Art Prattle

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, having wasted a whole winter for fear of missing a possible purchaser, he at last broke away from the studio and went painting in the Campagna. Of course that day the long-expected purchaser called, and called, as we knew, with the express intention of getting a picture. The other, disregarding all advice, clung to his liberty, and employed it to such good purpose that soon rich men took the trouble of mounting his one hundred steps to secure a specimen of his work.

I advise my young friend, then, first to acquire the business habit, then get into the Paris mill. Select a master who does what he can do most easily and avoids what he cannot do so well, turn the handle, and you — the student — will come out safe. If you have anything in you it will be developed, and no harm done; although I did hear an honest man once say, ‘I wish to God I could get rid of that smart, cocksure, Beaux-Arts style of mine.’

However, like my old aunt Eveline, ‘I make no comment.’

ART AND BUSINESS

I have always maintained and held forth in and out of season, as my friends can testify, upon the beauty, merit, advisability, morality, and great utility, of a modest but assured income. It prevents envy on the one hand, arrogance on the other, and, I am persuaded, goes as far toward establishing a person pleasantly in the next world, as it undoubtedly does in this. Of those who possess this inestimable advantage, nothing need be said; they are simply to be envied.

Let then the young artist procure a modest but assured income. This is accomplished by a careful selection of his parents, although an Indian uncle — now rare — has been known to do as well. If they are not successful, they are at least safe, and so nothing more need be said about them. The next best thing is to be born with the business instinct. Such also are safe; but to be born an artist, and in addition with the business instinct, is assured success. I would most strongly urge, in the case of those born without business talent, the placing of them in a business college as an indispensable preliminary to their artistic career; for although you cannot make business men of them, you may make successful artists. The combination of riches, genius, and business talent is too good to be true; it would be a trust, and spell greatness.

A painter who possessed the business talent determined that while following his profession he would first make money and then paint what he pleased. He succeeded in regard to the money, and seemed pleased with regard to the painting. This painter once made this remarkable remark:—

‘Why, V., your studio is full of things which a little work would turn into property.’

Struck by the wisdom of this simple statement, I at once determined to put it into practice, and so from time to time have finished several sketches and other things. I have them yet.

At this time there lived next door to me an Italian painter, a good artist and a good man; I know this because he confided to me the bad behavior of his sons. I told him of this business discovery, and like a good propagandist, before I had put the advice in practice myself, urged him to finish up his sketches and pictures, and particularly to sign everything. He at once did so, and going to South America shortly after, died. At his sale, the widow had ample cause to thank me for my good advice.

This about signing: I once had an exhibition and sale, mostly of little landscapes, street-scenes, etc., painted at Monte Cologniola. It was really quite a success, and as the boy at the gallery said, ‘They went off like hot cakes.’ I mention the boy, for it having been found that I had neglected to sign a single picture, and purchasers insisting upon it, the boy was constantly bringing to the studio of a friend near by, batches of pictures for my signature. The boy was wild with delight; praise, and ‘going like hot cakes’ made it an exhilarating time for me, and I felt as actors feel on receiving their immediate reward. A glamour seemed to surround me; that others felt the glamour you may judge from the fact that ‘admittance’ was charged and went to swell the already high per cent of the dealers. The young lady who received the admission money, a sweet, pretty girl, I can tell you, under the effect doubtless of the glamour, whispered to me that she wished to say something to me in private, but could not do so in the gallery. I became interested and told her that as it was near the closing hour, I would wait for her down the street. We met, and I gallantly escorted her to a retired icecream saloon. Nothing can be more proper than ice-cream. Then she said that she could stand it no longer to see how they were taking in the admission money, and I not getting a cent, and that she thought it her duty to let me know the state of affairs and begged me not to think badly of her for informing me. ‘Think badly of you, my dear girl!’ — this was not said coldly, — ‘I shall always hold you a true friend,’ — also adding other things.

Not long afterwards I received her wedding cards and a newspaper cutting; she had married very well, and has to this day my warm wishes for her happiness.

RABBIA REMESSA

The Italians have a very expressive expression, rabbia remessa, anger put back or stowed away, and they consider it a very bad thing for the health, and so mostly sfogare themselves, or let their temper out pretty thoroughly, on the spot.

One day when I was a very little boy, on my way to school in Schenectady, the men at Clute’s Foundry were throwing snowballs. As I turned to look at them, a snowball struck me on the mouth, and cut my lips, causing them to bleed freely. The pain, the sight of the blood, and above all, the contrast between my size and that of the great bullies, filled me with impotent rage; and my ignorance of the resources of swearing prevented my sfogaring myself as I should have done; and so all this rage was put back into my system, from which it has been coming out, little by little, ever since. This coming out I find a great help in painting.

As perhaps there may be some one who has not heard the story of the Dutch painter, I tell it.

A person calling on this painter heard a most infernal uproar in his studio: things seemed to be falling, and brass plates flying about, and words as of swearing were heard. The servant came to the door in a state of great anxiety, and told the visitor at once that the master could not be disturbed.

‘ I should think he could n’t be, much more than he is,’ said the visitor, ‘ but what in heaven’s name is the matter ? ’

‘He is painting a sky.’

I should not recommend this practice except in the case of skies. I have found it useful myself in case of skies.

THE FORMULA

Once a man, weary and hot from his long summer day’s work up town, was wending his way to the South Ferry. His home was on Staten Island. In anticipation of the cooling breeze on the Bay, with dripping brow he stopped to refresh himself frequently, but in vain — for it was a very hot day. His last stop brought him opposite a readymade clothing establishment, and the idea struck him that his comparatively thick coat was responsible for his discomfort. Acting on this thought, he stepped across the street and asked the intelligent attendant if he had anything in the way of a coat more suitable to the season than the one he was wearing — something he could put on at once and that would fit?

4 Let me see, let me see,’ said the man, ‘I think I have just the thing in alpaca 5; and after a careful survey of our friend’s figure he turned and cried with a loud voice, 4 James! bring me a number five — fat.’

The old coat was done up in a neat package, which the purchaser said he would carry himself, for being a suburbanite he had been feeling strange going home without his usual bundle. When relating this incident he remarked to a friend that he had always wondered what he was like, but that now his doubts were set at rest.

‘I know what I look like and what I am; I am a number five — fat.’ He had found his formula.

MUD PIES

I have just been looking over a book of criticisms of myself and my work, a thing I have carefully avoided doing for years. I find that I have much to be thankful for, and much that combines amusement with instruction. I find much attributed to me that I have never thought of, and much which my critics have never thought of at all. On the whole, I have been treated far better than I deserve, and so fully that there is nothing left for me to say about myself.

I once defined a real compliment as a truth pleasingly stated; perhaps abuse is truth stated in an unpleasant manner. I give an example of abuse, which, while amusing, contains a lot of truth, only the manner leaves something to be desired. I can only give a few of the good things the writer sets before the reader; the article is quite long and sprightly.

‘The exhibition is an unfortunate showing. Some dozen landscapes are so unspeakably bad that it seems incredible they should be hung under any name; devoid of line, color, quality, and everything that belongs to a picture. . . . He has an accurate knowledge of drawing which he does not always use [this is quite true], — and no sense of color at any time [I object to that ‘any time’]. Therefore his black-and-white work is his best, and his best black-and-white work is that in which his knowledge of drawing is displayed. And this is all there is to it. . . . As for the “Imagination,” the “Allegory,” the “ Ideal,” he is credited with striving after, it is well known that he and the school he has followed and the cult they have spawned, are entirely away from any ground connection, and that it is only a matter of time before work of such unbalanced character is given again its right name. ... “ Cup of Death,” simply ridiculous — “Negro” — white turban — leading heavy woman in pink down to stream — offering five-o’clock teacup to her mouth! “Soul between Doubt and Faith ” — three heads — centre, dark sullen woman — right, light woman, pink wings — left, old man, gray worsted beard. The“ Lazarus” and “Sibyl” are monstrosities,’ and so forth and so on. Then he becomes real serious and says, ‘But the man at his best is seen in the fine lines of the “ Cup of Love,” with all its blemishes; in the masterly drawing of “ Fortune ”; in the movement in “ Gathering in the Stars.” He is over his depth in any other effort here exhibited, and to get over one’s depth in the murky stream of the Unreal is next to Mud.’

You see he ends with a truth. I presume he meant to say, ‘ is next to being in the mud.’ How much nicer, with all its ‘blemishes,’ is my way of making a living than his. ‘May his food profit him!’ I am but human, and must say that I prefer my friend Brownell’s treatment of the ‘ Lazarus ’ to that of this mud-puddler of the Press. I cannot give it all, but give his last finely sustained sentence: —

‘In the presence of such a representation in pigment of a living soul of such sweetness, such dignity, such tranquil pensiveness, such pathetic and moving serenity, such a visible record of mysterious yet not awful spiritual experience secretly cherished and intimately sustaining — in the presence of such food for the mind as this, the impressionist who should suggest the shibboleth of “literary painting” might safely be invited by any serious intelligence, nay, by any person of good breeding, to go his way and solace his sterility with the shallowness of his sensuous gospel.’

The contrast in manner is rather striking. Perhaps my art needs the eye of a friend. What of it? There are so many arts that for the sake of variety an art of my kind comes in rather well. It reminds me of an incident which happened to W. W. Story. He and a friend were standing behind a priest in St. Peter’s, who held in his hand one of those long shovel-shaped Spanish hats, and they waxed mighty merry over it, making suggestions as to what various uses it could be put to. When they had exhausted the theme, the priest turned and gravely said to them in the best of English, ‘Gentlemen, I am gratified that my hat has afforded you so much amusement.’ Most people only see my hat or my cap, for when I am not wearing a hat I wear a cap. The only defect of the cap is that in trying to get at the brandied cherry which lurks in the bottom of a cocktail, it is apt to fall off.

After all, the artist is only expressing his delight in something, and striving to share his joy with another; at least I think that is what I was made for — and not to deceive or injure some such innocent writer as he of the ‘Mud puddle.’ After what he has said, the present is past praying for, but he might have left me the future. He must remember that some day he will stand in the presence of his Maker, and — I pause — has he a Maker? Perhaps God has forgotten what He made him for. To make mud pies? Perhaps so.

SOMETHING ABOUT SCULPTURE

One might compare the flight of the eagle with that of the fly, and draw from the comparison an interesting conclusion. The eagle’s flight is straight or curved, and rises or falls, and that is all, except that after a long and stately flight the alighting is apt to be confused or a little ridiculous. The fly, with all his merry spirals and sudden turnings, may alight with the utmost ease. One flight is noble but monotonous; the other, varied but frivolous. The flight I propose is neither the one nor the other. It is only intended for those who know less than I do. Were I writing to an equal it would be to show him that I am such, or, as we all differ, to point out to him the difference; if to a superior, ’t would be to show him that he is not so awfully superior, and that in some things perhaps I am his equal, or to take him down a peg.

It is a strange thing about sculpture that ordinary people can endure to read pages about Michelangelo, and yet can settle the question of his ‘ Moses ’ in sixty seconds. Let me help them to think a little. Finding themselves in a darkened chamber lit by a single candle, let them take some object, and holding it so that the light may cross it slantingly or graze its surface, they will see prominences and hollows develop that they never dreamed of. It is thus the designer of the hull of a yacht proceeds when making his model. Now, as in sculpture those inequalities thus brought out represent underlying muscles, bones, or things of importance, the reader may imagine the task that the sculptor has before him, and realize how, like a fly, he has as yet only alighted on the skin. Thus a man in the broad light of day may appear without defects, when by the light of the domestic candle he is found full of them. Now it often happens that the beginner, modeling carefully a leg, for example, by the concentrated light of his studio window, while perfecting the forms as he goes, and slowly turning the revolving stand, finds, when he gets to the place where he began, that the forms do not fit; this is called chasing an outline, and is only one of his many troubles. He finds he has to be omnipresent, as it were, comparing sides which can never be seen together; in fact, the sculptor has his work ‘cut out’ for him in constantly solving difficulties of which the public has no idea.

Now, coming to the entire figure, we find it has two legs, no more, no less, and that viewed from the side, these coming together, one hiding somewhat the other, we see a certain meagreness, a weak point in the figure viewed as a mass, which is precisely one of the difficulties the sculptor has to contend with. Take St. Gaudens’s ‘ Puritan,’ for example: he goes sturdily on his way, with his Bible under his arm and big stick in hand, prepared to preach or pommel, while his ample cloak floats bravely to the breeze created by his own determined stride. A fine conception; but viewed from the side, we see the legs together and then see how the big stick helps to strengthen the base and support the heavy masses above, and also by that time the cloak is seen edgewise, and no longer presents the mass it does in front, where it is amply sustained by the two legs and the staff. Thus the sculptor, like the Puritan, whips the devil round the stump.

We have thus far only treated of the single figure; fancy the difficulties in making a group. As for the painters, they also have their troubles ‘cut out’ for them, in spite of their glittering generalities. Take design, for instance, a subject Kenyon Cox has treated so thoroughly and so much better than I can, that I turn the reader over to him. Here I imagine my friend who is inferior to me in knowledge saying, ‘Well, you have shown that a sculptor cannot make, with all those difficulties against him, a perfect statue.’ My answer is, Who ever said he could?

MODELS AND STYLE

There once came over the face of a little model in Rome, who was posing for me, an expression of such passionate yearning (an expression as soulful as that seen in the beauty with bandaged chin in the complexion advertisement) that I asked her, —

‘What on earth are you thinking of?’

‘ I am wondering if it is eleven o’clock yet.’

Anderlini was a Florentine model of the old days. He had received the rudiments of an education, and used to boast that he had studied ‘the humanities.’ Instead of which it was noticed that little things, such as matches and cigars, used to disappear in the studios where he worked. One night when he was posing in Galli’s Accademia, and all were working in silence, some one remarked aloud, —

‘Anderlini, they say you steal; that you are little better than a thief; how is this?’

’I, a thief! I, steal! — Impossible!’

‘Yes, they say little things will disappear where you work.’

‘Ah, yes; little things, perhaps. I see a cigar, — I would not think of stealing that cigar; I merely take it. There is a great difference between robbery and taking. I am incapable of the one, while I will admit I might do the other, which after all is only a little momentary weakness.’

Strange how I remember the name of another Florentine model — Brina. He was perfectly honest and perfectly uninteresting. There were not many models in Florence then, — quite different from Rome, in which there were almost too many. They say that now they are not lacking in New York. It was not always so, for I remember needing a model on one of my visits. I asked if there were any, and was always answered, ‘Yes ’; but it invariably turned out to be a certain Miss X or one other. I sent for the other, and the young lady came, — most frigidly respectable. When she was ready, she asked coldly:

‘Will you please tell me what position I am to assume?’

Good Lord! I felt like telling her to throw a back somersault or a handspring, — anything to break the chill. I think she could never have posed for anything but that young lady in the magazine who is represented as ‘turning sadly, as she placed her hand on the knob of the door.’ One does n’t want a circus, either. I don’t know what one wants, — something human, at least. I know I did n’t want the ‘other.’ How the Italian models open their eyes when told of the prices paid models at home. Judging by results, they must be worthy of their hire, for in the way of illustrations I can imagine nothing better than the work now done.

I once had occasion to reprove an Italian model for having listened too credulously to the fascinating pleading of a seductive admirer.

‘You knew he was lying to you,’ I said.

‘Yes; but then, he lied so beautifully!’ That was Style.

The word is now Style, and it reminds me of those writers who seem to live in some secluded cloister or garden of thought, through which they saunter leisurely, in an atmosphere of over-ripe scholarship, culling from time to time some tempting fruit from their neighbor’s orchard, with which, together with the knurly result of their own culture, they furnish forth their table, offering a repast more ostentatious than nourishing. In fact, I think that a writer’s great acquirements often stand between him and the reader, and I seem to get nearer to nature through Shakespeare the unlearned, than through Ben Jonson the learned, and infinitely nearer both man and God in the pages of Job, than if they had been written by a graduate of Cambridge or Oxford or Yale or Harvard.

These writers give one the impression that ‘something very important is going on,’ even when such is not the case; and, indeed, take all things, including themselves, so seriously that they should be prosecuted for trespassing on the domain of the quaint Goddess Fun, were it not that they are quite unconscious how funny they are.

The above looks like a very long postscript, you say; but I don’t care, — ’ith no one nigh to hinder; I meant the thing to be funny, not myself; it may be funny taken either way. But what a relief to turn to the refined writer from that atmosphere of the Western story, heavily laden with slang and pregnant with revolvers and murders, where the impression is given that some one is going to be shot every five minutes.

SYSTEM

I am fond of system. I often try to put my life and studio in order; but then I need some one to keep things in order, for when a fellow has so much to do, and at the same time has to act as body-servant or valet to a pretty particular old man, he has his hands full. Some men are capable of it. I know of one who cut up his canvas and paper into what he called ‘my little thirty by forty, or fifty by sixty,’ — for so he designated the pictures which were sure to follow. When he went on an outing, all he had to do was to say, ‘Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November,’ and he knew just how many pictures and watercolors he was going to bring back. And so he ordered before leaving just so many frames and passe-partouts, and set a date for a gallery, and when he got back the sale took place without a day’s delay. He once said to me, — and it was good advice, —

‘Now, if you have three pictures for sale, don’t ask a hundred dollars apiece; that shows that you don’t think much of yourself; but ask three hundred apiece. It is easier to sell one picture than three; and asking three hundred dollars makes people think that there must be something in them. So you sell your one, and have two left to send to exhibitions in other cities.’

Leighton was great on system. He wants some pomegranate blossoms for a picture (for whatever flower went into a picture by Leighton was sure to be a handsome one), and he hies him to Italy and makes his studies. But he has so timed his trip that he gets back to London in the morning, takes his bath, his breakfast, his cigar and rest, and at precisely half-past one walks into his studio and finds his model waiting by previous appointment.

I should like to make an oral or written comment, but breath fails me and my brain reels. Well, V., do you or do you not like system? I don’t know; I am only writing for fun, and there does seem something funny about it, — don’t you think so?

THE FLY-SPECK

I presume most of my readers know the story of the Hebrew scholars and jot or tittle. This jot or tittle is a dot used in writing Hebrew, which modifies the sense or pronunciation of words, and is of great importance, for the Good Book warns us that we may have a hot time if we tamper with it. Now certain wise men, finding one in the Scriptures which changed the meaning of a sentence, thus giving a new reading, were about coming to blows,—a handy way of settling somethings,—when one whose spectacles were better than those of his confrères discovered the jot to be no other than a fly-speck. A friend, writing to me, says that something reminded him of my fly-speck story. At first I could not remember being the happy possessor of a fly-speck story, but gradually it came to me that I did once tell at the Club something which seemed to revolve on a fly-speck, and which is my story beyond a doubt. It is this: —

In Perugia there was a certain Count Meniconi who owned two beautiful little pictures. Wishing to sell them, and thinking that perhaps it might help him to do so, he kindly allowed me to copy them both. Were they mine, I should most certainly hold them to be the work of Rafaello when young. Of course they are like Perugino, but an owner can see beauties hidden from others. One represents a St. Christopher with the Bambino on his shoulder; the other a most delightful young St. John, with slender legs, bearing an equally slender cross. The face of the St. John is remarkable for the great sweetness of the expression. This expression I labored over, and had almost given up all hope of catching it, when I discovered that it was owing to none other than a fly-speck near the corner of the mouth. Imitating this casual work of the fly, I succeeded in getting perfectly the expression. I had the pictures photographed, and sent the Count as many copies of them as he desired.

Some time afterward, a gentleman called at my studio in the Via Margutta, and on glancing at his card, I saw that he also was a count, of the noble and ancient family of the Malatestas of Rimini. His object was to get photographs of the little pictures. These I gave him, and he was most surprised at my refusing to be paid for them. Thanking me profusely, he took his departure. While holding the door open as he left, I saw him take down from a ledge in the staircase the stump of a cigar he had carefully deposited, with the evident intention of relighting and finishing it when his call should be over.

On this I pondered, and thought that, were I a Malatesta I would never lower myself by such an act; but continuing to ponder, I came to the conclusion that were I a Malatesta, perhaps I could afford to do so.

Everybody must have seen in Florence, under the Loggie of the Uffizi Gallery, the statue of that Florentine worthy, Gino Capponi. He is represented tearing up, with a look of immenso sdegno, a sheet of paper or some document, and the act marks, no doubt, what the Italians would not fail to call un momento psicologico of great importance in the City’s history.

I saw in the Tribuna, July 16, 1908, the account of the arrest in Milan of the Marchese Gino Capponi, for smuggling saccharine in a carpet-bag. He and a friend may have to pay a fine of from forty-five to ninety thousand lire. Like my aunt Eveline, ‘I make no comment.’

BEAUTIES AND DEFECTS

There is an old woodcut representing an accountant seated at his desk by an open window. A sudden gust of wind is carrying away the bills through it, while all that remains in his frantic grasp are the pennies and small change. The legend underneath reads, ‘Take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves.’ This may do in finance, but in Art it admits of a doubt. ‘Take care of the beauties and let the defects take care of themselves,’ sounds better, and I wish to heaven I had written it and hung it up in my studio, framed like those texts we used to see similarly treated in many homes. Had Bellini, in those charming little pictures attributed to him, stopped to correct all their manifest defects, I fear we should have been deprived of a permanent pleasure. I mean those little things in which Truth with her mirror is represented of an uncertain age and more uncertain proportions; and another, where the very small boat is quite inadequate to bear with safety its charming occupant, and the great globe and the little loves. I know this opens the way for those who cannot draw, to Corot’s ‘hovering’; and for those who are incapable of feeling and expression, to Millet’s expressionless faces, in those instances where he has paid more attention to the expression of the sleeve of a knit jacket, for instance, than to the expression on the face of its wearer; or to the clever penman, relying on the impeccable line of Aubrey Beardsley and nothing else, and so forth and so on. I know (to change Blake’s saying slightly) ‘the lazy will turn this into laziness,’ but the intelligent will follow this advice: Go for beauties with all thy might, and the defects will take care of themselves. The love and the warmth of Burns make him dearer to us than if he had been a pale, cold, lifeless, funereal urn of perfection.

THE TOSCANO

A worthy Pope once, when pleased with the discourse of an equally worthy Friar, offered him a pinch of snuff. The Friar refused with thanks, and at the same time thanked God that he had not acquired that vice. Whereupon the Pope remarked that he had better get it, as it went so well with his others. I have always been thankful that I acquired the vice of smoking early in life in Cuba, thus saving much valuable time. I have given the toscano, a great favorite in Italy, many names, — such as ‘gravel-scratcher,5 ‘ test of manhood,’ ‘ bed-rocker,5 etc., — for in way of smoking you can no lower go. But the best name for it is ‘the last refuge of man.’ For I firmly believe that although woman has taken possession of the realm of the cigarette, she will never invade the kingdom of the toscano. Here man reigns supreme and may well nail his flag to the toscano.

But we must distinguish carefully between the toscano and the fair Virginia, she of the slender build, frequently the despair of the new arrival, who seeks in vain to smoke it without previously withdrawing the little reedlike straw. The likeness between them may be best described as that between the muffin and the crumpet. I once asked an Englishman what was the difference between a muffin and a crumpet, and he said he held the crumpet to be the female of the muffin. This also just describes the relationship of the toscano and our stogie. When, on my visits home, unable to obtain my favorite, I have hailed with delight the stogie, but must confess that it was something like revisiting the pale glimpses of the moon. However, I was delighted with the native stogie as a substitute, and sought to introduce it to those of the Club, pointing out how heartrending a thing it was to throw away a good Havana (when barely begun), merely to catch the train, when an inexpensive stogie would do as well. I taught my friends how to cut them in two, thus getting two smokes out of one stogie; and that by lighting them in private, that humiliating look of economy might be avoided. I believe my propaganda took effect, and that these ‘ catch the trains5 are smoked to this day, in private; but, on account of the humiliating look, only in private.

The toscano is an alleged cigar, six and one-eighth inches long. Like Whistler, ‘I have measured it.5 It is always cut in two by the judicious, for very good reasons: it draws better; it gives two short smokes; you smoke less; and as it has been called strong, while you may waste the cigar, you save the man. Again, as the fair girls who ‘confectionate5 it, being of a merry turn of mind, frequently mingle with the flagrant leaf, hairpins, toothpicks, and oggetti too numerous to mention, — so the cutting discloses forthwith this plan of having fun at your expense. Yet, as the Messagero receives specimens and publishes lists of things found in toscani, I dare say they get some satisfaction out of their pranks after all.

Now as to how the man is saved.

The custom is to cut off the two hard ends; these go to deserving models and studio-men; to the studio-man also goes the stump, which he dries and smokes in a pipe, or sends to his old father in the country. You only smoke about an inch of each half, or two inches of the cigar. This moderation saves the man, if it does waste the cigar. I smoke about five a day; that does the business for me, and would most certainly do the business for many a tall fellow. One more observation: the stumps of toscani thrown away in the street are pounced upon by an uncertain class, — much as the sea-gulls pounce on the refuse thrown from a steamer; but I have noticed that the stump of a Havana is passed unnoticed by those who readily stoop to that of a toscano.

Michelangelo, when a very old man, was seated one day amidst the ruins of the Colosseum. In my opinion, he was only loafing and waiting his opportunity. A friend, finding him, said:

' Buon’ giorno’; to which the old man at once replied,—

‘That’s not right; you must ask me, “Cosa fai?” [What are you doing?] else what becomes of my celebrated answer, “I am still studying”?’

Should any one ask me at this moment the same question, I should answer, —

‘Smoking and thinking.’

Q. What are you thinking about?

A. My life.

Q. And what do you make of it?

A. An unfinished sketch.

After which I would throw away the mezzo toscano, well knowing that I had lots of them in reserve.