The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 20, 1900, Page 11

SCEANIC SERPENTS THAT ARE AS GORGEOUSLY BEAUTIFUL AS THEY ARE DERDRY wa , W A [ ae s o Fress 7 [~ 5 TSy or sn 72p B Bog e n N N R B O N e N N N e N o X R AR R TR EDE TSRS EORTETAUTETE T R TR S TS A TASASASAS KA S ATASS SRR AT 8 A REWARRABLE WMDY . - o . OF RALR CQAINE. By Willam J. D. Croke, £LL&.D. HALL CAINE has been gi Academy he h Hall e on my behalf and aph of the bust taken. e not so much a has lent itself » fraquently, though ¥, to the reprcductions the facile portraiture of -wide notoriety, as the more g and precious bust of the r of “Bhe Christian,” “The Bondman,” “The Manxman” and other . In a word, not the mannered representation, but the pic- tured soul living in the truth of the bod; not the material representa- ti but an artist’s sonsummate ination. It has been ngqticed, or it may be pointed out, that is a three- fold resemblance in the face and head of the popular novelist, a special re- semblance to Shakespeare in the up- per part of the face, a special resem- blance to the traditional Christ of painting—notably the Russian type —in the lower part of the face, and a general resemblance to each in the whole face. Hall Caine's hair is suburn; his beard and mustache are reddish. But the present bust, which many Americans will admire this coming season in London, is not simply this. It is a revelation of the author and thinker to himself, I may say, first and foremost, since I heard him say after looking at it long: “I see my- salf now at last” (donbtless referring of the her portraits). “I can read ter who is able to all millions of ators of the drama of, the world, not speaking world only, in Ttaly, in every ed in modern ro- whose very name when so to speak, put to the e fame is ever glowing in the very crucible. I call the bust a revelation because of the way in which it reveals the an. Let me explain in what way fly: I was seeking his advice on his earlier visit to Rome in 1898, about an historical question, some new documents of which I had brought to light. I intended to use them Was I rightly inspired? “What would be ideal,” he said in answer, ‘““‘would be to lay stress upon the human element, to search for it, it, to bring out whatever is human. That it is which tells.” Hs ontially the human novelist 11 the range of his ideals— sque, the powerful, the e sweet—especially the The best portrait of him, that prefixed to “The Bondman,” hidden in shadow by reason of the masterful forehead. Here it is not so. Light falls upon the face, just as light is in the face, and the eyes peer into some human fact or some human mystery. It is the hu- mgn novelist doubled with the es- thete, the friend and fellow of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris in art, and of William Blackmore and Mr. Gladstone in study. Thus while it is true figuratively as a material portraiture in the pure- nes: whiteness of the best marble which Italy yields, it is also true with vital reality—an image instinct with the soul of a great writer. SHANESPEARE