anchor. The rain was roaring on the roof, a brook was brawling under the floor, and through the flimsy walls, made only of rough stakes split out of red cedar logs with an axe, the damp, chilly wind blew whithersoever it listed. There was not much use in shutting the door, and most of the time it stood wide open. Looking out, one saw the inlet all black and white under the pelting of the storm, with the forest standing guard around it, dark and gloomy and solemn. The cedars drooped their branches mournfully, as if they had lived under dull gray skies, weighted down with snow and rain, and wrapped in wet, clammy mists, till they had lost all hope of ever being cheerful again. 'It is n't as pretty as the woods back east,' the Civil Engineer remarked. He was right, without a doubt. 'Pretty' is not the word for the splendid robe of trees and undergrowth and mosses that is the glory of British Columbia. For one thing, the rich, live, virile tints of the hardwoods are almost entirely absent, and the coloring is left a little dull and sombre, for nearly every tree is an evergreen, and an evergreen forest is never as green as a deciduous one in summer. There is much dead timber, also, to add its tinge of gray or brown, and the straight, lancelike lines of the bare trunks, shorn of their bark and branches, together with the sharp, steeple-like tops of the living, give the whole landscape a strange 'up-anddown' effect. For this is the western 'Country of the Pointed Firs.' The rolling billows of foliage that make up a forest of oak or maple or beech are missing here, and in their place is something that looks like a city of church spires set as close as they can stand. It is as if the hillsides were stratified in thin, strongly-marked layers that stand on edge instead of lying flat one upon another. It is interesting, but it VOL. 106- NO. 3 is not always pleasing. And that day, under that leaden sky, with every branch and twig dripping with rain, the world was dreary and woebegone. But if it was not pretty it was imposing. Beside the giant cedars certainly, and and spruces and balsams and hemlocks that stood guard round our little harbor, those of the east would have been but dwarfs and pygmies. Everything was on the scale of Brobdingnag. And it was more than imposing, for there are few scenes anywhere that have more of character and individuality than these woods and hills and mountains. There is something in them of sadness and mournfulness, and yet of strength and dignity and dignity-something of the look of one who has lived in the wilderness till solitude has put its ineffaceable mark upon him, and he no longer knows how to mingle with his fellows, yet who has grown strong through loneliness and has learned to lean on himself and be quiet. They are wild and desolate, but they are big and strong and noble, and one night we were shown what British Columbia can do when it really tries to be beautiful not prettybeautiful. It had been raining all day, as usual, and it was still raining when, after supper, we stepped into the skiff and pulled out to the launch. Through the early evening we sat in the cabin, copying timber-estimates, figuring totals, and laying out the work for the morrow; but about ten o'clock we went out for a drink from the tin gasoline cans that stood on the after deck, and did duty as fresh-water casks. The clouds had blown away, the stars were flashing, the moon rode high, and the inlet was a great, flawless mirror for the mighty woods that stood looking down, silently, tranquilly, on their own images in the bright, still water at their feet. Everything that was ugly, everything that was ragged or unkempt — the SO up and down the channels, flinging careless draperies over the woods and headlands, and presently passing on and leaving them bare again. But they have no more form or outline or personality than a wisp pulled from a roll of cotton batting, and the moment they touch their parent-cloud they vanish into it as their own raindrops disappear in the salt-chuck. gray nakedness of the dead trees, the dull tints of the living, the ragged foliage of the cedars, the slime of the rocks uncovered by the falling tide all that could possibly offend or fail to please, was hidden, or, rather, was left unrevealed; and all that was lovely and gracious stood forth in the glory of the moon. And it was all so clean marvelously pure and stainless and undefiled. No coal-smoke ever came It is not their business to furnish there, save possibly, once in a long noise or illumination, or to produce while, a stray whiff from the funnel of picturesque effects. Their mission in a passing steamer. The nearest dust life is to supply rain at very frequent was two hundred miles away. For intervals throughout a very large porweeks and months the rains had been tion of the year; not necessarily heavy washing the air of every impurity, and or violent rain, but simply rain, just perhaps there was not in all the world, plain rain. And more rain, and more, that night, a spot where the stars shone and more, and more, and still more, brighter, or where woods and water and then some. And they are fully and sky seemed fresher from the hand prepared to meet every possible deof God. mand without any irritating delays. But the next morning the clouds There is no nonsense about them were hard at work again. They are not like the clouds of other lands. Thunder and lightning are almost unknown to them. The mighty masses of cumulus, the shifting mountain-ranges and the fairy castles and fortresses that come and go in other skies, are far less common here. There are mountains enough without them. The blue-black nimbus is non-existent. The silver lining, if there be any, is usually invisible. Even the glowing colors of morning and evening are generally absent, for the sun rises in obscurity and sets in impenetrable vapors. One might almost say of them that they are not clouds at all, but cloud. They have character, perhaps, but not individuality, for they exist chiefly as a vast gray curtain, stretching from horizon to horizon, blotting out sun, moon, and stars, and making of the blue sky a distant memory. Fragments are constantly torn off by the winds, it is true, and go wandering about like lost souls, between the mountains and no hesitation. They get right down to brass tacks and deliver the goods. If you don't like it you may go where there is n't any rain at all. But one thing, at least, may be said for them. When their year's work is done they abandon the field entirely. There is nothing half-way about them, nothing petty or small. They reign (!) supreme as long as they possibly can, and then, for the time being, their abdication is complete. Perhaps they know that it will be only a little while before they come to their own again. That radiant vision, when for an hour or two the moon and the stars looked down from a flawless sky, was the beginning of the end. It was May, and within a week there came a day that was different from any that had gone before. The sun shone hour after hour, the inlet lay smooth and shining as glass, the air was soft and balmy as a tropic night, and water and woods and hills and mountains were all alight with the beauty of the Northland in а its fairest and loveliest moment beauty and a loveliness that the South will never know. There was a real sunset that evening, and the giant trees stood transfigured in the warm, rich light from the glowing west. Only one small cloud broke the clear brightness of the sky, and that one was not like the clouds that had haunted us so long. Those had hung low and heavy, so low that they often rested on the hillsides or even on the chunk itself, and they were wet, draggled, and tearful, and ready to weep at the very slightest provocation. This one floated very high and very far away - a trifle heavier, perhaps, than a wisp of cirrus, but much too light and airy for a raincloud - a harbinger, not of storm, but of fair weather. The rainy season was broken at last, and summer had come to British Columbia. ᎪᎡᎢ ᏢᎡᎪᎢᎢᏞᎬ BY ELIHU VEDDER I HAVE been asked many shrewd questions in my day. A seemingly eternal one is: 'Why don't you write about Art?' I only wish I could - if I could do so like Sir Joshua Reynolds or Sir Frederick Leighton or a La Farge; but I cannot. The art is there, but it is not the art of writing, and that is the real truth and ought to prevent the question being asked. I could indeed swell up a little, but I could not stay swelled up. There is another reason; namely, my belief that a boy will follow a band when he will not follow advice. Therefore should I write of Art, I should invite my friends to something more like a circus than a sermon. Yet the art would be there, and the love of it, and, I should hope, the boys also. Yet I envy these men; I mean with a noble envy, a mixture of admiration and regret. Would I change with them? No; I am like the turtle who, I dare say, would not change his own snug shell for another (even if the other were encrusted with diamonds and decorations) if it did not fit him. How is this: you start to write about Art and end by writing about yourself? That is what I started out to do. Somewhat egotistical? Yes, very. A good likeness? Fairly good- of one side of me. When a boy, in one of my foolish moments, I remarked to my brother that when I became a man I hoped I might have a son who would turn out to be a great artist. 'Why, Ell,' said he, 'why don't you try to become one yourself?' This gave me something to think on, and I did try. If an artist is a man who makes his living out of his art, and if the boy is father to the man, I have succeeded in carrying out part of the programme at least: that is, I have made a living. But that has nothing whatever to do with art. With some it is business talent, with me it has been pure good luck, and it is lucky it is so. ART-PRATTLING It is all folly, this seeking to limit the function of art to any particular form. Anything, in whatever form or combination of forms, which can cause those forever separate but forever living, striving self-atoms, each with its little speck of soul and immortality, to draw near together, is its true, highest and only cause for being, and will forever be the answer to that eternal discontent of the non-creator or non-producer. Anything which breaks down the barrier of body and allows one soul to see another face to face and vibrate in unison, is legitimate art enough for me. Amen. Art education should be strictly confined to the imparting of knowledge, such as perspective (for there is as much perspective in a face as there is in a façade), training the eye to see, the hand to execute, and so forth. In this matter the artist should be at school all his life. As for style, that should be strictly the result of a man's striving to express his individuality, his desires, his emotions, and his thoughts. There is no more delightful profession than that of the artist; it makes a round man, and should be a portion of every man's training. There is nothing like it, and I think nothing better; and, I may add, there is nothing more utterly useless than this kind of talk. It is strange what an unaccountable disinclination I feel toward prattling about Art; strange, for it is done with such ease and so well by others. To fumble about this thought like Goldsmith! It may come from my inability to prattle about Art, from the fact that I do not know how to prattle about it, from my never having had much practice in prattling about Art. In any case, there will be little lost but what can be well spared, and by not doing so I shall be saved the mortification of seeing the benevolent eye averted or turned to one of menace. Old Cenino Cenini had a very crisp way of dismissing a subject. When he had told you how to make charcoal for drawing, he would end by saying, 'This is enough for you to know about charcoal.' I say the same, only substituting Art for charcoal. By the way, there is a good deal of most excellent art in charcoal. ART ON A FULL STOMACH Had I as many dollars as there have been made definitions of what constitutes Art, I do not say I should be a multi-millionaire, but I should be well on the way to that modest but assured income I have been sighing for so long. As one definition more or less can do no harm, I also will venture to make one. Art is a beautiful body for a beautiful thought. I will also venture an assertion: that Art began on a full stomach. That cave-dweller who sketched, with a flint on a piece of bone, in such a masterly manner, those reindeer and that hairy arctic elephant, did it when safely entrenched in his cave after a successful hunt, in a leisure moment and on a full stomach; so that, if the origin of things has any value, the theory that artists only work from necessity goes all to pot. So the South Sea Islander decorates his paddle, and, needing no clothes, tattoos his skin with beautiful patterns, driven to it, not by fear or hunger, but by the same spirit which creates in every tribe the ruler, the soldier, the priest, and the medicineman; the same spirit which creates the bard and the artist. But the artist does not wait until the world is full of artschools, but (once his stomach full) goes to work, decorating a paddle or canoe; nor does the bard wait until he has gone through college, but without dictionary and ignorant of philology sings the war-songs of his nation. Having such theories, you can see why I am not so tremendously anxious about the art 'in our midst,' and why I fuss so little about it. I suppose I am all wrong as usual, but so much good Art was done without all this boosting that I may be pardoned if I doubt its great utility. Still I have no doubt whatever that we shall get, in time and in our own way, just the Art which best expresses us, and just the Art we want and deserve. The moral is Feed the artist. Don't invite a few to dinner, leaving the rest to come in with the coffee, but invite them all and see what pretty reindeer they can draw, metaphorically speaking, on a full stomach. You will, of course, provide pencils and paper. There was once some pretty shrewd business done on the Rialto; it was a busy and a pretty scene, not a fussy one like Wall Street. But I dare say Art will come even to Wall Street, when all are fed; but, dear me! some have to eat so much before they are full. And that is the trouble. Our men say: First let us make money enough and then we will attend to the house beautiful. But the time never comes, or when it does they have to get some one to attend to the house for them, and he overdoes it. I am not pitching into any one or anything except exaggeration; I can't abide exaggeration. That is a mild ending, but it was not the original ending. The original ending was more like the fireworks after a mild Capri day. You finish your dinner, go out under the large arches of the Loggia, light your cigar, and wait for the first rocket. It gets darker and darker, but finally the rocket comes suddenly and sheds a weird light over everything. So here comes the real ending, which I cut out you will see why. Having such theories, etc., you can see why I am not anxious to become a president, a secretary or treasurer, or even a humble instructor in one of those art-kindergartens. 'John, you may remove the medals but leave the cakes and ale, please,' — and thus it is. I have some good friend occupying every one of the positions enumerated above; so even though I am writing in fun, can I leave in such sentiments? Of course not; so I cut them all out, and only put them in again as fireworks. ART AND NECESSITY While recommending for artists the desirability of a modest but assured income, I neglected a digression which would have come in very appropriately, and I now make up for that omission. When I was young it was held that poverty was essential to the artist; that he would not work without it; also that he was invariably poor and lived in a garret. When I followed my bent and became an artist I felt that, like St. Francis, I was espousing poverty; and when I married, I supposed that the bride had espoused poverty in person. This belief dies hard, and takes a long time about dying. Let any one look into the matter carefully and he will find that almost every notable artist has been very fortunately situated; either his parents have been well-off, or if poor, his poverty has given him a freedom from the interruptions of society which has amply made up for a little temporary discomfort. Take the case of Masaccio. Picked up out of the gutter he may have been, but the good monks put him at once into the shop or bottega of one of the best Florentine masters, where, free from the trammels of dress and afternoon teas, he could work out his salvation without interruptions. The freedom of outright poverty is well illustrated in the case of two men I know. One, much against his will, urged by well-meaning friends, did his duty by society; but the thing being against his nature, he did it badly; so, |