by the incense. Col- 
 oured by it and by the glass, the atmos- 
 phere becomes golden, and gold is everywhere 
 — in the air, in the colour of the small organ, 
 and in the altar and the vestments of the 
 priests ; the lighted candles strike a lower note 
 of the same colour; and, afar off, one hears 
 the chanting of the choir: beautiful voices 
 
 5 
 
of children and men, like jewels — turquoise 
 and opals of blue, set nobly in gold. Oh! 
 but it is splendid — one sits almost dreaming 
 and thanking God for the gift of ears and 
 eyes. In the midst of the wealth of sound 
 and colour and complete happiness, the great 
 organ crashes out, with a force as irresistible 
 as the sea at Point Bonita ! And here words 
 cease to be of use; it is great, too great to 
 say much about : one just listens and wonders. 
 But for you, it might have been years before 
 I heard Widor : the joy I have in great music, 
 makes me very grateful to you. 
 
 Aug., 1897. My second volume of "The Lark" reached 
 me a few days ago. How utterly Californian 
 it is and heavens! — how Californian am I! 
 
 It is the beginning of great things to be 
 done in California; from such a land, gener- 
 ous and open-handed, a great art should 
 spring. . . . 
 
 Did I tell you of the luck I have had here ? 
 how my uncle, Mr. Keppel, made over to me 
 his rooms, till the Spring? Such a charming 
 place it is, which for a long time Whistler 
 wanted to get from him. 
 
 It is before seven in the morning: I write 
 by the window (which fills a broad low arch) 
 the two sides swinging in. A few feet below, 
 on the sidewalk, the gardeners from the 
 country have their plants; they come in the 
 evening, two or three nights in the week — 
 arrange their stock, and then curl up and 
 go to sleep on the soft edge of the sidewalk 
 (next the river) amongst the stephanotis and 
 
 6 
 
tuberoses — the perfume kindly coming in at 
 my open window, all night long. 
 
 I can nearly touch the heads of the passers- 
 by from my window-seat ; the river is always 
 beautiful and the trees. 
 
 I am as happy as I ever hope to be, these 
 times ; all day long, from 9 till 5, I draw from 
 the Greek marbles in the Louvre. Think of 
 it ! These long summer days I work amongst 
 the most beautiful things in the great cool 
 galleries! The tourists are more or less of 
 a nuisance, but I don't think of them now — 
 I don't even see them. 
 
 Last night, W. K. and I sat in the gardens 
 of the Luxembourg, talked of many things, 
 and saw the great pale moon rise from behind 
 the trees — golden clouds still in the sky, the 
 sun just set, the air full of the scents of 
 flowers and moist lawns. What a thing it is 
 to live and to feel — to know all that is best 
 and beautiful in life — and there is much. It 
 only makes the whole business of life more 
 of a puzzle though — for if we are conscious 
 of what is beautiful, we feel with double 
 force, what is not : but, taking it all round, it's 
 a fine thing to live. 
 
 I'm in a queer muddled up condition; this 
 going to England and finding how I have 
 broken away from the husks of religion, of 
 suppression, has made me desire to get away 
 from all that I am unable to see clearly is of 
 service to me: to start afresh, and, through 
 life and work, to arrive at what is essential. 
 I see no other way. 
 
Aug., 1897. Till you come, B., I shall work on from 
 the Greeks and the Japs — long, cool, quiet 
 days in the Louvre : I am as happy as I ever 
 hope to be. And yet it will be with intense 
 eagerness that I shall go south, to try again 
 my luck with the brush — a thing I feel I 
 understand now, as I never have before. 
 Working this little has done me good and 
 largely increased my interest in the technical 
 side of painting. My drawing comes on well, 
 I think; I am trying for construction and 
 beauty of line, swinging things in, in as large 
 a way as possible, aiming at a flowing long 
 line and always thinking of design. I can't 
 imagine how I could have been so blind to the 
 Japanese before: they take me off my feet! 
 What pleases me most is, that all this seeing 
 does not disturb my own outlook. I work 
 from 9 till 5 in the galleries, with an occa- 
 sional short break for a look at Giorgione's 
 "Fete Champetre." How the name brings 
 back the fete at Burlingame — than which I 
 have never seen anything more beautiful. It 
 has been a wet Sunday; I have spent the 
 morning writing and reading; now the sky is 
 intense blue, the colour clean and beautiful. 
 The river flows by outside and the trees 
 against the window move briskly in the cool 
 breeze. Life is very good. The vintage is 
 close upon us, as with you; would that you 
 were here. Sometimes I gasp aloud for 
 California, but I'm happy here. 
 
 The Valasquez in the National Gallery 
 were stunners, but lacking the exquisite 
 sensitive painting of the Whistler "Mother." 
 It was a healthier sense of painting, a more 
 
 8 
 
robust way of seeing than Whistler's that 
 Valesquez had: but not more beautiful, 
 though, it may be, more splendid. Manet is 
 a corker ! What a healthy, out-of-door sort of 
 painting his is! That nude woman and 
 negress in the Luxembourg! there never was 
 more splendid painting — never such joy in 
 the manipulation of tools. It was this love 
 of paints and brushes that drove him to ex- 
 pression, not the beauty of life; I would not 
 call him an artist, but to painters and all who 
 have the painter's instinct, Manet must ever 
 be a god. The Greek marbles ! the Japanese 
 things! Holy smoke! they understood 
 arrangement! I'm going to have an easel 
 in the Louvre and draw just like dam crazy, 
 till you get here! 
 
 Of the men of 1830, they are poorly repre- 
 sented: one lovely Corot; two, not altogether 
 lovely ; a nice Rousseau, as you know : "The 
 Gleaners" of Millet — but what a disappoint- 
 ing business these minor men are! Millet's 
 colour and technique are rank — but it's great 
 work, all the same. I feel as I compare the 
 Chevannes decoration with the broken fresco 
 by Botticelli, that C.'s colour sense is not a 
 great one and that his sense of painting is nil ; 
 but you bet he knows what decoration is. But 
 these same things of Botticelli's — ! 
 
 I was never so happy in my work, never 
 so sure of its being worth while, as since I 
 got here. This is my programme : a thorough 
 study of the Greeks, of the Japanese, of 
 Giorgione, of Whistler (for painting) — the 
 two first, mainly. I'm going to get solid with 
 the marbles, the Japanese and the old Italians. 
 9 
 
My head and eyes are straightening out, after 
 my accident, and pretty nearly time, too. 
 
 I am not doing the orthodox things in the 
 Louvre: I go around and find the beautiful 
 things, like those joyous ladies with tam- 
 bourines and cymbals, on the great vases, and 
 try to get their joy "into my stomach" (as 
 K. does with nature). This afternoon I spent 
 making a drawing from a water colour by 
 Masanobu, such a swishingly swell arrange- 
 ment. Golly! how these great Japanese 
 knew ! There is a giant thing of the sea, fine 
 in colour, by Hokousai — an arrangement by 
 Outamaro, the back of a woman's head, the 
 hair black, and a child. Gosh ! ! Then a 
 beautiful, beautiful composition by Kiyonaga, 
 three girls on a balcony, with the sea beyond. 
 What artists they were ! 
 
 I have now no doubt about my own work: 
 it is just a matter of time till I get my brush 
 thoroughly under control; I shall do land- 
 scape at least of a pretty decent kind — and it's 
 bigger things than that I'm aiming at. . . . 
 
 If I had a wish, what do you think I would 
 wish for? Nothing less than the physique of 
 
 Miss ; what work one could get through 
 
 if one was built that way. 
 
 When I get back, I'm going off to the wilds 
 at once : I think I shall try to get a room 
 over at Point Bonita, up in the old lighthouse, 
 and work like mad. I'm making hay now, 
 but just about a year ahead I always see a 
 quiet strip of life, where there are no physical 
 disturbances and no interruptions: the sort 
 of life led by Marius after the death of 
 
 10 
 
Flavian. But this strip of fair water ought 
 to be within reach of my bark now, if it is 
 ever to be, and sometimes I feel that I am 
 there, as I work through the long, quiet days 
 in the Louvre. I know, two years hence, I 
 shall have no doubt about my having been 
 entirely happy in Paris. 
 
 I suppose it is just part of the game, and, 
 until we can live quite simply and uncon- 
 sciously, the great happiness of our lives 
 must seem always to be somewhere in the 
 future 
 
 This painting pictures to suit a low-minded 
 public! These painters are as clever as the 
 dickens, but what is cleverness good for but 
 the picking of pockets ? 
 
 About our walk. We left Paris by train for Sept., 1897. 
 Vernon, a village midway between this and 
 Rouen. We wanted to hear Vienne "open the 
 organ," if that's the right way to put it, at the 
 church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours (a gin- 
 gerbread and tinsel construction on the out- 
 skirts of Rouen), so we started an hour 
 after the service at St. Sulpice. 
 
 It was good to see the open country again, 
 after all the weeks in the city: and such a 
 beautiful country, this north of France, is. 
 The walk from Vernon, through an open, 
 moonlit valley to Presagny, was a thing to stay 
 with one forever: the air was sharp, the road 
 hard under foot and the landscape spread, 
 great and simple, in the dim yet clear light of 
 the moon — the river, here and there, showing 
 beneath us, for we were rather higher than 
 the floor of the valley. 
 11 
 
At Presagny, we found all we could wish 
 for, and the pleasure of waking next morning 
 with the singing of birds in the apple trees — 
 the clear, cold September air — all within 
 reach of the senses, was great. 
 
 After breakfast we struck out briskly; the 
 hour was early and the air keen, the sky clear 
 and blue. All this French country is beau- 
 tiful: the one thing I most noted in it, was a 
 certain elegance which even the most dilapi- 
 dated and humble villages retain. All places 
 spoke of care and love : the people themselves 
 seeming simple and good, taking life as it 
 comes, without complaint and without ques- 
 tion. One sees plainly what it was that made 
 Millet paint "The Man with the Hoe," for in 
 all of the faces (perhaps more in the women 
 than in the men) there is a terrible sternness, 
 as if life were but one long struggle; when- 
 ever one looks at the soil upon which they 
 live, there is little doubt about the struggle. 
 The strange thing is, that in the midst of the 
 strife and stress, they still take thought and 
 give the time to do things carefully, for the 
 sake of their children and their children's 
 children. It is this that makes the French 
 life beautiful; no conscious reaching after 
 "the beauty that has come in again," but 
 just a great reverence for the home and the 
 land where they and their fathers were born. 
 The beauty that springs from this, is quite 
 apart from "the maid and the violet-shade" — 
 and it is healthy and sweet. 
 
 Vienne's playing was great, and one thing 
 took me back bodily, to the church in Oak- 
 land. Vienne is charming, quite different 
 
 12 
 
from Widor — the latter being iron all through, 
 appearing to have complete control of every 
 faculty and utterly apart from the world at 
 large; Vienne is the sort of man to make a 
 good friend, very fine and sympathetic in 
 construction, I imagine. Both men strike one 
 as being entirely wrapped up in their work 
 and, like most true artists, simple and gener- 
 ous where their art is concerned. 
 
 Yesterday morning I went up to the Oct., 1897. 
 Luxembourg: I saw with fresh pleasure the 
 big Manet and the Whistler. There is a great 
 quantity of rubbish in the gallery, but one 
 always comes back with new joy to these 
 two men. W. came, and we walked down to 
 St. Sulpice, a short walk, through the sharp 
 air. How I love this clear, cold weather that 
 we have had lately— one could not have better 
 weather for work: the sky blue, the trees a 
 golden purple, still holding some leaves: and 
 men and women, here and there, selling vio- 
 lets, which I never can resist — they so take 
 me back to Piedmont. At St. Sulpice, the 
 Archbishop of London was bossing the show, 
 and they were to sing Widor's mass for two 
 organs. It was out of sight! I wish you 
 might have heard it and the thing he played, 
 the first movement from the Sixth. They 
 have the full choir now, and what a joy it is 
 to listen! 
 
 I have read "Tess." The realism of the 
 whole thing leaves one seared and in misery, 
 that such things are real; that such injustice 
 is possible, is almost beyond conception. It 
 
 13 
 
seems to me that it was Hardy's keen sense 
 of this injustice that drove him to writing 
 this book: to me, it will always be great on 
 account of the force with which he has stated 
 his indignation at a state of affairs for which 
 both men and women are responsible. Bierce, 
 on the other hand, writes without any such 
 end as Hardy uses realism for. B. seems a 
 man devoid of the sense of beauty ; devoid of 
 creative force, but with a marvelous sense of 
 words and an analytical power that is 
 satirical and morbid. 
 
 My eyes are better, but not what I would 
 wish; my headaches have taken wing and 
 my spirits are well back. 
 
 And now I am, at last, looking out for 
 
 . How glad I shall be to see him, I 
 
 can't realize, myself. To have a few friends 
 such as he is, would be reward enough for hav- 
 ing lived, if one were to fail of all else. 
 
 I am staying with W, He is very kind; a 
 fine fellow down to the soles of his feet. 
 
 Will you remember me to your mother? 
 I think of her sometimes as I saw her that 
 last night. Whistler is the only living man 
 who could have painted her. He seems to 
 me, more and more, one of the greatest artists, 
 and perhaps the greatest painter, I know. 
 
 Nov., 1897. This little room of W.'s is very pleasant: 
 all tidy, with a bright fire, and I am sitting 
 up in the neat little soldier bed, writing on 
 that painting of mine, the one of the big hill 
 and the eucalyptus tree and the little houses 
 and the stream in the foreground — the motive 
 
 14 
 
that came from behind your house. Just at 
 present things are more convenient here than 
 at my house, where the workmen are, still. 
 We moved back, when, for no reason that I 
 can trace, I caught cold. We decided it 
 would be better for me over here. The last 
 time I had a cold was at the end of December 
 last year; and I lay looking on the hills, 
 away up beyond the Requa house. My own 
 hills! How glad I shall be to get back; but 
 I must learn to drawn first. During the past 
 fortnight I have been working at Carla- 
 rossi's : and as it is scarcely light when I rise 
 in the morning, there is not much time to 
 write, for I am resting my eyes in the even- 
 ing, after the long day's drawing. I have 
 had bad luck since I have been in Paris, but 
 I said all along I wouldn't growl if they 
 would leave me my eyes. 
 
 It has been a good fortnight; spent within 
 dirty green walls, covered with the scrapings 
 of many palettes, with clever and stupid 
 drawings, and in company of so many good- 
 natured and otherwise, amongst the crowd call- 
 ing themselves "art students" — students so far 
 from beautiful in themselves, that one wonders 
 what their works will be. 
 
 I have just read "Vain Fortune," by 
 George Moore: another of the kind I don't 
 care for; just a handful of unhappy lives, 
 held up for inspection — a book devoid of any- 
 thing beautiful, it seems to me 
 
 You say that, after all, it is the composer 
 and creator who have the good time; but I 
 am convinced that the only real and enduring 
 happiness comes from the consciousness that 
 15 
 
we are of use — and that we are giving 
 pleasure. I have been feeling this more 
 clearly of late, on account of a little thing 
 that happened not so long ago. W. and 
 I, in a condition of concentrated blues, 
 had gone for a walk to the top of Mont- 
 martre. The day was grey and life looked 
 empty enough to me; I had been twice 
 to the oculist and, as Huck Finn said of 
 his prayers, "Nuthin' come of it." It began 
 to drizzle, after that to rain steadily, so on 
 our way back we took refuge in the Church 
 of La Trinitie. Here, in the gloom of the 
 autumn evening, they were preparing for a 
 funeral: the big church, all hung in black, 
 was very dark, and, between one thing and 
 another, I put in some good solid wishes that 
 it was my funeral. 
 
 In the midst of this, a tottering old woman 
 asked me to help her down the steps upon 
 which we stood, and all I regretted was that 
 there were so few steps, for I felt entirely 
 happy for some time — for some days after: — 
 and later, talking about selfishness and unhap- 
 piness with W. K., I mentioned this incident, 
 and he said at the time he had envied me 
 very much. 
 
 I say to myself : "The architect, the doctor, 
 are really of use in the world" — and then I 
 recall certain little paintings of Corot's, not 
 much bigger than one's hand, that have made 
 the world more beautiful; certain little verses 
 that have done as much for me, and the 
 bigger things that you and W. have played 
 — and so I am content and happy to go on 
 and, if necessary, do nothing more than paint 
 
 16 
 
THE VALLEY : 
 
 1895 
 
little pictures. In this day of realism, we 
 who feel the beauty of life, are just as neces- 
 sary as the physician or the architect or the 
 teacher. We, as surely, are provided to keep 
 the life of the world sweet. All this is fine 
 to think of and helps to keep one happy in 
 one's work. I remember well our talking 
 on this subject, as we came home, after that 
 walk which I enjoyed so much. Heavens! 
 how fine it is to be out of doors, and how 
 much more we are ourselves there than in 
 drawing-rooms. 
 
 I can't tell you of the beauty of Paris, now, 
 for all that I feel it so keenly. The gardens, 
 as I go to or come from the class, will always 
 remain clear and distinct in my memory: the 
 bare trees, purple against the full golden blue 
 of the evening sky — here and there a few 
 radiant leaves, — the ample green of the lawns, 
 the swing of the gravel walks and all the 
 world, poor and rich, rejoicing in the good 
 weather; and fat, fluffy pigeons coming with 
 condescension to be fed, while the blackbirds 
 and the thrushes in the tops of the horse- 
 chestnuts whistle, and the ducks make a great 
 quacking and flapping in their little ponds. 
 
 I have the first volume of the Book of Isaiah, 
 in the new, readable form. It is so fine, so 
 grand. I must have them all, and the Gos- 
 pels ; for in spite of Rev. and Rev. 
 
 '■ — and many of their kind, I can still feel 
 
 that happiness is only to be had by following 
 the essence of the teaching of Christ. I don't 
 think I shall ever care to go to church again, 
 however . . . 
 
 17 
 
Thank you for the pens. They came safe, 
 all but one, and it, poor thing, had its beak 
 crossed; it reminded me of a chicken I once 
 owned. Owing to the crossing of its beak, 
 its breath came and went in a ponderous 
 fashion. It was called "Breather." 
 
 I have been having such a good time, lately, 
 at the life class ; but the drawing is fearfully 
 hard work. Still, I am going to stay with 
 it till it comes. I must, for once I can draw 
 I shall do really big landscape and heaven 
 only knows what else. It excites me always 
 to think of what is ahead, once I can draw 
 with freedom. I want to be a workman, pure 
 and simple; at present I am a labourer. With 
 just a month or two's painting (for vacation) 
 I want to spend the next three or four years 
 studying form, and if I don't get somewhere 
 it won't be my fault. 
 
 It is Sunday again. The afternoon is 
 warm and summer-like, the sky blue and the 
 houses stand golden through the trees, with 
 simple shadows, the river reflecting it all, with 
 here and there a break of blue or gold upon 
 its surface; then the bare trees just outside 
 my window — and you see it all. It is very 
 beautiful, and a thing likely to hang in my 
 mind for many a year. 
 
 Villefranche At last I have escaped from Paris, and it 
 Dec^iin was kig* 1 ti m e> for somehow or other, Paris 
 '' and I don't get on well together. . . . 
 
 It is grey today, and my thermometer is 
 low, as usual. Yesterday the sun was warm 
 and the air smelled faintly of Spring flowers, 
 
 18 
 
PINES: ST. HOSPICE 
 1897 
 
of which there are many. It is very good to 
 be out of doors, once again. It is not the 
 most paintable country one could imagine : on 
 my left, as I write, are the Alps ; on my right, 
 the Mediterranean, which stretches to the hori- 
 zon : and yet it is not as beautiful as the coun- 
 try north of the Cliff House — rather, it's not so 
 paintable. . . . 
 
 Today, it rains in torrents and I have just 
 finished washing my brushes, after a good 
 morning's painting. I can feel it coming! 
 I know now I've gone ahead lots, since I left 
 home. But I am at present awfully lonely; 
 just as soon as I get down to hard work I 
 shall be quite happy and B. has promised to 
 come down for a while. I was a goose to 
 come without a passport — fortifications and 
 soldiers everywhere and to stumble into the 
 error of sketching these government works, 
 would mean being "run in" for a spy. As 
 it is, I am a marked man, for I have been 
 "shooed off" the government ground twice 
 by sentinels, and have been seen prowling 
 round fortresses for miles into the Alps. My 
 red hair and blue sweater and little Chinese 
 blouse, are distinctive, to say nothing of always 
 having a sketch-book or paints along. So 
 who knows. I may be taken and shot! 
 
 Death seems peculiarly repulsive, here in 
 France. In this strange little town, I beheld 
 in the drizzle, yesterday, a bedraggled funeral 
 procession, composed of dirty little Italian 
 girls, a wooden crucifix in the front, after it 
 a chanting priest in dirty linen, a boy with a 
 candle, and then a number of small girls, 
 carrying a little coffin. It was dismal in the 
 19 
 
extreme and I pray that it may be my lot to 
 die in California, and amongst friends. 
 
 I have read "The Well Beloved" by Hardy, 
 lately: not so desperately serious as "Tess," 
 it interested me greatly on account of its 
 bearing on the question of the artist's marry- 
 ing. It was the misfortune of this hero, to 
 be constantly falling head over heels into 
 the depths of love, and then, inevitably, he 
 would find at the climax, that his "well be- 
 loved" had flitted, and he was left with a 
 lady on his hands. 
 
 The true artist, it seems to me, is born 
 (whether for good or ill) with the one desire 
 before which all else falls away and becomes 
 secondary. This desire is to grasp the perfect, 
 which always seems to be just around the 
 corner. In a wild-goose chase of this kind, 
 I am as good as sure, that marriage must 
 be only a complication: for if the chase goes 
 on, the one who is not the artist (man or 
 woman) suffers, and if the chase ceases, dis- 
 content must come of it, to the artist — and 
 one will say to the other "Look at all I 
 have given up for you!" You understand 
 when I say "artist," I mean the "genu-ine 
 article." I may be all wrong in this. 
 
 St. Jean, We left Villefranche yesterday, in a whirl 
 
 Jan., 1898. f w ind and rain, for this little village farther 
 
 along the coast toward Monte Carlo. 
 
 It is a clean, gusty morning: the sea, all 
 blue and green and broken with white surf, 
 stretches away from below the window, to 
 meet the grey sky, which the sun breaks in a 
 
 20 
 
sort of petulant way. To the left, the cliffs 
 of Monaco rise with a. solemn dignity and 
 splendour. They bring back with vividness 
 and pleasure, the coast cliffs of Marin County : 
 but they lack the great beauty of line that 
 pervades the Californian hills and they are 
 also less human. B. arrived on Christmas 
 eve, and we spent a happy day, loafing about 
 the very beautiful town of Nice. Such a 
 colour as the town has, all rose and gold and 
 a great expanse of sea. 
 
 I have at last begun to do things: up to 
 this I have been shaking the dust of the schools 
 from off my feet. Nevertheless, injurious 
 as the schools are, I intend to work the next 
 two years in the life-class in San Francisco; 
 but I am going to model and draw with the 
 brush, rather than with the point, for all my 
 instinct is for the former tool and I will get 
 what I want sooner, that way. 
 
 I am working upon a canvas: a line of 
 snow-capped Alps against the gold-blue sky 
 of evening; this line comes close to the top 
 of the canvas: then a spot of gold light on 
 the lower range of hills in shadow : below this, 
 one great blue shadow fills the valley and falls 
 to a low line of grass-covered foreground, 
 from which two or three slight, wind-blown 
 pines rise from either side, into the golden 
 sunlight. 
 
 There is an old salon man of sixty, at work 
 down here; strong as an ox and much more 
 vulgar, but very amusing. Evidently, he is one 
 of the acknowledged men, has exhibited at the 
 . salon for forty years and is all be-medaled. I 
 don't care for his work, though it is the kind 
 
 21 
 
that counts, in Paris. He asked me to show 
 him mine, and so I did. It sort of jolted him; 
 nevertheless, when his wife said, "C'est drole 
 cat" she got it in the neck, so to speak: and 
 our landlady, also, for asking, "What the devil 
 is it ? " It was funny to hear him defend the 
 canvas. 
 
 . . . I did not tell you, though, what has 
 happened since I wrote; how the silver-grey 
 almond trees against the grey-blue sea, have 
 starred themselves with rosy-white until now 
 they are heavy masses of bloom, broken with 
 the silver of the branches and flecked with the 
 green of another Spring. And the birds are 
 returning from some Winter resort of their 
 own, perhaps Africa, which is not so far away. 
 One hears them, now and then of a morn- 
 ing, in the amandiez — flowering outside the 
 window. 
 
 Last night, dark and cloudy, we walked 
 along the cliffs of the little peninsula of St. 
 Hospice. The sea, quite black in the darkness, 
 broke very splendidly against the rocks, far 
 below, and the warm wind quietly moved the 
 pines. . . . 
 
 I am being urged, before I go back, to show 
 my work in London and New York — but, 
 heavens ! I have no intention of doing that, for 
 years to come ! To think of that kind of thing, 
 success, reputation, is worse than foolishness 
 and fatal to good work. No, I am a student 
 and must remain one till I graduate by right of 
 technical attainment. My road is clear enough : 
 I know entirely what I want to do, and that is 
 more than most men of my age can say. I am 
 now, too, in the clutch of school influence — no, 
 
 22 
 
not school influence at all — but the persistent 
 study of form has made me see, out of doors, 
 first and last, form (which is right enough so 
 long as one does not allow it to disturb one). 
 By much drawing and painting I shall come 
 back to my former perception and then too, 
 be master of my tools. 
 
 I hope your work goes to your liking: 
 though as you are an artist, it is quite sure not 
 to be doing so: it never does, till we become 
 careless; but it is all fun, of a bitter enough 
 kind sometimes. I, in the dream of open air 
 and the country, in a Paris atelier, told you that 
 once I knew how to draw, it would all be plain 
 sailing and joy. Well, I know now I was 
 wrong, dead wrong. I know now that to do 
 what I want to do, will mean pains and aches 
 of a perpetual kind. But we all choose the 
 pain! 
 
 I enjoyed greatly the journey through Italy, Paris, 
 from the French Riviera. After the landscape Fd>., 1898. 
 I had tried so hard and vainly to paint, the 
 landscape of Italy sings a new song in my 
 memory. It is as though the parts I love best 
 in California, Piedmont and Marin, had been 
 lived in and tended for many generations, by a 
 race loving the soil and life and caring about 
 all ; and I think of it now, the country around 
 Genoa and Padua and Verona, as of the colour 
 of precious stones and of fruit ripened under a 
 full sun. 
 
 We had really very good fun getting to Ven- 
 ice; we took slow trains (and the fastest are 
 slow enough), and at every station we got off 
 
 23 
 
and ran through the town, and then stopped the 
 night in some town of interest. Of all the 
 beautiful things I saw, the front of St. Mark's 
 at Venice, in the late evening sunlight, was the 
 swellest by ever so much. 
 
 It is still all a blur — more in my heart than 
 in my head, I think. And the many churches 
 with their full warm colour and lavish old 
 gilding, are all one with the landscape — the 
 sedate and quiet people, still so beautiful. 
 
 It has cleared my road for me, and I see quite 
 plainly where I am going. Withal, I come 
 back a much humbler person. 
 
 Pa™, Yesterday was Mi Careme, and there was 
 1808 a £ r eat to-do on the Boulevards. We were 
 well in it: all afternoon in the thick of the 
 crowd, trying how much confetti we could hold 
 in our eyes and still see. If I close my eyes 
 today, I see things like impressionistic land- 
 scapes, made of spots of paper of different 
 bright colors. 
 
 There was great excitement on the Boul. 
 Montmartre; it was while the cavalcade 
 passed that a lot of people in the windows and 
 balconies along the route threw oranges and 
 candy and biscuits to the crowd below: they 
 also let down bottles of champagne, which they 
 would keep dangling over the heads of the 
 crowd in a way that excited them wildly. 
 Sooner or later the bottle would be captured 
 by some one endowed by Providence with a 
 long reach. There were others, high up in the 
 buildings, who threw down oranges, and these 
 fitted very quick some heads in the crowd, 
 
 24 
 
clothing the owners in a thin, transparent yel- 
 low and a glowing indignation, which mani- 
 fested itself in eggs, — the spectators in the 
 windows having to retire, as they had notions 
 of their own as to how eggs should be taken. 
 
 The cavalcade was gay, in the grey-blue of 
 the Grande Boulevards — the high, piping 
 colour of paper roses and fancy costumes be- 
 came pearl-like and gentle, en masse; the 
 chestnut trees, astir once again with breaking 
 green, were full of long streamers of coloured 
 papers: the roadway and footpaths were 
 ablaze with confetti : and all Paris was out to 
 see it, and like only Parisians, they were wildly 
 gay without any sign of ill temper. 
 
 Yes, as you say, the Zola trial was a farce ; 
 the Parisian men are N. G. — small, excitable, 
 vicious; but for the French of the Provinces 
 I have a profound admiration. They are a 
 simple, sober, brave people, taking life as they 
 meet it, without complaint. . . . 
 
 Here, too, the whole business of the Latin 
 Quarter is so deadly tiresome and such a 
 to-do is made about the very unimportant 
 matter of painting, that one longs for the quiet 
 of home, where, if such things are less under- 
 stood, they are much healthier. 
 
 I hope your work goes to your pleasure; 
 the susceptibility to discouragement is part of 
 the price we pay for the privilege of being 
 artists: but it's worth while and perhaps we 
 are equally susceptible to reaction, from dis- 
 couragement to hope. At present I feel happy 
 about my work. I have determined to send 
 nothing to the exhibitions for a year or two; 
 there is no hurry and I wonder, every now and 
 
 25 
 
then, whether they are worth while. When I 
 saw the N. Y. exhibitions and realized that 
 they were nothing more than large editions of 
 the Hopkins' show, that the Royal Academy 
 was the same thing, larger still — I began to 
 feel that it all counts nothing. However, it 
 bothers me very little, the matter of showing; 
 what I am glad about is, that I shall have such 
 a fine chance to do things. 
 
 . Pa Pi' ... It is strange how differently one 
 pr-,i 9 • re g ar d s Uf e w hen one has a warm sun and a 
 clear sky above one's head: and how out of 
 place the terrible facts of life are, when one 
 encounters them, under such conditions. There 
 is nothing so convincing of the divine Tight- 
 ness of the teaching of Christ, as His fearless 
 regarding of the world and life : it's a wonder- 
 ful thing, that He should have said the last 
 word, so long ago. 
 
 As to "the refining influences of art?" — 
 well, I don't know ! I meet too many men here 
 who have subjected themselves to the "refin- 
 ing influences," with no happy result: men 
 who are "refined" (superficially) to the last 
 degree, and nothing can so rouse me to the 
 same pitch of rowdyism and vulgarity, as 
 these same lady-like gentlemen. The fact is 
 that, except to the healthy minded, who see 
 things in fairly true relation, art is a snare and 
 a delusion: Stevenson pointed out that the 
 calling of the artist is to give pleasure, the 
 calling of other men is to work — often 
 enough to disagreeable work; so it stands 
 to reason, that unless at the bottom of 
 
 26 
 
his heart the artist be a mem — of serious mind 
 and with an eye quick to see his responsibility 
 in life, he inevitably becomes what many good 
 women miscall "refined" — and avoid: what 
 the true woman asks for is manliness in men, 
 just as a man detests the masculine qualities in 
 a woman. If any one asked me what kind of 
 a man / like, I would say: "The man who 
 knows the world and loves his mother": that 
 man is not likely to go far wrong. Life is full 
 of pitfalls to the ignorant, and the "sheltered 
 life" is the cause of much unhappiness : — many 
 failures. 
 
 ... I doubt if art turns often the thoughts 
 toward God, except as the mind and heart, 
 perceiving, sees another facet of His great 
 good-will, in having made the world beautiful. 
 In a world where the imposed conditions for 
 every creature coming into it, are such as to 
 make him more and more the Materialist, there 
 must be some antidotes for life: and art, it 
 seems to me, is one of them. To the artist it 
 is given to perceive the beauties and the joys 
 of life — as to the teacher is given the grasp 
 upon hidden truths: and these, through the 
 strength of their perceptions are compelled to 
 give their visions to the mass of the workers : 
 workers who have neither the power nor the 
 time to search for themselves. 
 
 I have just heard the "Symphonie Pathet- April, 1898. 
 ique" given by Hans Richter. I am all of a 
 shake still — the theme of the second movement 
 is going through me, and the last! — how it 
 leaves one sobered. It seems to me that he has 
 27 
 
laid bare his soul — a very great soul — and 
 after it the world looks ordinary and smaller, 
 and I am feeling a strange pity for all these 
 creatures around me who sit playing checkers 
 and discussing art — God help them! — discuss- 
 ing art ! After today, there is nothing to dis- 
 cuss. I am afraid I can't write a decent letter 
 — this music has put a weight upon me : I feel 
 as though I were doing someone a wrong: 
 just as I feel when someone I care for has told 
 me of some mental pain: as if I had no right 
 to be happy — rather, that for the time being, 
 I feel as if I should cease to exist apart from 
 the sufferer. It seems as if this touch from 
 a great man had told me things, intimate and 
 sacred: although I haven't a remote idea of 
 what they are or what they mean ; only, I feel 
 as if, for the moment, I should be alone — for- 
 gotten of myself. The ridiculous desire to 
 pray, for the peace of his soul, comes upon me, 
 and I should do it if it didn't come upon me 
 in just that way — his soul is all right! 
 
 I tell myself I am a fool to pretend I feel 
 like this : — that it is all pretense : that it really 
 does not touch me. This is the curse of a 
 Puritan ancestry — a Puritan desire to doubt 
 one's self, that God may be glorified. Heaven 
 help that kind of a God, and make me simple. 
 
 Heavens and earth ! picture exhibitions and 
 salons! What worthlessness one finds — the 
 whole business is full of pettiness and desire for 
 recognition. The sight of a drawing by Millet 
 thrills one and makes the rest all weak and 
 worthless. ^The drawing I think of is a slight 
 sketch of a shepherd-girl seated in a field: 
 and in its presence the greatest men of today. 
 
 28 
 
are forgotten. There is something in it that 
 asks one what all the talk one hears here 
 means : what all this scurrying and haste for 
 salons mean. Good Lord, to have done that 
 sketch ! to have written a line, with this same 
 great power — that is what we students, if we 
 have conceit enough, might strive for, instead 
 of thinking of the crown of deadly nightshade, 
 with which the world crowns those who pander 
 to it! 
 
 It is a most humbling thing to have heard 
 this symphony of Tschaikovsky's : after this, 
 I shall think less (and heaven knows how it 
 has lately dropped from my mind) of any 
 response to my work, except from the few 
 friends I know. Here, even the men who 
 should know and feel, have sold what birth- 
 right they may once have had, for a mention at 
 the salon. 
 
 I have no idea yet as to whether I shall go 
 or stay. I don't much care — either will suit 
 me. I enjoy the drawing and think, at the 
 same time, of the irises in flower on the Marin 
 hills and of the larks, whistling amongst the 
 high eucalyptus blossoms. I shall be glad to 
 be there, although life could not be happier 
 than it is : and I thank God that I was here to 
 hear what I heard today. 
 
 Last evening, as I came through the gardens 
 of the Luxembourg, in the glow of the pale 
 golden light, a blackbird with his breast 
 against an unfolding gold and pink and pale 
 green chestnut spire, sang his song to the 
 Spring and the new moon : and the silver-grey 
 pigeons sat in the bare trees with their heads 
 to the slight April breeze, like ships at anchor. 
 29 
 
In one place, the rhododendrons are burst- 
 ing, gloriously, into purple and crimson clus- 
 ters amidst dark green leaves; and the chil- 
 dren play differently: an intoxication (that 
 for the most part, I fear only the child Parisian 
 feels) seems to be rife amongst them. It is the 
 birthright of the simple — this joy in the change 
 of the seasons, and especially this change from 
 Winter to Spring. 
 
 Is it going to be war? The papers here 
 think so; and here am I, with a love divided 
 between my native and adopted countries, and 
 feeling that the one country I could really fight 
 for is California (hardly a possibility of specu- 
 lation of that sort becoming necessary, unless 
 all Europe is involved). 
 
 We are exulting in the fact that Zola has 
 won his appeal: that he is to have another 
 trial. It is most unexpected. 
 
 You ask why I couldn't paint the Riviera 
 country: I guess it was because it didn't hit 
 me hard enough. It was somewhat spectacular 
 — sharp in colour, too. It was the landscape 
 between Genoa and Milan that made me want 
 to paint; however, I shall paint but little till 
 I am back in California. Meantime, the front 
 of St. Mark's alone made the year worth 
 while : now, the symphony today has doubled 
 it: and I have a considerably better under- 
 standing of drawing, too, thrown in. 
 
 April, 1898. Spring has come, as Stevenson said it would, 
 "bringing birds and flowers," and Paris is as 
 gay and beautiful as it ever will be — all the 
 Boulevards green with newly-broken buds — 
 
 30 
 
THE MARNE; CHARENTON 
 1898 
 
the distant buildings swim in a violet mist, 
 while great white clouds roll in the deep blue 
 sky. 
 
 Meantime the papers talk of war within 
 twenty-four hours, and ardent American stu- 
 dents form bands of volunteers and write many 
 letters to the newspapers. There is one of 
 these sitting opposite me as I write; and he 
 "dameth" a great deal for his size. I haven't 
 much use for his kind. 
 
 There is a great row here in the club. On 
 the night of Mi Careme, Madame Mai and the 
 girl called Julie, who both attend to the tables 
 (the former having been concierge for years 
 
 and years before X goj: his finger into 
 
 the club's affairs) — both, simple, good-hearted 
 country people, and hardly looked upon as ser- 
 vants, were installed in nurse-maid caps at the 
 
 instigation of X , against their will and 
 
 against the wish of many of the simpler mem- 
 bers of the club, who foresaw, truly enough, 
 various attempts at running the club "in style." 
 My main contention was that (as Madame 
 Mai used, in the past, to run the restaurant 
 quite independently, taking the risks entirely 
 into her own hands, and always keeping a kind 
 of motherly eye out for the ramshackle set of 
 men and boys who belonged to the club), it 
 was a mean business to see her crowded down 
 to the position of a common, domestic servant. 
 Well, we took off the caps, covered every- 
 thing with confetti, and went off with the caps. 
 A meeting of directors was called : and forth- 
 with a notice appeared on the board, noticing 
 the irregularity and threatening any new 
 offender with suspension. We tore down the 
 31 
 
notice, took half of it, each, and I promptly 
 put my half into the grand complaint box 
 (newly established). 
 
 It seems that this has jolted the manager 
 very hard : and you may hear, next letter, that 
 I have had to submit to the disgrace of being 
 "thrown out." 
 
 Since I wrote last, we have heard the 
 "Ninth" Symphony conducted by Hans Rich- 
 ter, at the Colonne concert. It was late at 
 night — we had been dining at C. F.'s, and 
 we just got standing room for this, the last 
 thing on the programme. It was tremendous ! 
 The parts that hit me hardest were after the 
 voices (the choir itself being a big one) came 
 against the great orchestra. 
 
 We have heard, too, a concert of badly sung 
 songs of Tschaikovsky's — but his "Slavic 
 March" was big in effect, altho' the orchestra 
 (Lamereux) was miserable. The Russian an- 
 them, which keeps pounding and booming 
 through the thing, making the whole very 
 splendid. We heard "Carmen," too, at the 
 Opera Comique. The music was bewitching, 
 and the kissing, as I remarked to W., was 
 handsome. There is, however, something en- 
 raging to me about the attenuated movements 
 of actors ; and in opera, especially. I become 
 quite crazy during that long duet in Lohengrin, 
 for instance. These two people, singing away 
 in the street, (by no means -dressed for the 
 open) and from time to time plunging around 
 corners and across the stage, like cats with dis- 
 jointed tails : while I wait for business to begin 
 again. 
 
 I have been sketching a good deal lately, 
 
 32 
 
down at St. Cloud. B., W. and I had a long 
 walk down there, on Sunday afternoon: 
 through the woods, to Fontenay aux Roses. 
 The woods were carpeted with the beautiful 
 white anemone. We call it the "wind-flower" 
 in England. And the lesser celandine, with its 
 keen, yellow, star-like flower and dark green 
 leaf, so clean and vigorous. The woods were 
 spotted with the beautiful wild white cherry in 
 flower : all young green and white ; the black- 
 birds sang everywhere and the new green of 
 the chestnut leaves mingled with the gold of 
 the sheaths, that such a short time ago en- 
 closed them. In a little while the leaves will 
 have become more golden ; the splendid pyra- 
 mid-shaped spikes of blossom will cover the 
 trees, rosy-gold and purple and white: and 
 the nightingales will sing above the quiet river 
 and in those great groves and terraces, that 
 always seem to me so full of classic feeling. 
 
 Your letter is very beautiful: full of the May, 1898. 
 most vivid pictures for me : It brings back to 
 my mind the memory of long days I have 
 spent in the hills — days like this, when the 
 rain fell in a fine powder and the ribbons of 
 mist garlanded the eucalyptus tops. 
 
 I am so glad to hear that you liked that can- 
 vas of Muhrman's. I never had a doubt of 
 him : not that I would place him amongst the 
 greatest, by any means, for there have been 
 so few really great. To me he is away ahead 
 of any man painting landscape here. The fact 
 of the matter is, that unless a man be a poet, 
 as Muhrman is, or an interpreter of character, 
 
 33 
 
as Degas is, there is little sense in his painting, 
 for apart from these things, painting is only 
 justified by its relation to architecture. Of 
 course a man without gifts is at liberty to 
 paint for his own amusement, but a life of 
 amusement is hardly the thing to make it 
 worth while to live; one meets men of this 
 kind over here, and all that one can say is, 
 "God help them." 
 
 To be worth anything, there must be some 
 sternness in life: we must care: and if we 
 do, we are bound to suffer. I suppose it is this 
 fear of suffering that makes the Parisian what 
 he is: mean, low and selfish. I refer to the 
 man : I still feel that the woman of Paris has 
 splendid and great qualities : but the conditions 
 of life are all against her. 
 
 It is noticeable that the men one meets here 
 who have been through the siege and com- 
 mune are made of altogether different material 
 from the men of my age, who have seen no 
 hardship. And the priests have a distinct line 
 drawn amongst them, too, marking the distinc- 
 tion between the artificial and esthetic life of 
 the town and the simple life of the country — 
 near to the great joys and sorrows of a brave 
 people. And what a fine mark this genuine 
 life of ready response makes upon a man or 
 woman. 
 
 Paris is sinking low and all France is tainted 
 with the vice one knows to be rife here. It is a 
 pity that only war or revolution can save them 
 or bring them back, or save that nobility of 
 character that Millet saw in the peasants of his 
 country — for in the country it is not all lost. 
 
 34 
 
THE BASIN : ST. CLOUD 
 1898 
 
I heard W., two stories below me, the other 
 night, playing upon the club piano : and under 
 his hands this instrument (which I have come 
 since to believe is misunderstood) sang the 
 Tocata from the Fifth, so that I could have 
 sworn it was 'cellos and violins. . . . 
 
 The war is a bad business, and it is hard to 
 get at the exact right and wrong of the case. 
 There seems to be a necessity for war, or its 
 equivalent, to give men fibre; there is too 
 great a crowd studying art — too little manli- 
 ness in men nowadays. 
 
 We have had no good weather so far this June, 1898. 
 month — constant rain. But one night, at St. 
 Cloud, I was rewarded by seeing the sun go 
 down, shining upon the blossoming chestnut 
 trees, with a gradual golden bloom and a 
 gloomy wealth of colour, in the great terraced 
 avenues; the whole thing like some stately 
 chant, so beautiful, so full of a living music 
 the colour was — and, oh ! as night fell, and the 
 sun sank and the gold left the great trees, with 
 a kind of rhythm, the whole place changed in 
 a magical way. The liquid blue of the clear 
 sky seemed to have neither beginning nor end : 
 and against it the trees stirred in the Spring 
 breeze — the full, wet green of late Spring, in 
 the blue of the rain- washed sky. 
 
 And the way the new moon rises there — and 
 the blackbirds call — and the way the silence 
 falls — and is broken by another bird, who an- 
 swers the echo of his own voice ! 
 
 I can't describe it, and so far I cannot paint 
 it — so beautiful, so full of an elegance too fine 
 for words or paint. I wonder if you know the 
 35 
 
place? One dreams of the concerts, of the 
 fetes, of days not so long ago, when that ele- 
 gance which so marks the whole place must 
 have been echoed in the beautifully gowned 
 women — who perhaps danced to the music of 
 orchestras, beneath the great trees of the park, 
 with its lawns and fountains. 
 
 As I write, my heart is in the fight around 
 Santiago, which must be in full swing. From 
 time to time I wish I was there, in spite of the 
 fact that I am no fighter, and have no convic- 
 tion as to the right of it all. However, God 
 speed them and give us an end to it. We had 
 news of the fighting last night: vague news, 
 and I woke at half past four this morning and 
 thought of it all till I had to turn out, in the 
 hope of further information. It was too early 
 to find papers, so I hung around till Notre 
 Dame opened, at six. The hour I spent there, 
 in the grey quiet, was more to my liking than 
 all the church-going I have done put together. 
 
 Later, I got the N. Y. Herald and read the 
 long account through a blur, with shivers in 
 my bones : and thanked God that the men be- 
 haved so splendidly. (That dragging of God's 
 name into the business sounds queer, and lands 
 me in complications I do not undertake to 
 grapple with.) All the same, bravery moves 
 me as almost nothing else does, and the Ameri- 
 cans are behaving in a fine way. 
 
 If I ever go a-soldiering, it will be about 
 something I am quite convinced is worth my 
 life: only, I would pray that I might be hit 
 plump with a bullet where I live, or blown up 
 with a shell — for I have horrors of outpost 
 
 36 
 
duty in the night, with Death crawling in the 
 brash and yellow pestilence hovering in the 
 silence overhead. The darkness falling, even 
 upon country I know and love, fills me with 
 inconceivable terrors, which in moments of 
 credulity have scattered me in all directions 
 and taken in tucks in my face and scalp, leav- 
 ing me feeling contracted for hours. All of 
 which leads me to conclude that I have about 
 struck step with my destiny, in the somewhat 
 childish calling of a painter. 
 
 I wish I were home for many reasons : but 
 all the same, we have a splendid time. We 
 loathe the Parisians now, to our hearts con- 
 tent, or rather discontent. We fight on the 
 street with cockers who beat their horses and 
 with the brutes who drive the great patient 
 dray-horses that haul the quarried stone from 
 the quads. Yesterday we put in a full after- 
 noon of this rowdy work. We had a row with 
 two carters: in the first we gained our point 
 and compelled the man to get another horse; 
 in this we were seconding two French women, 
 who were protesting when we arrived. As 
 we were seeing this through, another team was 
 being lashed up the hill, in a perfectly vile way, 
 and we left the first for the second scene of 
 action. We settled him, too. No sooner had 
 we reached the river, when we saw a man lash- 
 ing three horses attached to a load of great 
 blocks of stone, in a way that made us crazy 
 and we roared at him in unison. The crowd 
 was altogether against us, but by our interfer- 
 ence the man was compelled to stop whipping 
 the horses and in consequence he was unable 
 to force the tired creatures up the hill; so 
 37 
 
hurriedly he unhitched them, and with the 
 mob following, calling us "Sale Etrangers," we 
 reached a policeman. Everyone swore we 
 must be arrested, so we were, and were taken 
 across the city to the police station. And here 
 a curious thing happened. Escorted by the 
 policeman, the carter and his three horses and 
 a huge mob, we fell, at the station, right into 
 the arms of a little man we used to sit at table 
 with and who had told us, as we joked, that 
 if we got into trouble to let him know, as he 
 was connected with the police. And now he 
 received us with every manifestation of affec- 
 tion, rising in his majesty and saying, "Bon 
 jour, Monsieur Artoor." Bon jour, Monsieur 
 Keen." The crowd helped the carter to make 
 a case against us, but after leaving our names 
 and addresses, we were allowed to go. 
 
 Animals and women in Paris are regarded 
 alike : they have no feelings : "their first duty 
 is to work" (as a damnable little Frenchman 
 said to us the other day). Thank Heaven! I 
 leave soon. Paris is become a nightmare! 
 The Dreyfus case and Zola : the way the police 
 side with the mob : the terrible way the beasts 
 of men treat the women : I have absolutely no 
 good thing left to say of the Parisians I see 
 about me every day. I think my early letters 
 to you showed rather a prejudice in their 
 favour : there is none of that left now. They 
 are in a wretched state: it is useless to look 
 to them for great art or great anything else. 
 We do not judge them hastily or superficially 
 — we have lived a year amongst them now, 
 not as most students, but amongst the French 
 themselves. 
 
 38 
 
With my charming relatives here, Paris is 
 another place. We were all down at St. Cloud 
 yesterday : I never knew the place more beau- 
 tiful. If only I could have painted what I 
 wanted there ! But it was no go : I couldn't 
 work it at all. 
 
 From this on there will be a scurrying to get 
 good-byes said and things packed up. I shall 
 be very happy to find myself upon the train 
 at New York: then I shall begin to feel as if 
 I were really getting home. I can't tell you 
 how good it is to think of : I feel as if I could 
 ask no better place to spend my life than in 
 Piedmont and the neighborhood. 
 
 I am back in Wales, and the last days have Pemrth, 
 been very pleasant : I escaped from Paris with Aug., 1898. 
 joy in my heart and apart from a few people, 
 the river in Summer-evening light and the 
 gardens in the cool of the morning — I regret 
 nothing. 
 
 Penarth is as beautiful as before. I go 
 down to the water every morning and swim 
 with the two boys. I shall do a good deal of 
 work here, I expect, during the month, so you 
 will be able to get some idea of the place when 
 I return. My Father is pleased with my work, 
 which is a great pleasure to me. About your 
 work ? How does it "march" ? I used to talk 
 about going off to the wilds and working 
 alone, but lately I have changed my mind. I 
 don't want to be a freak and I don't want to 
 miss any of your recitals. From this on, there 
 is no more St. Sulpice for me: Widor and 
 Vienne are behind: ahead, for a month, is a 
 39 
 
little Wesleyan chapel with a little cracked 
 organ — ! 
 
 Aren't you very glad the war is over? All 
 the misery it has caused ! I hope I may reach 
 home before the men begin to return: I 
 should like to share the enthusiasm, the real- 
 ization of what the men have faced and 
 suffered. 
 
 I am looking forward, now, to starting 
 within ten days. You can't think of the joy 
 getting back will mean or how glad I shall be 
 to be home again and down to work for life. 
 The boys are the best fun in the world — you 
 aren't the only one that has a cinch on families ! 
 Yet what an awfully queer business the family 
 problem is? Outside one's home, no one tells 
 one of one's small failings, while inside, one 
 hears little else. Perhaps, though, one does 
 not hear, but one realizes them so clearly and 
 so constantly that life becomes almost a bur- 
 den, and the people one loves most in the world 
 are really the most trying — and the sons and 
 daughters go off and marry, and the whole 
 business begins again ! Meantime, I'm having 
 the best kind of a time, here at home. My 
 people tell me I have grown beautifully toler- 
 ant. What do you think of that — hein? 
 
 But it is good to come back to one's own 
 family with enthusiasm: to feel that the ties 
 of blood are not all that binds one to it. My 
 mother is the same sweet, beautiful woman, 
 whom it will be hard to leave — the more so 
 now that my brother D. has determined to 
 return with me. For him I am glad and it will 
 be a pleasure to me to have his company : but 
 of the family, three of the sons will be in Cali- 
 
 40 
 
fornia, one in another part of England, and 
 one, with endowments that promised much, is 
 but a name and a memory to us. And the dear 
 mother goes about the house, in the same quiet 
 way. If I speak of the greater prospects and 
 the better climate, she smiles and says, "Yes, he 
 will be happy there," and stands at the win- 
 dow, hardly listening, looking far away, over 
 the roads and the treetops to the sea : but with 
 tears in her eyes, that hurt more than anything 
 I know. 
 
 This is just to thank you for the note: I Piedmont, 
 liked the things you enclosed. Cahforma, 
 
 I was "up" for an hour or so, yesterday, but l8 " s \ ' 
 so weak that it didn't take very long to stop 
 the experiment. 
 
 It's all no go. How am I ever to learn my 
 craft? There is nothing but obstacles, all the 
 time. 
 
 I wish you the best of luck for tomorrow ! 
 
 . . . Please don't trouble to send up to Dec p. 
 enquire for me. ... I think I shall get 
 steadily better, from this on. . . . 
 
 * 
 
 God help me to try hard for gentleness and 
 cheerfulness; digging a way out of this 
 slough of superficial religion. . . . 
 
 God let me but keep kind. 
 
 41 
 
ON PAINTING 
 
ON PAINTING 
 
 Today, when every town has two or more Paris, 
 exhibitions of pictures in the year, all alike are dug., 1897. 
 "artists"; the young woman who bespeckles 
 porcelain with forget-me-nots and the young 
 man, returned from abroad, having learned 
 that equal parts of the primary colours added 
 to four times the quantity of flake white, when 
 ' stirred briskly for some seconds and applied 
 with a fork to an absorbent canvas, result in a 
 picture of "the rather impressionistic kind" — 
 is it strange that intelligent people are con- 
 stantly asking what 'painting' really is? 
 
 In France one sees many brilliantly clever 
 things, which, as far as painting is concerned, 
 might have been done with a tooth-brush or 
 the finger nail. In England, one finds every- 
 thing, from "Mary and her lamb" to abstruse 
 extracts from Bulfinch, all with explanatory 
 poems attached to the frames ; the work done 
 with fine brushes and the surface licked while 
 drying, in order to attain "that 'igh finish of a 
 photograph," so pleasing to the clergy. 
 
 In America the exhibitions are distinguished 
 by a preponderance of mermaids and picket 
 fences. 
 
 Under such circumstances is the public to 
 be blamed for its ignorance of what the 
 painters art really is? 
 
 In the Luxembourg gallery in Paris there 
 hang two modern canvases, which tell us what 
 painting is, in clearest terms. 
 
 45 
 
One, by Edouard Manet, a picture of a nude 
 woman reclining upon the linen of a low 
 bed, will forever be ranked by painters as paint- 
 ing of a great kind. In this we see that joy in 
 the manipulation of brushes, in the handling 
 of paint, that is the distinguishing mark of the 
 painter ; a man lacking this joy in the expres- 
 siveness of his materials may be a poet, an 
 observer, or an experimentalist: but never a 
 painter. In Manet, the painter's instinct was 
 of the most robust quality: what he had to 
 say he said clearly: every time he put his 
 brush to canvas, he did so deliberately: each 
 stroke expresses the painter and explains itself. 
 Let any intelligent observer compare this can- 
 vas of his with those hanging near it, and he 
 must at once see the difference between paint- 
 ing and what are merely drawings coloured. 
 
 The second canvas is that by Mr. Whistler, 
 the now famous "Portrait of the artist's 
 mother." In this we find a more sensitive kind 
 of painting than that of Manet: an exquisite 
 appreciation of what can be done with the 
 brush. Apart from the distinction of the ar- 
 rangement and colour, this canvas gives us an 
 example of painting in the highest meaning 
 of the word. It is the work, not only of a great 
 painter, but of a great artist as well. A man's 
 place as a painter is decided not by what he 
 paints, but how he paints it. What he has to 
 say is, finally of course, of greater importance 
 to us than his manner. His choice of subject 
 will reveal to us how much of an artist he is, 
 how far he understands the limitations of his 
 art: but at this present moment that deeper 
 question need not concern us. 
 
 46 
 
CHARENTON 
 
 1898 
 
ON PICTURES 
 
 The colour is beautiful and clear : the paint- Corot, 
 ing very thin, the canvas fine and hardly count- "»r° t U r' >, 
 ing at all. It looks to me as though the work ° te ' 
 were carried over a long time and constantly 
 let harden. This man paints in a beautiful 
 delicate way. The shadows are painted very 
 thin and wet. 
 
 A beautiful composition, very strongly Millet, 
 
 modelled, with a much better feeling for the "J*es u 
 
 brush than in his larger things— and while the Bamgneuses. 
 colour is not great, yet it is simple and clean. 
 
 A beautiful Spring-like thing — the painting Daubigny. 
 very thin and quiet. He pays great attention 
 to detail, without losing breadth : the painting 
 is beautiful: there is no hesitation in the 
 brushing. 
 
 Most disappointing. In black and white, it Millet, 
 
 has always delighted me: here, the colour is "T. he 
 
 bad and the painting also, but the arrangement Lrleaners - 
 and feeling are great. 
 
 A wonderful French evening light, full of Rousseau, 
 poetry and yet very real. The colour is beauti- "J ort ™, de 
 ful : the composition fine and serene— the can- " 
 
 47 
 
vas nowhere loaded and yet it might be cleaner 
 brushing. Not what I would call great paint- 
 ing : it is rather a draughtman's painting than 
 a painter's. Great painting should be expres- 
 sive in every stroke: there should be no in- 
 decisive strokes and the brush should be felt 
 everywhere. 
 
 Kiyonaga, Three women, on the one summer's evening 
 „ . " Th f, of the world— on a rose-white enamel balcony, 
 a cony. f ar a ^ ove t jj e p&lt, gold-green summer sea, 
 which the sky meets, with a suggestion of sil- 
 ver violet-grey. Upon the sea are boats 
 which the one woman watches, as she toys 
 with something she holds in her hands. Her 
 gown is rosier than the water, but very 
 slightly. She wears a great black sash. The 
 woman standing in conversation with the one 
 who is kneeling is dressed in a rose-gold gown 
 — the latter in black. The blind, hanging into 
 the upper corner of the picture, is green, and 
 the hair of each of the women is black. 
 
 One of the most beautiful things in the 
 Louvre, to me, is the figure of a woman upon 
 an earthen helmet from Canosa. Tall and 
 dreamlike, beautiful in line, she carries herself, 
 her shield and sword, with an exquisite grace ; 
 the swirl of drapery, her forward motion and 
 nodding plume, are rendered in a perfect 
 way : and the rise and fall of the slight relief, 
 ravish one. 
 
 48 
 
There is no need for realism in painting be- Paris, 
 yond a genuine impulse received from Nature : m< K)j lS 9 8 - 
 colour and drawing one has entire liberty to 
 subject to the one end of expression. 
 
 What makes a great picture is not brilliancy 
 of handling, or the complete rendering of sur- 
 faces, but the seizing and holding of some ele- 
 ment of that divine beauty which all things 
 possess in some degree. And the mark of any 
 great work of art — whether it be a print of 
 Kiyonaga's, the "Concert Champetre" of Gior- 
 gione, or a Bach fugue, — is this : that it is for 
 all time and belonging to none : stamped with 
 the mark of infinity. 
 
 The "Infante" and the "Assyrian Sphinx"— 
 even slighter great things, some of Corot's 
 landscapes, possess this power to carry us, be- 
 yond time and place, into what, in one's happi- 
 est dreams, one fashions eternity. 
 
 If the painting of surfaces were the great 
 thing, we should count Manet a great artist 
 for his "Olymphe," which is painting carried 
 to the last point the craftsman alone can carry 
 it; had the artist in him been more pro- 
 nounced, he would have stood amongst the 
 greatest. But that the artist comes be- 
 fore the craftsman, no one will deny; the 
 "Concert" of Giorgione in the Louvre, in spite 
 of the fact that in a painter's sense it is not 
 painted, still, like a beautiful dream, brings 
 tears to one's eyes, while in the presence of the 
 "Olymphe" one only wonders at the glory of 
 the painting and the realism of the canvas. If 
 it is a beautiful thing, it is because the woman's 
 firm and supple body was a beautiful thing in 
 itself — was squarely seen and wonderfully 
 49 
 
painted: a process in which the painter never 
 forgot his model. 
 
 In all the canvases by Henry Muhrman, in 
 greater of less degree, is the distinguishing 
 mark of a great art : a mark one looks for with 
 such dearth of reward amongst the myriad 
 works of alleged artists shown at the Paris 
 and London exhibitions. 
 
 Now the God-given gift of seeing is sent not 
 to the many and not to the few: somewhere 
 between the many and the few the limit of this 
 company lies ; but the power to see, with the 
 power to express — ah! how rare is the man 
 with the two gifts ! He stands second only to 
 the great architect or the great composer, who, 
 by instinct, deal as freely with advanced mathe- 
 matics as with the abstractly beautiful. But 
 it is a futile thing — this comparison between 
 the arts: if a man has seen and rendered 
 beauty, let us acknowledge him : his rank, the 
 years alone can decide. For us the landscapes 
 of Henry Muhrman reveal these two gifts of 
 seeing and expressing. . . . [Unfinished.] 
 
 So 
 
ON LANDSCAPE 
 
ON LANDSCAPE 
 
 The wind is north : the overhead sun floods Piedmont, 
 the landscape with a hard and glaring light: lS 95- 
 the blue sky seems, like the sun and wind, to 
 lack mercy. Everything suffers : the hills look 
 parched and careworn : the grass, that so lately 
 brought the joy and hope of Spring to the 
 hearts of men slowly yields up its life. The 
 roads lie white and dusty, the ring and hard- 
 ness gone from them : no invitation have they 
 for the traveller. 
 
 A group of eucalyptus trees stand silently 
 bearing the unmerciful light, yet everything 
 waits in hope: and as the sun slowly sinks, 
 all changes. The landscape sings with colour, 
 as a gem: the distant hills are suffused with 
 purple and gold : their careworn look of noon 
 vanishes, and in its place, great solemnness and 
 contentment — broad lights and noble shadow. 
 The grass, almost golden, holding still a linger- 
 ing note of green, blazes now in the rich light : 
 here and there long shadows steal over it, giv- 
 ing peace. The trees, rejoicing in a wealth of 
 colour, are of green with gold in the green and 
 a broken vibrant violet in the shadows, and 
 opulent gold upon trunks and branches. 
 
 The great quiet landscape smiles; and I, 
 coming wearily home over the hill, conscious 
 of my own littleness (though doubtless beauti- 
 ful, too, in the coloured light), smile and thank 
 God fervently, that He did not make the land- 
 scape grey. 
 53 
 
i$97- A glowing July afternoon on the Seine, 
 between Paris and St. Cloud — men, loading 
 stone on a great barge, stripped to the waist, 
 the skin a golden-rose colour, quite low in tone, 
 against the water, blue, very deep. 
 
 While out of doors, I see colour high: but I 
 think in low, rich colour. 
 
 Villefranche, Terraces upon terraces, and as far as the 
 Jan., 1898. eve t rave ] s are i^ domes of silver-green olives 
 — then, far up, a great rosy and blue cliff. 
 
 In the beds on the terraces, beneath the olive 
 trees, are Spring flowers which scent the air, 
 warmed now, by the growing sun of the New 
 Year. The sky is Californian blue : below me 
 lies the harbour, where rides the U. S. S. "San 
 Francisco," with many little empty boats 
 around it. A wisp of mist lies close upon the 
 horizon, but not a cloud in the sky. 
 
 Piedmont, Vineyarded hills high in a blue sky, with 
 F b Il 8o8 S°^ en houses and grey roofs. The hills are 
 e '' ' broken by the first Spring green, crocuses and 
 blossoming almonds. 
 
 Cariali. Terraced almond orchards and the trees in 
 full blossom — grey hills back of them : and the 
 grey-green sea, coming to purple toward the 
 horizon — silver-grey houses and church-towers. 
 
 Genoa. Golden and rosy, with the sea a grey-blue 
 dream; and beyond, the blue sky with snow- 
 
 54 
 
PENARTH PIER 
 1898 
 
capped Alps — faint and vanishing; churches, 
 with torrents of full colour and gold — the 
 colour of fruit ripened under a warm sun. The 
 curtain over a church window, full of the reds 
 of fruit and wine and gold — and the market 
 place — colour again. 
 
 Town desolate — children with wooden san- Montaro. 
 dais — a beautiful Wintry-Spring landscape, 
 human and clean; a landscape gentle, and 
 worked by man : coloured with gold and gold- 
 green. The yellow rosiness of the bare wil- 
 lows, touched with violet — everywhere houses 
 of old gold brick and of stucco, with hospitable 
 arches for cattle and crops — all taking the light 
 in a simple way — with dignity: everywhere 
 colour, full colour, living, but old and warm. 
 
 A town of beautiful and sedate buildings, Verona. 
 bare trees, and subdued green of Winter grass ; 
 a brisk river, with golden houses and blue 
 shadows — a great deal of rose-coloured marble. 
 Missed our train, so lunched and slept on the 
 grass. The sun begins to get warm and the 
 chestnut buds are becoming sticky. A swell 
 market-place — big white umbrellas and people 
 with their wares below — the whole square full 
 of beautiful colour and buildings — a town com- 
 pact and of great dignity — people and build- 
 ings, all beautiful. Squares with hosts of tame, 
 hungry pigeons. Later, crossed the town and 
 sat on a pile of stones by the roadside, till 
 the train was due, looking over a pleasant 
 green, with bare trees, soldiers drilling and 
 55 
 
resting: a few children playing; the houses 
 beyond the trees, white and golden stucco. 
 
 On the way to Padua — a beautiful, level 
 country with vines and mulberry trees — newly 
 turned, golden brown earth, the new green 
 showing in the grain fields and some grass 
 fields all starred with a pale purple crocus: 
 in the distance low hills, vibrating in sunshine 
 and beyond these, hills with snow. 
 
 Venice. Arrived by water (steam tramway from 
 Padua) . Venice from the boat, a blaze of eve- 
 ning sunlight. St. Marks like a jewel. Saw 
 Gustavo Salvini play "Othello" — an out-of- 
 sight Moor in blue and gold. Place S. Marco, 
 Saturday night, the gas lights lit, a band play- 
 ing : all the boys and girls masked for carnival 
 and all the town out. St. Marks, glowing with 
 colour and the alarmed pigeons making long 
 and bewildered flight in the gas-lighted night. 
 
 Como. A quiet evening sunset — primroses in full 
 bloom and willows with catkins: only two 
 patches of snow on this protected side of the 
 mountains — and at Chiasso a wait of two 
 hours ; children doing their best to be gay for 
 the fete season. 
 
 Paris, A long sail down the river to St. Cloud — 
 July, 1898. the sun hot and a cool wind blowing. 
 
 The walk up to the basin at the end of the 
 great avenue — heated with my load — smelling 
 . every rose along the way, and at the end, sit- 
 
 56 
 
ting upon the bank bestrewn with clover blos- 
 soms and watching the great white clouds pass 
 silently over the tops of the great trees. This 
 is life, to me ! 
 
 . . Where swallows play between low banks, 
 
 And the white clouds hang reflected : 
 
 The great white rounded clouds of Summer, 
 
 Floating in the powdered blue. 
 
 The great, green rounded, heavy trees, 
 
 That shimmer down the terraced avenue. . . . 
 
 The great trees against the singing blue Pemrth, 
 of the channel — gold-green slopes, with play- A *6-> 1S98. 
 ing children: upon the blue expanse, sails 
 of luminous white, like worn ivory. Far below, 
 the jutting pier, dark against the water — with 
 liquid lights of gold and ruby, melting into 
 the wet sky. 
 
 57 
 
THE HILLS : 
 1896