The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 5, 1904, Page 6

TWO REVIEWS Art and Caricature. WILLIA I PATTISON'S J Leon- designed the rural 1 for that— tinsel of -home-com- specimen of “refined st between its cov- ing this compen- criticism upon a painters and their t but feel that the mself a scope very of the s of All Ag ¢ g the plush tab- e S r up Woon- is not for the her or not Mr. vaulting ambi- y in the prepara- perhaps the layman be a better judge than n the pure question th xhibited Ry the author in his or to crowd the criticism of se the eras of artistic endeavor into mits of a single volume. Accepting the simple declaragion of Pattis wiil be found the art of Leonardo da Vin each against the date when he was bor that the picture of art as it is and h: been can be his work, th a catalogue with running mewhat after the order of ginal notes enlivening the f name, e and cta. This is no doubt of art student for ready ref- just as the “Lives of the Poets” n Bibliography” is a quick friend of the student of lit- erature. But let no one conceive the erroneous opinion that in this book lies anything very illuminating on the general subject of art tendencies, the growth of schools or the effects of changes of thought and of environment upon the productions of successive L That. indeed, would be asking too much of a history of painting from the Renaissance to the present day in one volume. The author has elected fo follow the painters according to strict chronolog- ical order, irrespective of their imme- diate associates, their school or the ry in which they did or are do- ir work. This effectually fixes each painter in exactly the period of years which were illumined by his presence, but it gives rise to a fine con- fusion on the part of one who would read the book from beginning to end. At first off we are given a brief re- sume of the contributions of Leonardo to newly awakened art and then with e transmontane jump of no little se- wverity we are next brought to the con- templation of the German Durer of the Gothic school. Durer seems to hold an especial significance for the author; four pages are devoted to him and but a scant two to Raphael. In- deed, Mr. Pattison finds himself forced to mention only the obvious in the case of all of the great masters, whose works have been treated at length by master critics of the past,in order that he may devote the major portion of his work to the expression of opinion on subjects less harrowed over by other writers. It is then with the art of the later eighteenth century that Pattison com- mences a fuller criticism and indulges in a more extensive survey of the tech- nique and style from tnat time to the present day. Narrow-mindedness was Hogarth's birthright, as the author views the work of that father of cari- cature. Reynolds was admittedly a painter of refined flesh tones, of pret- ity fancies, of superb color, but his drawing was bad, and his touch was purposeless and amateurish. Goya, the Spanish colorist, who has been al- ternately lauded as a master and damned as a depraved bungler, comes in for strong commendation at Patti- scn’s hands. “The fascination ef his work is irresistible.” For leaders of the contemporaneous schools, the author has some very out- spoken criticism. Jean Leon Gerome, for years the famous master of art of the Paris ateliers, leads Pattison to wonder if he was not “only a man of superior talent who made ‘articles de Paris?” ” Dante Gabrielle Rossetti ap- peals to the author chiefly as the in- ventor of a long neck, “which may or may not be beautiful.” His work was “Imitation pure and simple, scarcely a spark of originality in it.” Whistler, the lately departed eccentric and ge- nius, is made the subject of quite the most comprehensive study in the book. “Whistler is ahother unaccountable individual” eays Pattison. “In a measureless degree a charlatan and poseur, his stupendous ability disarms criticism which would crush a smaller man. Some events can be accounted for, some almost: accounted for — Whistler is & mystery.” “This can be asserted of him,” adds the critic, “that he pever has swerved from his purpose to paint in the way that seemed to him right, no matter how much the art world frowned or the little-comprehending public scoff- and read He went st ace of all kind raight forward in the of defar ion, crush- ing his enemies with a tongue and pen of extraordinary sharpness and wit— and he has woan. In the matter of in- fluence up the art of all countries in the latter half of the past century, scarcely the like is found in any per- fod. Velasquez himself has had no greater influence, nor Van Dyck, nor the Barbizon School.” As a final word let it be said that, far from depreciating the worth of Mr. Pattison’s judgment on art matters or his manifestly profound knowledge of all the painters since Leonardo, it must be maintained that he has here written a book which can have little appeal to one not himszIf more than a neophyte in the high mysteries of art. Had he restrained himseif to a survey of the last decade or the last century of art he would doubtless have written some- thing open to a wider field of appre- cistion. (Herbert 8, Stone & Co., The old aphorism that “ridicule is the test of truth” must have been in the minds of Arthur Bartlett Maurice and Frederick Taber Cooper when they determined to throw upon the record of a hundred harried years of politics the light of their “History of the Nine- teenth' Century in Caricature.” For if ridicule does indeed force truth to put on the whole armor of light and come forth to the fray no form of it can be qQuite so quick a spur er so galling an incentive to vindication a the sneer that lies in the twisted line and exaggerated emphasis of this buf- foon of art, the cartoon. A review of the caricature of the last hundred years is, then, the record of a century of stinging smarts, suffered both by na- tions and individuals at the hands of this agent, sometimes a test of truth, indeed, often a sadly perverted, bitter- ly malignant instrument of evil. Even a book on the influence of caricature with less original material in its pages than that of Maurice and Cooper would be profitable reading. The authors, recognizing Hogarth as the father of English caricature and the precursor of all the stalwart breed of men whose pencils were to be couch- ed as lances, find the significance of his satires upon life and manners with- out the province of their work and give to James Gillray,/ his successor and imitator, the largést measure of their attention, since it was Giliray who first made the cartcon an element of strong political significance. Despite the horrid conceits of this brutish fel- low, the reflection of his depravity and insane imaginings in his drawings, the authors show that his flaming car- toons, directed against the power of the Napoleonic regime, did much to fan into white heat the wrath and antag- onism of England against Bonaparte. Strangely unlike the caricature of the present day, which stings by wit, not invective, Gillray's work summoned to its ald every element of foulness and loathsomeness that might make its scurrility more enhanced. None the less gentle, but endowed with a more delicate finesse of dis- courtesy, were the Frenchmen who made King Louis Philippe’s life a bur- den for him—Philipon Grandville and Daumier. We read that because one of the keen-eyed satirists saw in the face of the “citizen King” a resem- blance to the humble pear, from that day forward the distracted Bourbon could see nothing but “Le Poir” star- ing from the pages of every “petit Nor did Napoleon, “the fare better than his predeces- sor in office when once his power be- gan to slip in the dark days of the war with Prussia. The founding of Punch and its sub- sequent influence under the clever mas- tery of Leech and Tenniel seems to prove a subject rather beyond the pow- ers of the authors; they give only a superficial review of Punch’s cartoons in the Crimean and Franco-Prussian war and pass on to & consideration of the growth of ofricature in our own country—ea fleld exploited far more happily. From an outline of the found- ing of Puck and Judge the authors trace the power of the American car- ‘Wars and international episodes until we are quite convinced that we could do with- out it no easler than we could sacri- fice street cars, sign boards, porcelain tubs, or any of the other modern con- ‘veniences. (Dodd, Mead & Co.,, New York; illus- trated; price $2 50.) “hicago.) PSYCHIC PUZZLE For Science to Solve. HE promise made a year ago by Dr. I. K. Funk, the editor of the Starndard Dictionary, to give the world a book as resultant of fuller in- vestigation of the puzzling psychic in- cident known as “The Widow’s Mite,” been fulfilled; and he has added thereto many other authentically re- corded psychic phenomena which act as sidelights on the main subject of his uew publication. The zuthor's avowed purpose is only to attempt to state clearly a problem and to urge others, better qualified, to the discovery of its solution. There are many reasons given why the book should have a claim upon our atten- tion, and most of these might be con- densed into that sentence from Glad- stone, who, speaking of efforts in psychical research, said: “It, is the most important work -which is being done in the world—by far the most im- portant.” In regard to the moral atti- tude of the attention which we give Dr. Funk would have s remember the teaching of Huxley, who said that we should sit down before the fact as a little child, and be prepared to follow humbly wherever nature leads, “or you shall learn nothing.” The sgory of “The Widow’s Mite” in brief i this: Dr. Funk, while prose- cuting in a general way his inguiries irto psychic phenomena, attended a seance at the house of a medium in whose honesty he felt perfect. confi- dence, The seances held at the house of this medium were never for money, but were family reunions of “the liv- ing and dead.” Here the spirit control, causing the woman medium’s voice to speak in the strongly.masculine tones of the spirit who was using her, as she lay in trance, for the mechanism by which to put his thought in “matter- molded forms of speech,” asked Dr. Funk to have returned to its proper place an anclent coin called the Widow's Mite, sayine it was the re- quest of the spirit of ' Henry Ward Beecher. Funk reolied that the coin had been returned — - he then sup- posed it was. The answer from the epirit world was that the coin had not been returned, s Dr. Funk supposed, and that Mr. Beecher sald he wished the matter attended to. Upon being asked to whom the coin should be" returned the spirit replied that he could not give the name, but that it was a friend of Mr. Beecher, that he was shown & picture of a col- Jege from which he inferred that the man was connected with a large school —it was a ladies’ school, on the Heights in Brooklyn. In his investigation of the facts as verifiable from the mortal side of the boundary ‘Dr. Funk tells us that the coin in question was a very rare one valued at $2500, a part of a very val- uable collection belonging to Professor West, who was a close friend of Beecher and had been principal of a ladies’ high school on the Brooklyn Heights. Funk had borrowed the coin nine years before to be used for a cut in the Standard Dictionary. He had dered the coin returned and sup- ;:ued it was, but his instructions had been neglected and the matter had been forgotten by himself and by all ,his subordinates in theé office. It had also been forgotten by Professor West and his son, who assisted him in his business affairs. When asked whers the coin was, the spirit control replied that he was simply impressed that it was in'a large safe; that it had been lost sight of; it was In this sefe, in & drawer, under a lot of papers. Now, in Funk's office there were two safes in charge of the cashier and his assistant, a large safe and a smaller ene. In the large ome the lost coln was found, in a drawer, under a lot of papers. The deepening mystery deepens still turther thus: The coin was in an en- velope with another also nominally a Widow’s Mite. One coin was dark colored, the other lighter. The dic- tionary makers had decided the light- er coin was the genuine and used it for the cut In illustration. At a sub- soguent seance Funk asked the spirit BuRNE JONES™- "THE SOLPEMN \ S ST T o PATTTISOMN 'S " PANNTE RS SINCE L EONS RTON control which of these colns was the right one. Without an instant’s hes- itation the reply "came, “The black one.” Whereupon Funk wrote to the Philadelphia mint \for confirmation, and that authority replied that the black one was the genuirie. In short, every statement purporting to come from the spirit world anent the Widow’s Mite proved to be cor- rect, and after the most complete in- Vestigation possible no clue could be! found to the execution of this feat by merely mortal means, nor could any reasonable foundation for the suspi- cion of fraud be located. To Dr. Funk and also to most of the learned men, who have assisted him in pondering over the problem, the affair’ seems either supernatural or else extraordi- narily supernormal. Among those who say subconscious faculties are'T. J. Hudson, author of that very much read book, “The Law of Psychic Phenomena®; WilliamJames, professor of psychology at Harvard University, and various professors of psychology and philosophy in other large universities. The many who say fraud are noticeably professors of physics—with all its profundity, hu- morously enough, a study within a study. For those who wish to stay conventionally sane and prefer a strictly rational explanation the com- mendation mav be emphatically given to read the letter from Edward L. Nichols, professor of physics, Cornell University. . For interested” readers who, while wishing to be sane, vet long for evi- dences of whatsover of noble uses for world-work and the beauty of a sav- ing sentiment from materialism, all too coldly doubting, that may be half-hid- den and half-revealed in these psychic experiences, there is much in the book to make its study fascinating. To be- lieve, though, that they would have to work on the hypothesis that the spirit forces which speak are under immense Inhibitions and that the messages which come through from ‘“the other room” can be heard ¢nly by the most sensitive clairaudience. They might also Increase the power of the phan- tasy by believing that in addition to the many who have stated the more beautiful of these psychic experiences there may be some who stay silent as the Master was before Pilate. Why should they say anything if they be- lieve that the best of these things are special, love-made, elusive to the less loving and to those who listen for the voices only with velleity. If they spoke would not the incredulous think that while not absolutely insane yet were these undoubters merely fantasy- focled mystics, wandering toward madness—waybilled to Bedlam? (Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York; price $2.) LIFE'IS LIFE In Carryl’s Last Tale. HOSE who take exception to Kip- ling's stories of life and love as played under the deodars at Simla will not countenance the post- humous novel of the late Guy Wet- more Carryl, “The Transgression of Andrew Vane” by title. For the same atmosphere of free thought and free action that is the life of Mrs. Hawks- bye’s salon of world-weary spirits in the Indian garrison town Is likewise the ruling spirit in the American col- ony in Paris that Carryl portrays. It one cares to be blind to the very ma- terialistic, very callous life that owns no law of morals save that of laissez aller, then he must eschew Carryl's last novel as he interdicted the Simla stories of Kipling. Carryl's American colony is very French. Its standard of ethics is, we hope, very un-American. To read “The Transgression of An- Arew Vane” is to read a story that idealizes nothing, that glosses over nothing.” . A very bald, bold story of life in Paris is this book of Carryl's. As a short.story writer young Carryl had already begun to make a strong mark for himself when his first long tale, “Zut,” indicated that success in the novel would probably be his. To this promise “The Transgression of Andrew Vane” adds just enough con- THE SAN FRANC{SCO SUNDAY CALL. ; ; NAPOLEQOMN AND PIT T DIVIDING THE WORLD: . - o W STORY OF THE NINE TEENTH AL CENTURY> firmation to make it certain that, had his life been spared, Carryl would have been a novelist of no mean worth, though hardly of the first order. This last story shows real cleverness in dialogue, bright and snappy as the characteristic epigram of Henry Seton Merriman’s stories; its refection of the essence of Parisian life and the Paris- ian spirit is happily done; the charac- ter work in the case of Mrs. Carnby and of Mr. Thomas Radwalader Is thoroughiy convincing, even distinct- ive. Weakness shows itself in some of the premises of plot copstruction. In order to aécount for some entan- gling relationiships in the body of his story. Carryl is forced to preface his~ main plot by a prologue, distinctly of a dun coloring. The mother of An- drew dies at his birth, carrying with her_the secret that he bears the sur- name Vane only that her memory may be untarnished. Then that the dis- crepancy between the ages of Andrew and the man who is his father may not be too great tp mar the vraisimilitude of the story, fhe author has to lift the curtain of his main plot upon Andrew when he is yet in the tender adoles- cence of 20 years. The hero is caught in the gay whirl of Paris at this un- ripe age ard brings surprise after sur- prise to the reader by his perfect poise, his worldly wisdom passing un- derstandizg. Herein does the weakness of Carryl's plot become manifest. Even two y2ars at Harvard do not seem sufficient to account for the remarkable self-possession and cool savoir faire of this American stripling. The author lends him the presence of a seasoned clubman, endows him with all the prescience of the most blase man of the world. Andrew at 2§, with his frock coat and tile, setting all the American colony of Paris abuzz over him, ‘§ hardly a normal youth, even a normal Harvard youth. Another incongruity in the plot is there at which the credulity of the reader must balk. The author intro- duces Margery Palffy into his story, a winsome, pure-hearted girl whose years of study and healthy life in America havé brought to her utter repugnance of all the callousness and the bald license of Parisian life and manners. Throughout the greater part of the story Carryl insists upon the nobility of character of Margery, her loftiness of mind and soundness of heart. Very rightly she repels An- drew Vane when she believes his love for her to be tainted; this is perfectly in line with what she seems to be. Yet before the story finishes and after Margery hears from Andrew's own lips that his transgression is greater than she had'ever thought, she de- clares wildly. “I know more than you think—and I forgive it all. I love you. That's all—I love you.” The author heads the chapter in which this startling declaration occurs “Re- demption”; but it fails to be manifest ‘wherein lles any redemption; capitula- tion, and very unpleasant capitulation at that, seems to be the spirit of this episode. (Henry Holt & Co., New York; price $1 5%.) cAarRICATURE " CLEARING HOUSE For Stock of Fiction. One of the Eastern critical magazines has incorporated in its pages “The Edi- r's Clearing-house,” a department de- r»mu to the rapid consideration of “specimens warious” from the literary workshop. Ia these halcyon days of the great gushing forth of spring and summer fiction, much of it as evanes- cent and filmy as‘a passing spring cloud, the distraught reviewer of books is hard put to it to keep his head above the flood which pours in upon him. May he not, then, establish, tempo- rarily at least, a reviewer's clearing- house, wherein much of the lighter and less pretentious works of fiction that come to his table may be tagged and freferred to the readers of these columns with a note to assist in their further consideration? Frank Norris says in one of his essays that the average newspaper reviewer of books does away with a pile of novels two feet high in two hours. Of course Norris knew; he did book reviews when he was on the San Francisco Wave of hallowed me- mory. But let the clerk of this present clearing-house assure his clients that at least he will not be gullty of the classic error of that library cataloguer who wrote on his cards: “Lead—Kindly Light—see Cardinal Newman. “Lead—white—see metallurgy.” “Susannah and One Other,” by E. Maria Albanesi, certainly was not in- tended by the author to be aught but a seridus and solemn ndvel of life— the close study of an Epglish girl’s life; but she has made the grievous mistake of ' keeping her eyes sb close to the plot thata grave condition of astigmatic aberra- tion has visited itself upon her, and unless the reader wears very powerful lenses in his spectacles he cannot bring {mself to view E. Maria Albanesi’s novel with half the grave deportment of mind that the author would demand. Susannah is typically English—the de- mure young lady who is shut up aund hedged about by conventions, made the victim of her own imaginings and of other people’s misconceptions, and cast into sloughs of despair by her own res- olute resolve to read Into every action of those about her something of dis- trust and suspiclon. Surely the sister of Susannah is not the most lovable creature in the world and Mama gam- bles, but even under the harrowing in- fluences of these twain Susannah need hardly ask the reader to use a handker- chief for a book mark. (McClure, Phillips & Co., York; price $1 50.) “Where the Tide Comes In,” a love story of Virginia by Lucy Meacham ‘Thurston, is all that a love story should be. The author seeks to unravel the mental processes which lead Page Not- toway to the selection of the man of her cholce—processes, by the way, which do not have all their mainspring in sentimentality, for Page plays bas- ket-ball at college, and that enlivening game does not conduce greatly to much New sighing and the picking of petals off marguerite blossoms by lovers’' rote. Page is a very lovable, very admirable American girl, whose college course has consisted of more than teas and junior “proms”; when she feels the gentle rings of the nobler passion she about to accomplish the fulfillment of her destiny very sanely, very practical- ly, though the temptation to the romantic besets her s casions. As to the title of the weil, one is reminded of th ‘of a Pacific Coast litterateur: “A position is a bad word to end a tence WITH.” (Little, Brown & Co., trated; price $1 50.) illus- Boston; The good old Sunda “Chaplet of Pearls.”™ *“ the King,” “No « 5, all the rest of those some books for kingdom, are brou, ¢ true fining ard that resignation, suffer power of the comes to th these excellent tian living are of this unfortunate Miss Waller's. But we used always to seek Oliver Optic’'s tales in the Sun school library? Jas it not that spirited action cloaked the moral precepts and made them more palatable to our budding literary tastes? If the a hor had only intro- duced a Captain Eoombsby into “The Wood Carver of 'I pus” and with him some her tale could be recomur rthy addition the Natives Among of New Hebrides. (Little, Brown & Co., Boston; price $1 50.) Edward Marshall, the war corre- spondent, who was rendered helpless for life by a Spanish bullet in the o Smie Epicures fighting around Santiago, is giving a fine example of his nerve by writing stories full of dash and firs of adven- ture—a life sadly interdicted to him by his heroic fulfiliment of dangerous duty. “The Middle Wall,” his iast story, has all the strong spirit of wild daring and the gquickly moving pano- rama of events which the standards of a tale of adventure demand. South Africa, London, the mid-Atlantic and Cape Cod are successively the theaters of action; a bag of uncut diamonds, the cause of all the trouble; an escape from the police in a London fog; & fire at sea and a thrilling rescue, some of the incidsnts. For pure excitement, but with no eye to literary niceties, read “The Middle Wall.” (G. W. Dillingham & Co, New York; illustrated; price $150.) Neith Boycs, the Los Angeles woman whose stories are familiar to readers of Smart Set, has collected nine of her tales Into a book, which bears the title of the best and < longest eof them, “A Provident Woman.” All of the short stories have the true hallmark of genuine- ness in this, the most difficult of Uit erary arts; all of them are highly pol- ished, flashing with cleverness and out to the neatness of kean epigram. Good reading for summer afterneons when anything heavy is a bore to the spirit. (Fox, Duffield & Ce.,, New York; llustrated; price $1.) “Kindly Light,” by Florence M. Kingsley, is a little story about a heart disappointed, which is somewhat on the tearful order, but yet subdued enough to contain no more of the trembling llp and dimmed eye than one cares to read into it. It is pub- lished in neat form by the Henry Altemus Company of Philadelphia, price 50 cents. BOOKS RECEIVED NATURE'S COMEDIAN — W. E. Norris; D. Appleton & Co., New York. HEART OF MY HEART—EIlis Mer- edith; McClure, Phillips & Co., New York; price $1 50. THE BRIGHT FACE OF DANGER —R. N. Stephens; L. C. Page & Co., Boston; illustr-+ed; price $L 50, DORRIS FARRAND'S VOCATION— “Pansy” (Mrs. G. R. Alden); Lothrop Publishing Company, Boston; illus- trated; price, $1 50. EVELYN BYRD-—George Cary Eg- gleston; Lothrop Publishing Company, Boston; illustrated; price $1 50. PAINTERS SINCE LEONARDO— James Willlam Pattison; Herbert S, Stone & Co., Chicago: Illustrated. THE WIDOW'S MITE-Dr. J. K. Funk; Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York; price $2. THE HELMET OF MAMBRINO— Clarence King Memoirs; published by King Memorial Committee of Century Association; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. THE HAYFIELD MOWER (Vol. T) —Published by The Hayfield Mower; Boston: price $1 25. MODERN ELECTRICITY — James Y Henry and Karel J. Hora; Laird & Lee, Chicago; illustrated; price $1 50.