p ,-k 6 ^^ ^\ - V-"'= -^ ■ - ELL'S LITERATURE SERIES No. 124. 25 Cents. a DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK MR. AND MRS. EDMUND RUSSELL UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY SUCCESSORS TO JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY ISO WORTH ST., NEW YORK. T*«ued Weekly. Annual Subscription, $15.00. Nov. 28, 1890 Entered at the New York Post Office as second-class mail matter. Prose Dramas of Henrik Ibsen. IN TWO VOLUMES. Price per Volume, Cloth, $1.00 ; Paper, 50 Cents. With Critical and Biographical introduction by EDMUND GOSSE. Part I. — Containing : "A Doll's House," "The Pillars of Society," "Ghosts," "kothmersholm." Part II. — Containing : " The Lady from the Sea," "An Enemy of Society," "The Wild Duck," and "The Young Men's League." There is a deep and solemn tone running through all these dramas, as though the author were saying, like Hamlet, that the times were out of joint; but he does not admit that it is his duty or mission to set them right. He takes things as he finds them, and in consequence his plays, without being immoral, may be characterized with propriety as unmoral. The plays should be read and studied, not merely because of their novelty but for the sake of the philosophy which they contain, and to grasp the ideas of an author who isundoubtedly a man of genius. It is not easy to classify these dramas, although they fall naturally into a single class. They differ materially from most modern plays, chiefly because there is no artificiality about them. They are hard, stern and even cruel in their portraiture of human passion and human weakness. Ibsen has the courage of his convictions, and does not shrink from depicting what he believes to be the natural consequences of human conduct. NOTICES FROM THE PRESS. " America has lagged a long way behind Europe in realizing that the Norwegian dramatist, Ibsen, is a genius. But having at last discovered that the rest of the world considers him a great writer, we seem to have determined to make up for being belated by now talking a great deal about him." — The Nation. "There is a deal of power in Ibsen."— A 7 : Y. Mail and Express. "They are sombre and sad, but powerfully conceived and written, and decidedly worth reading." — New York Sun. "The interest of the Christian Union in Ibsen antidates the recent development of popular interest in this country and we have already said so much about him that it is unnecessary at this time to characterize him further." — Christian Union. " Few if any, male writers have given us so true or so high a concep- tion of womanhood as does Ibsen."— Religio Philos. Journal. " To read him Is the latest "craze" in the literary and semi-literary worlds." — Ftiblic Opinion. " What is called the Ibsen craze is still abroad."— Com'l Gazette, Cincinnati. UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. SUCCESSORS TO JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 142 TO 150 WORTH STREET, NEW YORK. Delsartean Scrap-book HEALTH, PERSONALITY, BEAUTY, HOUSE-DECORATION, DRESS, ETC. COMPILED &Y FREDERIC SANBURN WITH A PREFACE BY WALTER CRANE " I believe in the human being, mind and flesh, form and soul. To be shapely of form is so infinitely beyond wealth, power, fame, all that ambition can give, that these are dust before it. " I believe — I do more than think — I believe it to be a sacred duty, incum- bent upon every one, man and woman, to add to and encourage their physical life by exercise, and in every manner. Each one of us should do some little part for the physical good of the race — health, strength, vigor. There is no harm therein to the soul : on the contrary, those who stunt their physical life are most certainly stunting their souls." — Richard Jeffries. The great law of culture is : Let each become all that he was created capable of being. — Carlyle. NEW YORK UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY SUCCESSORS TO JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 142 TO 150 WORTH STREET ^\\Ur Copyrighted, 1890, BY UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY Brt sboulo interest b£ tbe true. Brt sboulD move bg tbe beautiful. Brt sboulD persuaoe b£ tbe gooo. Brt sboulo Unterest bg tbe true to illumine tbe intelligence. nsovc b£ tbe beautiful to regenerate tbe life. Ipersuaoe bg tbe £000 to perfect tbe beart. — Delsarte. " not stark and stiffened persons, but the new-born poetry of God — poetry without stop, poetry still flowing, not yet caked in dead books with annotations and grammar, but Apollo and the Muses chanting still." — Emerson. "The young- citizens must not be allowed to grow up amongst images of evil, lest their souls assimilate the ugli- ness of their surroundings. Rather they should be like men living in a beautiful and healthy place ; from every- thing that they see and hear, loveliness, like a breeze, should pass into their souls, and teach them without their knowing it the truth of which beauty is a manifestation." — Plato. " I am only solicitous about one thing, and that is lest I should do something that the constitution of man does not permit, or in the way or time it does not permit." — Mar- cus Aurelius. PREFACE. fHE gospel of beauty gains an ever wider hearing: its message is, indeed, a much- ^ needed one in the modern world, which is apt to shut its eyes to all that distracts from the main business (or the whole duty) of man — to make mone} 7 . Until it is discovered that the fac- ulties which are concentrated on the supreme ideal of " making a pile " — to say nothing of the faculties consumed in the pitiful struggle for a bare subsistence — are not in condition, or per- haps are the very reverse of those wanted in the sympathetic recognition and cultivation of things beautiful. The half-awakened eye needs guidance in its search of a response to the appeal of aesthetic im- pressions: and since, in a mechanical methodical age, the body as w r ell as the mind has a tendency to become specialized, and with cramping, fixed habits, grace and ease of movement become diffi- cult and rare, as natural and expressive action disappears with natural conditions of life : so that in our complex and unlovely civilization the laws VI PEEFACE. of harmony, the sense of art, the language of line and curve, in the expression of beauty are only slowly recovered, if at all, by careful and con- scious study. With the gradual, and in some cases complete, removal of life from the beauty of wild nature in big cities, the loss of the daily countless im- pressions of beauty — of harmony of colors and stimulus to the imagination, common to a life in the woods and fields, is hardly, perhaps, appre- ciated in its full meaning, especially in the effect of its absence in early life when impressions of all kinds are strong. All these causes, daily and hourly at work, with habits of mind and body, cramping and mechanical conditions of work, in- door life, a restricted space and movement — all these causes can only be counteracted or miti- gated in any degree by a study of the laws and expression of beauty. And therefore a work such as that of Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Kussell should be especially valuable. Few indeed are more constant and devoted ex- ponents of this gospel of beauty of which I have spoken, and as lecturers they have done much to elucidate, and to simplify by familiar illustrations in common life, in speech, bearing, and action, and domestic decoration those principles of beauty which underlie all varieties of its manifestation in life as in art. Indeed as exponents of the system of Delsarte, they aim, I believe, to reduce the laws PKEFACE. Vil of graceful movement and appropriate dramatic expression and action to almost scientific pre- cision and definiteness. Now, while I do not believe that the faculty for art in its positive, or creative and inventive sense, can be taught, yet on its negative side, certain principles can be laid down which would prevent at least mistakes being made. Preaching, alone, will not save a world; and if the world insists on the adoption of conditions of life and habit, law and custom, which tell against external beauty and its enjoyment, its votaries can but wear out their lives in protest, until the arts become extinct. But since the arts are human, and since the apple was given to Aphrodite, humanity all the world over, in all sorts and conditions own her power ; and I believe the appeal to the eye is too potent, and art too involved in life itself for the satisfaction of the one in the perfection of the other ever to cease to be ardently desired. This awakening of the sense of art, this in- creased sensibility to beauty — this new Renais- sance — shall we call it — that we are witnessing in our time, that has been slowly and silently growing these last ten or twenty years — what is its meaning ? Can it be merely owing to the in- crease of riches ? The uninformed possession of riches generally results in the smothering of the sense of art in luxury and vulgarity. No ! I be- Vlll PREFACE. lieve this awakening* search for beauty to be but a part of another movement — a rising* wave on the earth of aspiration for a fuller, freer, more humane, sympathetic and beautiful, if simple, life. A life now for the first time coming" within the bounds of possibility for the many, as more and more knowledge of art and of nature and refinement becomes diffused, and, united in com- munity of interests a command of the resources of material of life, the peoples of the earth be- come one kindred together. London, September, 1890. Table of contents. CHAPTER I. WHAT IS DELSARTIS1I ? (From the Phrenological Journal.') PREFACE by Walter Crane I. Delsarte's work— Man's nature and man's expression— " Tuning the instrument" — Words, tones, and gestures— The bow of the Queen of Italy— Gladstone and Dr. Richter— The aim of the Delsartean gymnastics— Quotations from Delsarte. II. The practical workings of the system— School gymnastics — Bad man- ners — Grace and elegance — How to train the body — A cure for nervousness — " Decomposing " exercises — How to rest — An Orien- tal prince and the English ladies— Edwin Forrest and Delsartism —The proper age and time for study 1 CHAPTER II. ART EDUCATION. (From " Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts,' 1 '' published by U. S. Government.) Can good taste be acquired ?— The laws of beauty— The science of art-criticism— Prof. Walter Smith and industrial drawing — To understand the " reasons why " in art — Need of Delsartean teach- ings in our public schools 20 CHAPTER III. HEALTH, NATURAL EXPRESSION, GRACE. I. Delsartean development— " Know thyself "—The different kinds of exercises — Grace— Rest — Sleep— Labor— Corpulency — " The pace that kills "—Vital economy— Broken-down old age. X TABLE OF CONTENTS. II. PAGE Expression development— Life gives force, education should give ex- pression— Nerve-rest — Rhythm the law of health, growth, and beauty— The Delsartean gymnastics 27 CHAPTER IV. PERSONALITY. (From the Northivestern Journal of Education.') The art of expression —Personal power— The meaning of Delsarte's teachings— His methods of studying nature— His discoveries in harmony with other scientific discoveries — Prof. Tomlin's in- quiry — Does the study of expression make one self-conscious ?— Self-consciousness or self-possession 34 CHAPTER V. DELSARTISM IN ENGLAND. (From the Voice Magazine.) Owen Meredith— Sir Frederick Leighton— The elder Garcia— The secret of youth— How actors regard Delsartism— All good acting in harmony Avith its teachings— Robert Browning— Lamperti and his method— The German school of singing— Salvini, Rossi, and Ristori at home 41 CHAPTER VI. THE BREATH OF LIFE. (From the New York Home Journal.) Control at the centre — Freedom at the extremities— " Lift up your chest " — How to acquire the habit of breathing naturally — The child and the animal— Reserve power 52 CHAPTER VII. DRESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF WOMAN. (From Scribner's Magazine.) Dr. Sargent, of Harvard University, on physical development— The waist-line— The hips— The origin of lacing— The pure ideals of the early Greeks — Some physical experiments— A r° e for health — American women 59 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER VIII. THE NATURAL HUMAN FIGURE. (From the London Homeopathic World.*) page A London letter— The role of the body in expression— The effect of disturbing harmony— Our eyes accustomed to discord- Tight lacing— Health, beauty, and expression dependent on perfect free- dom 66 CHAPTER IX. A WOMAN ON WALKING. (From the New York Sunday Star.') The faulty carriage of belles of Broadway and Fifth Avenue — Walk- ing up-stairs— A society girl's lament — Walking naturally not necessarily walking beautifully— The anxiety and strain of the shopper— Nervousness versus dignity — Some suggestions as to the cure of certain natural defects 74 CHAPTER X. ANOTHER WOMAN ON WALKING. (From the New York Mail and Express.) How one ought to walk in order to be graceful — How to gain strength and ease— Advantages in health and beauty to be derived from a proper carriage and gait— Exercises which develop the muscles all over the body, head, shoulders, chest, waist, knees, and feet, all concerned in the art of walking well— Methods of training each in turn 83 CHAPTER XL A PRIVATE LESSON. (From the New York Sunday World.) Being aesthetically carved— Nell Nelson takes a lesson and tells her in- teresting experience in the New York World— Vanity completely crushed— The Delsartean's dissecting-room— Breathing and walk- ing—Falling as a pastime 91 CHAPTER XII. FOR COMFORT IN DRESS. (From the Chicago Daily News.) Some ideas on men's clothes— The stupidity of modern fashions— The effect of fits— Linen, plush, and Oriental slippers — Some novel or- naments—A subtle compliment 102 Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. WOMAN IN BLACK. (From the Chicago Tribune.') PAGE A popular fallacy— The traces of age— Street and house dressing- Colors for evening— How to wear jewels— Massive ornaments — Powder and rouge— The effect of ' ' make-up " 109 CHAPTER XIV. MORE ABOUT BLACK. (From the New York Sunday Herald.) What it does to Mrs. Langtry and Mrs. Kendal— " Lace by the mile " —Diamonds— Girdles— Rings— Artistic dressing — Mme. Blavatsky —Marie Decker— The Indian princes 113 CHAPTER XV. DRESS AND PERSONALITY. (From Harper's Bazar.) The gown and the wearer— What's wrong '—Different types of women and what they should wear— Cleopatras and tea-biscuits — Studies in color— Contrast or harmony— How to dress a stout woman. ... 119 CHAPTER XVI. STYLE OR EXPRESSION. (From Syndicate Letter.) Tight-fitting garments— The lines of drapery— Design and ornament —The selection of brocades— Texture in dress— Fashion-plates are made for nobody in particular, the artistic dress studies the indi- vidual 126 CHAPTER XVII. HOW I HEARD OF DELSARTE. (From the New York Graphic.) An adventure in a milliner's shop — Noses and bonnets— Learning to fly— The relation of dress to expression— Good taste — Artists' wives— Dress and the human body—" Coats of skin "—A Greek investigation , 130 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Xlll CHAPTER XVIII. "gone daft on dress." (From the Chicago Evening Post.') PAGE The effect of the preceding chapter — Chicago ladies crazy on the sub- ject of being artistic — Edmund Russell to blame — Milliners say- that since he began lecturing there they cannot please their cus- tomers—Mrs. Hardcash and Miss Simperum — She wanted some- thing to carry out the color of her eyes 140 CHAPTER XIX. IS A CHANGE IN DRESS IMPENDING ? (From the New York Mail and Express.) The Prince of Wales— The queen's drawing-room at Balmoral — Our present clothes ridiculous, inartistic, and uncomf ortable — Sir Ed- win Arnold at home — An Indian philosopher and the English ladies — Russian emigrants — Madame Ponisi's description of Rachel 146 CHAPTER XX. A TALK ON HOUSE DECORATION. (From the Pittsburg Press.) A woman's description of another woman— How to arrange our walls- Striking contrasts call too much attention to themselves — Com- plexity in color— Black again— Practical art— What is conven- tionalization ? 152 CHAPTER XXI. IVORY AND GOLD. (From the Decorator and Furnisher, New York.) The relation of objects— A copper dining-room — Complexion and wall- paper—A study in harmony— Frieze of magnolias— Painted por- tieres—A new simplicity 161 CHAPTER XXII. THE MAKING OF A HOME. (From the Decorator and Furnisher.) Our highest art-work — Walls or people — A dramatic study— The world in mourning — Picture-frames— Wall-paper— Decorations— Light- ing.etc... 166 XIV TABLE OF COXTETSTTS. CHAPTER XXIII. THE PEACOCK DINING-ROOM. (From the Neiv York Mail and Express.') PAGE Foreign palaces and American homes— How houses should be deco- rated — The colors used should harmonize with the complexion of the hostess — Bric-a-brac must be selected carefully and not merely because it is pretty— Choosing pictures— Some famous rooms 171 CHAPTER XXIV. HINTS ON ARTISTIC DINNER-TABLES. (From the Chicago Tribune.') Color in table decoration— An effective scheme— How to plan an ar- rangement of color — A red luncheon— Sevres and Dresden— A bachelor and his brocades — A new sandwich— Some noted dining- rooms , 178 CHAPTER XXV. ARTISTIC LOVE-MAKING. (From the Detroit Free Press.) Man's three languages— Gesture speaks louder than words— "Words are the least part of language as far as utterance is concerned " — The child, the cat, and the lover 186 CHAPTER XXVI. "the cause for divorce.'" • (From Syndicate Letter.) A new theory— An Indian poem— The effect of a starch diet — A trans- formation scene 191 CHAPTER XXVII. IN LONDON TOWN. (From the Milwaukee Sentinel.) Pen sketch of Mrs. Edmund Russell and her receptions— A dream of a midsummer night in London— A Bayswater shrine— The countess and the Egyptologist— The violin-girl -A cosmopolitan gathering 193 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER XXVIII. A TALK ABOUT PICTURES. (From the Chicago Tribune.') PAGE English gardens — " Stone walls do not a prison make "—The home of Holman Hunt— The pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their pur- pose — A protest against academic composition — The ''Triumph of the Innocents' '—Domestic subjects and gilded frames— The peasant pictures of Jean Francois Millet 205 CHAPTER XXIX. CELEBRATED LONDON WOMEN. (From Syndicate Letter.) One must have fine personal character to be beautiful in old age — Mrs. Gladstone and the Baroness Burdette-Coutts — Lady Wilde and Mona Caird — Lady Shelley— John Strange Winter— The noted women novelists 214 CHAPTER XXX. A LONDON STUDIO. (From Belgravia, New York.) An interview on the studio of Felix Moscheles— The cottage in Cado- gan Gardens — Spoons and bric-a-brac from America — An interest- ing portrait-gallery— The artist's personality — A studio bedroom. 220 CHAPTER XXXI. SOME FAMOUS ART HOUSES. (From the Pall Mall Gazette.) Gladstone as a conversationalist— Americans in London— The "Nar- cissus" hall of Sir Frederick Leighton— Alma Tadema and his Greek studio— The private theatre of Hubert Herkomer and Sir Percy Shelley— William Morris at home 226 CHAPTER XXXII. A HINDOO SOIREE IN LONDON. (From the New York Home Journal.) An evening at Mr. Matthius Mull's— The Oriental friends of the Shake- spearean scholar— Some beautiful dresses— The Indian law stu- XVI TABLE OF COXTEaSTS. PAGE dents— Indian music and dancing— Indian taste deteriorating un- der English influence 232 CHAPTER XXXIII. NOTES. (.By Edmund Russell.') A Defeat tean Scrap -Book. "The secrets of utterance, of expression itself, of that through which alone an intellectual or \ spiritual power within one can actually take effect voon others. 11 — Walter Pater. " Will power— not the will of energy that moves the muscles of the animal body, but the will of stillness that controls the animal body. 11 — Lewes. " Secure of possessing within yourself a standard of perfection toward which to aspire, you can henceforth contemplate undismayed all chances of finite and infinite. 11 — The Keys of the Creeds. CHAPTER I. WHAT IS DELSARTISM! Delsarte's work — Man's nature and man's expression — "Tuning the instrument " — Words, tones, and ges- tures — The bow of the Queen of Italy — Gladstone and Dr. Ri enter — The aim of the Delsartean gym- nastics — Quotations from Delsarte. Francois Delsarte devoted his life to the study of the laws which underlie human expres- sion. His work includes the observation of the laws of motion, the laws of gesture, the laws of expression; the roles played in gesture by the Z A DELSARTEA^ SCRAP-BOOK. special organs of the body, the laws of universal expression, and the analysis of individual devia- tions from these laws. Regarding 1 man's nature as a trinity, he be- lieved that one should educate the mental, moral, and physical at the same time and in perfect re- lation to each other. A trinity is inseparable; separation means death and the final loss of the power to unite and form a harmony. Modern ed- ucation is too much of a mental strain, a desire for abnormal development in special directions. It ignores all the laws of real growth. Educa- tion should fit a man for the life he is to lead; should preserve and develop his personality, and strengthen all his powers of relating himself to and understanding others. Our men either belong to the crude, brutish, low, physical type, or to the over-strained, ner- vous, short-breathed, broken-down, mental; which is especially common in America. A man with harmonious balance of power or interrelation of his mental, moral, and physical nature, is rare. The soul struggles to speak through an imper- fect instrument; sometimes it ceases to struggle, and finally has nothing to say. Mr. Russell, for a concise definition of Delsar- tism, compares it to " tuning a piano." One is asked to play; a string is broken; a note refuses to sound. Will you say, " It will not seem like my piano if it is not out of tune ? " No : the whole WHAT IS DELSARTISM? 8 * instrument must be tuned to perfect relation or harmony, perfect co-operation of all the parts with the whole. For the expression of his triune nature man has three languages — the word, the tone, the gesture. Primarity speaking, tones express bodily condi- tion, physical pleasure, pain, etc. "Words are arbitrary mental symbols, and interpret thoughts and ideas — they describe and limit. Gestures re- late us to other beings, expressing our emotions and feelings. We study all the words that have ever been thought or said or written, in all lands and all ages; tones are mostly left to singers and gestures to accident, and there cannot be many " accidents " in modern clothes. " Tailor- made " is a good description of most society ex- pression. Ordinary labor, a blow, a simple motion, use but a few muscles and joints; noble feelings and elegant manners require the whole body to re- spond without tension or effort. In labor the brain commands special muscles to do a special work, but when the man does not move, but is moved, a wave of feeling passes over him and his whole body becomes eloquent. A quick jerk of the head says to a passing ac- quaintance, " I know you," but to express rever- ence and love the whole bod} 7 speaks in uncon- scious rhythm (possibly some will argue that we do not need to express these feelings in such ad- 4 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK:. vanced civilization, but what does Mr. Ruskin say of its failure, "if it can't make civil men?"). It is the work of Delsartism to teach not how to come into a room and how to go out, how to stand and how to bow, but to train the body until" it is by habit unconsciously flexible, and feels not "self-conscious," but self-possessed for the expression of the moment. A vulgar nature makes crude, animal-like ges- tures; so the refined shrinks back into itself, stiffens its spine, and says, " gesture is vulgar" So it is — when in the wrong- place, but it is just as bad to express, or seem to express, a narrow, hard, constrained nature, as a coarse, free, open one — and either may lie; being* only the result of cir- cumstance, the building up of years of constraint or ignorance. The real self may struggle in vain for expression through the one body, which labor has narrowed down to a machine only speaking of labor; or the other, which respecta- bility has stiffened up, till it can only express " respectability." It is a law of expression — the old law of economy, "just as much as is needed for the occasion; no more, no less." Mr. Russell speaks of the graceful bow of the Queen of Italy, so loved by her subjects. While he was in Rome, she was visited by a cousin who sat up in the carriage with high collar, rigid spine, and angular arms, bowing to the people with a jerk of the head, in quick, comedy time — WHAT IS DELSARTISM? 5 a straight line in space and moving only one point of .the neck. The queen bowed like a caress, in complex rhythmic time, and spiral line, bend- ing every joint of her body. The Italians all thought the cousin haughty and disagreeable. While analyzing the meaning of different bows one day, in the presence of a lady of the court who was his pupil, Mr. Russell illustrated the two just described. She exclaimed: "That is strange! Only yesterday, in the carriage, the princess said to the queen, ' How I envy you your bow; I love my people, but I cannot express it/ " And why not ? It was because her refined nature could not control her clumsy bodily mechanism, and make it express the good-will which dwelt within this haughty angular woman. She loved her people, but they never knew it; they had no good of it — the notes would not sound, the instru- ment could not speak in harmony. It might have been caused by embarrassment, or the fatigues of illness, or always wearing tight clothing, or by a mother who always said, " Don't do that, my daughter; it is not proper for one in your posi- tion," and never told her what she should do. Who knows? Control at the centre, freedom at the extremities, is a fundamental law of expression. Once in Paris Mrs. Russell was reminded that Delsarte was a descendant of Del Sarto (Italian for tailor). " Yes," she said, " he fits men's bodies to their souls." b A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. This new " art of expression " is largely studied by orators, actors, clergymen, painters, sculptors, and all scholars and artists who wish to get fur- ther knowledge of human nature. A leading physician in London studied two years with Mr. Russell, to understand motion in relation to ner- vous disease. Mr. Gladstone declared, after hearing a lecture by Mrs. Russell, that this art should be taught in every school in England, while Dr. Richter, the Wagnerian authority, said to her: "Every actor should study it, but only the greatest will understand its need and value." Delsarte's work has given a scientific basis for art criticism, for we find the laws of motion, color, sound, and form in perfect relation. The knowl- edge this affords is invaluable to the art-student, for with its aid he begins to understand nature instead of merely imitating her. The aim of the Delsartean gymnastics is to give symmetrical physical development, and to take out the angles and discords, to reduce the body to a natural, passive state, and from that point to train it to move in harmony with nature's laws. The movements are without nervous ten- sion, and all feats and exertions are discouraged. The practical e3^e of the teacher quickly sees if a joint is stiffened, or if a motion is made in ner- vous rhythm, and a special gymnastic is given until the whole body works together, and as an WHAT IS DELSARTISM? 7 instrument is in tune. This usually takes long and patient practice, and when normal ease and control are attained, the pupil is only on the threshold of the real study of Art. As the syste'n deals especially with physical reform, it can never be written in a book, for in- dividual peculiarities need the personal criticism of a teacher, and the higher philosophy of the art is not given until the first steps have been mas- tered and the individual is under control, but im- portant works on art subjects might be written by its exponents from the knowledge gained by it. Mairy of our schools and colleges use Delsarte's work in some degree — Harvard, Vassar, Welles- ley, Tuft's, Princeton, Cornell, Oberlin, and others. Of his writings but a few fragments remain. He left his work mostly in the form of charts and epigrammatic sentences. From them we take some interesting art definitions : "Art is feeling passed through thought and fixed in form." "Art is the idealization of the real and the realization of the ideal." "Art is nature with the non-essentials left out." "Art is at once the possession and the free direction of the agents by virtue of which are revealed the life, soul, and mind. It is the appro- priation of the sign to the thing. It is the rela- tion of the beauties scattered through nature, to 8 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. a superior type. It is not, therefore, the mere imitation of nature." II. The practical workings of the system — School gymnas- tics — Bad manners — Grace and elegance — How to train the body — A cure for nervousness — "Decom- posing " exercises — How to rest — An Oriental prince and the English ladies — Edwin Forrest and Delsar- tism — The proper age and time for study. It is very difficult to write on gesture and mo- tion; for gesture is a langauge by itself that cannot be adequately translated into words, and it would be impossible to give exact rules, as they would be modified with each pupil according to his needs. In practising the same exercise each pupil in a class might require a different criticism, according as this or that muscle or joint refused to obey the will.* The object of the work is not to teach a special set of gestures or an arbitrary code of manners, but to train the whole body until it is an instru- ment of facile and natural expression. Most faces are but a mass of scars, the tide-marks of life's ocean, the past worries and cares and sorrows indelibly stamped upon them ; most bodies are so stiffened by the "left-over" pieces of past exer- * Delsarte always insisted that the physical part of his training should precede the philosophical, and as the gymnastics are mainly for the correction of personal deviations from nature, they should never be printed as a series of rules to be applied to all WHAT IS DELSAETISM? 9 tions or past repressions that the real nature finds hard work to express itself, and often gives up the attempt. " You must not judge by his ap- pearance and manners," we hear it said; "you will like him when you know him better." The real him is hiding- behind the useless and uncom- fortable framework, afraid to come out. Oar daily work gives us command of the larger muscles. Blows, violent exertion, nervous jerks, angular motions, broken-down attitudes, rude ex- pressions, and awkward manners, require but crude mechanism in their execution; but the rhythms which give calm and dignity, control to the nerves, expressive movements, good manners, and natural sentiment, require the whole muscu- lar framework to act in perfect harmony. The Delsartean teacher, in examining a pupil, usualty finds that not more than one-half of the muscles are ever called into action; and that this lack of co-operative power is made up D3 7 using the heavy muscles in strained violence and broken rhythms. The first exercises are all of a relaxing nature. The old gymnastic doubled up the fist, and with great tension gave a blow which jarred the whole nervous system. Nature does not grow by vio- lence, but by harmonious expansion from the sim- ple to the more complex. Relaxing movements consist in shaking the whole arm and hand until the joints are loosened, the muscles gently put in 10 A DELSAKTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. action, and a ting-ling-, magnetic feeling- passes up and down the arm, which is then allowed to hang- for some time quietly by the side as if dead. The effects are very much the same as result from the massage treatment. An awakening-, as it were, in every part, a feeling both of repose and power at being- able to control the whole machin- ery of the arm instead of only a few muscles — a greater power of endurance and an absence of the nervous tendency to " fidget " with our hands, or play with a button, or our g-loves, or the fringes of the chair we are sitting in. " I know how to rest for the first time in my life," an old lady ex- claimed after practising these exercises. The arm hangs naturally relaxed at the side when not in use, not stuck out at the elbows like the dude, or tightened at the side in the manner of the con- ventional lady. Exercises of similar purpose are given for other parts of the body — the legs and feet — a revolving of the head to take the stiffness out of the neck, a similar revolution of the shoulders and of the trunk. These are practised until every joint is flexible, every muscle alive, and the body under control. Then we begin ceasing to express our- selves by nervous, angular twitchings of the ex- tremities — the rest of the body silent — or to re- press ourselves by sitting bolt upright with a society smile, a stiffened neck, and rigid hands clasping a pocket-book. WHAT IS DELSARTISM? 11 An Oriental prince said to Mr. Russell in Lon- don that the English ladies reminded him of " magnificent antique torsos with movable heads," he had never seen their bodies move. The first exercises reduce the body to a condi- tion of natural freedom and flexibility; the second steps are to learn how to make use of this greater mechanical compass. The instrument has been tuned — we must learn now to play. The fingers have been developed by exercises; we will now practise our scales. Floating movements, curves, spirals, all exe- cuted in perfect rhythm in order to acquire calm control — all parts of the body moving in harmony obedient to the will until at last they move in harmony unconsciously— the accord as firmly es- tablished as the discord was before. These mo- tions are never practised simply for unmeaning* grace, as in dancing, the Swedish gymnastics, the exercises with wands, etc.; every curve, rhythm, and direction in space being in exact relation to our use of the body in natural expression. The movements are very difficult for some peo- ple, and have to be practised a long time before they " strike in." Some with quick intelligence appreciate the principles at once ; while, mental in their methods, they find it very hard to relax the nervous ten- sion of -their bodies; but their patient study usu- ally brings more return than the easily-acquired 12 A DELSAETEAN SCRAP-BOOK. grace of a pliable body and sluggish mind. All degrees of susceptibility, mental, moral, and phy- sical, are found in different kinds of pupils, but perfect balance is very rare. The change produced by such study is often very striking, when, for reason of years of repres- sion, embarrassment, bad dressing, and narrow education, one who could not express himself fairly, now, for the first time, feels all that rich- ness of nature, pent up for years, which has only made him miserable, striking out unconsciously through the new, though natural, avenues of ex- pression he has opened for it. All of the studies so far are mere gymnastics, daily exercises to oil the wheels of the machine and get it in working order. Then comes the study of the service of the different parts of the body in actual life— how in walking the foot should be used as an elastic arch, the ball strik- ing the ground first and not the heel. The knees should bend as little as possible — with some people they seem to give way with every step; expressing a most feeble character. The arms should hang flexible at the side, as pendulums, and swing from the shoulder, not from the elbow; above all, they should never be stiff- ened with the elbows stuck out, the expression being that of vulgar self-assertion. The chest should be kept raised and be the leading point in the poise of the body — the head WHAT IS DELSARTISM? 13 advanced gives a mental preoccupied look, ner- vous and searching- if the eyes are open, unrelated to the world if the eyes are drooped; with the stomach leading, the manner is vulgar and phy- sical. In the best Greek and Egyptian statues the chest is always on a line with the front part of the foot. The tight high collar of the period is, of course, very injurious to natural expression, which de- mands, with control at the centre, perfect free- dom at the extremities. The collar should never come higher than the point where the neck and body join. Of course, too, it goes without saying that the wearing of corsets is strongly disap- proved b} 7 all Delsarteans, as control of the breath underlies both gesture and voice. A sunken chest gives an appearance of contemptible weakness, and our centre of control must be firm or the flexibility of the body will seem unpleasantly "sloppy" and affected. In this point many Del- sartean students fail; accomplishing the bodily rhythms, but not sufficiently understanding the necessity of "control at the centre." The bow must begin at the head and not the feet; must not be a jerk of one joint at the neck, or a bend of the hip, but should obey the law of " succession " and follow the path of all true ex- pression, beginning with the eye and passing like a wave over the body, using every joint in its 14 A DELSAETEAE" sceap-book. turn ; any slip, break, or change of time affecting the truth of the expression. The articulation should make distinct use of the teeth, tongue, and lips, the throat being relaxed and the voice, borne up by the controlled breath, be vibrant and resonant through all the cavities of the mouth and nose. Good food, fresh air, plenty of sleep, frequent bathing and rubbing, the steam-room of the Rus- sian bath, massage, all have great effect in keep- ing the body natural and free in its expression; and by these, combined with the careful physical exercise of the Delsarteans, much of the freshness of youth can be preserved or regained. Contin- ual labor in any one direction, lack of exercise, embarrassment, tight clothes, and evil passions, all dwarf and deform, tightening their grasp until we live in the clutches of the past and are not free for the needs of the present. Modern nations pay little attention to the cul- ture of the body; the ancient Greeks had both their standards of beauty and their schools for attaining it. Speaking of their beauty compared with our physical degeneration, a contemporary writer says : " It was a beauty based on bodily health, on the grace and harmony and perfect proportion of every organic part. It was not confined to the face. It included every limb and lineament, every aspect of form and feature. It was a natural, wholesome, abiding beauty. . . . WHAT IS DELSARTISM? 15 It was a beauty that did not fade with the first freshness of youth." The training- of the prize-ring and college gym- nasium aims solely at the production of force and muscle; the Delsartean recognizes the distinction between the motions of force and those of expres- sion and trains for every exigency of life. Ac- companying this general study and practice, there is specialized work, according to the needs of the student. Edwin Forrest said shortly before his death : "The Delsarte philosophy has thrown floods of light upon nry mind. In fifteen minutes it has given me a deeper insight into the philosophy of my own art than I had, myself, learned in fifty years of study." If the student be a sculptor, he studies the poses of the body in all their meanings; if a painter, the same, with the analysis of the meanings and relations of colors and their combinations, the expression of lines, the relation of the line to the angle, the circle to the spiral, etc. Mr. Russell, when asked the proper age for study, replied : " Of course the best time for such training is in youth; all of our public-school teachers should fully understand Delsarte's work. "Most children are born well formed, with beautiful voices and natural grace of expression. This, however, gets quickly knocked out of them at school in the strained mentality of our present 16 A DELSAKTEAN SCEAP-BOOK. systems and the purely artificial exercises that form part of the school routine. " In every school there should be a little good gymnastic practice to preserve the natural rhythms, and every teacher should know enough to correct a bad poise, a thumping walk, a hard tone, or clavicular breathing, without ever letting the students know that they were learning a ' system ' — which is an unpleasant word. He must learn the system, and train them so well that they would never need it. "Delsarte discovered, he did not invent, and true Delsarteans claim to have no patent on na- ture, but to have been assisted in understanding nature's laws by Delsarte's formulations. There is nothing in our modern education to preserve or develop personal^. A teacher of expression has, of course, a very responsible position, and must know thoroughly his work." In reply to " How long is it necessary to study ? " Mr. Russell said: "A great many ideas can be gained as how to stand, breathe, walk, move, in a few lessons; but of course it takes much patient practice and study- to really conquer personal de- fects. Many study several years, and about two hours a day is the rule for practice — I give more time than that to my own study even now. A good pianist would require as much to keep his hand in perfect condition, and this work is with . the same object." In regard to his own practice, WHAT IS DELSAKTISM? 17 Mr. Eussell said : "A lecture never exhausts me. I always feel invigorated, alive, and ready for another. I never plan my talks; they are entirely impromptu, and I no more think of what I am to say beforehand than I would think of what my conversation at the dinner-table would be. I practise some relaxing* exercises a few minutes before going on the platform, so I may be sure that there are no nervous contractions anywhere in my body resulting from the 'stage-fright' that I always feel for hours before. I take some deep breaths for control, and then try as much as possible to forget myself in what I have to say, and am, of course, very much affected by the magnetism of the audience. "Many people ask if the work would not make one self-conscious. That would be only the result if superficially studied, but the increased power in understanding and expressing one's self gives e self-possession ' rather than ' self-consciousness/ It always results in making a personality more interesting by giving it a wider range of expres- sion than the mere rigidity of social etiquette. " The poor body, cramped up, stiffened, unbend- ing, uninteresting, or else wasting its nervous force in over-restlessness, must practise slow, reg- ulated, relaxing rhythms until the sense of har- mony is established, so that when a movement is made every part of the body responds, and the harmonious obedience by long practice becomes 18 DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. as much second-nature as the nervous jerks were. " Of course, when a person thinks of a special way to niove or walk he becomes self-conscious, attempting- to affect an accomplishment his body cannot execute; but if the body be well trained, whatever it does seems natural and unconscious. Animals usually move in perfect grace, and are most particular in practising" exercises to keep themselves in good condition. By labor and ig- norance man has been broken down to the level of a jaded old cart-horse, with a most cultivated intellect. His education fails to develop all his powers. The ivord, the tone, the gesture are designed to be his means of expression, his weap- ons in the fight, but he is only skilled in the use of words. "Occasionally we say of an orator that he seems to have sprung* full-fledged from the fore- head of Jove, but do we ever say it of a young 1 man ? ISTo : it is usually of some giant of fifty or sixty. Inquire into his life. Question his family about his habits of study, his patience, his unceasing practice of the minor points of his technique. Then we find that this great man un- derstood, studied, and mastered his weak points, and the boys who lie in bed and dream of being ' gocl-gifted ' may learn that great warriors have to forge their own chain armor." The subject is a very wide one, and we have not WHAT IS DELSARTISM? 19 touched upon the science of art criticism that has been founded on it, but we must close this article by giving another of those peculiarly suggestive definitions of art in which it pleased Delsarte to concentrate so much of his wisdom, and which are almost the only authentic fragments of his written thought which he left behind : " Art should interest by the true. Art should move by the beautiful. Art should persuade by the good. 1 ' Art should — " Interest by the true to illumine the intelligence. Move by the beautiful to regenerate the life. Persuade by the good to perfect the heart." W. The Effect of Motion on Personality.— Rigid outward movements enlarge the bulk and strengthen sensuality. Rigid inward movements cramp the organism and break the unity and liberty of its circulation, leading to every variety of disease. But flowing musical movements justly blent of the two movements, in which rhythm is observed, and the extensor muscles are used in preponderance over the contractile so as to neutralize the modern instinctive tendency to use the contractile more than the extensor . . . will economize the expenditure of force, soothe sensibilities, and secure a balanced and harmonious development of the whole man in equal strength and grace.— W. B. Alger. A Mistake to Exercise for Strength Alone.— When great muscular strength or agility follows in the wake of ph}-sical exercise, these should be regarded as incidental and entirely subordinate to the health of body .which the exercise has secured. To exercise for strength alone and to estimate it as the chief aim is an inexcusable blunder. There is no necessary physiological, causal relation between strength and health. Indeed, it is a notorious fact that professional athletes are often defective in some bodily organ, and they generally die early in life from either heart or lung trouble. Developing certain sets of muscles to the exclu- sion of others makes the muscular system unsymmetrical, and interferes with the equable distribution of the general blood-supply. Inordinate development of muscular "power calls for unnatural activity from the central vital organs, and thus it frequently occurs that under the strain of some special effort the heart or lungs fail, and death results. —Dr. Q. D.Stahley. 20 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. "Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.' 11 — Buskin. CHAPTER II. ART EDUCATION. (From " Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts," published by U. S. Government.) Can good taste be acquired ? — The laws of beauty — The science of art-criticism — Prof. Walter Smith and industrial drawing — To understand the "reasons why" in art — Need of Delsartean teachings in our public schools. The reasons why one object is agreeable and another repulsive must be innate in man's nature. Yet, thougii all the discoveries of science are based upon the assumed uniformity of nature, and all the operations of mental action proceed upon the recognition of the invariable sequence of cause and effect, mankind have allowed them- selves, on this one subject, to ignore the teachings of experience, and in obedience to two or three musty proverbs, such, for instance, as "De gusti- bus non est disputandum" to be persuaded that there are no laws of beauty, and that, therefore, there can be no standard of correct taste set up; that throughout the whole realm of art the only guide is fashion, or individual caprice. . ..... : ART EDUCATION. 21 The conviction that there could* be no such absurd contradiction in nature has led Mr. Ruskin, and other thoughtful investigators,, to the en- deavor to ascertain these underlying truths of art. A great genius in Paris, nearly a century ago, set himself to serious study in search of the laws which underlie human expression. Years of pa- tient research were rewarded by important dis- coveries. The story of his life and his pursuit of truth is as interesting as is always that of the great discoverers in any of the realms of nature. These discoveries were naturally first availed of in the dramatic art, and, perhaps, as naturally have therefore been thought to be thus limited in their appreciation. Soon, however, the painters of historical or dramatic incidents found their uses. It is at last now beginning to be recognized that, since all art is but expression, the laws that underlie expression must also underlie all art. Here, then, there begins to be a practical out- come. If art is based on immutable laws like mathematics, the principles of correct taste can be demonstrated and therefore can be taught, and this the followers of Delsarte claim to do. It can be shown why one wall-paper is displeasing and another pleasing, just as an addition of figures can be shown to be correct or incorrect. The re- lations between forms and colors, or between 22 A DELSAETEA]S T SCEAP-BOOK. various articles, can be so clearly explained that the principles in accordance with which they must be combined in order to produce certain definite effects can be taught. The laws of harmony, which surely underlie all art, can be ascertained. Their importance and their uniform action can be shown. In accordance with these laws the'color- ing and furnishing* of a dwelling, or a room, can be intelligently designed to produce certain ef- fects, as confidently as an architect now draws his plans. The laws applicable to dress, to all decoration, the means of making the person and home attractive, can be taught, just as the cor- rect use of language is now taught. What Walter Smith so well began in Boston can now, it is claimed, be supplemented and developed by the followers of Delsarte, the great discoverer of whom we have just spoken. In New York, the artists, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Kussell, are busily promulgating the principles of Delsarte in a series of lectures largely illustrated by the beautiful fabrics and artistic handiwork of "The Associated Artists," and by examples of wall-papers, ceramics, and other products of the industrial" arts, showing, in each instance, why this is pleasing and that displeasing, how one combination is in harmony while another pro- duces violent discord. So far as possible these illustrations are by means of American works, the rapid increase of art qualities in which is de- ART EDUCATION. 23 clared by these experts to be most notable. In attending these lectures a new sense of the " com- mon bond which unites the arts," long since re- marked by Cicero, is impressed on the hearer. The simplicity and beauty of the discoveries made by Delsarte, and the facility of the applica- tion of these principles to all the varied, seemingly contradictory, phases of art, make their exposi- tion by one who embodies and illustrates the prin- ciples set forth most attractive. That these principles should be taught in all normal schools, should be familiar to all public- school teachers, and should be an indispensable part of all education, will surely need no argu- ment to those who believe in the introduction of elementary industrial art drawing in all public schools. That an element of education which will di- rectly teach the child how to make a house at- tractive is an important element, needs no argu- ment. The laws that underlie all language, whether the language of speech or of gesture, are surely of importance in any schemes of literary educa- tion, while their importance in the language of art is assumed. Those who recall the eloquence, enthusiasm, and mastery of his subject shown by Walter Smith, when urging before an audience the claims upon educators of elementary instruction in in- 24 A DELSARTEA^ SCEAP-BOOK. dustrial art drawing, will gladty recognize simi- lar qualities, while listening to the musical periods and watching the graceful gestures of the disciple of Delsarte. These two enthusiasts have this in common, that they take captive their audience and compel conviction. In this application to the industrial and deco- rative, as well as to the fine arts, of the principles discovered by Delsarte, a positive addition is made to educational facilities for art development. It is easy to see that by a general dissemination of the practical knowledge of these laws of re- lated harmonies, with, at the same time, the teaching of industrial art drawing in all public schools, a wonderful impetus would be given to the art knowledge, and consequently to the artis- tic productions of the community. By making use of this new educational influence, such a wide- spread diffusion of correct art knowledge can be secured as has been heretofore unattainable. To develop in the community at large a knowledge of the principles on which a correct taste in art matters is based, would be to lay broad and deep the foundations of artistic development. This knowledge is applicable to every stage of art development and is as readily adapted to practical uses as it is satisfactory in theory. The claim that the laws of related harmonies can be definitely taught and readily comprehended, and that the reason why one thing is artistically beau- ART EDUCATION. 25 tiful and another is lacking in all these qualities can be made clear to the mind of a child, is, in effect, to remove art and artistic manufacturers from the realm of empiricism to that of certainty. If the public can be thus trained to become intel- ligent art critics; the rapid improvement of Amer- ican art manufactures is secured. Col. J. Edwards Clark. (Bureau of Education, "Washington.) Delsarte and Agassiz.— Delsarte taught that every muscle, joint, organ, and atom of the body has a mission to perform as an instrument of expression for the soul. He studied anatomy five years that he might know the be dy. This gave him one side of the subject. For the other side he went to the street, went everywhere he could find men, studied them as they were under the sway of special thought and emotions; thus he saw the anatomy ia action. Applying the same method that had given him the laws of structure, he derived the laws of movement. Thus he founded a new science — that of "expressive man." There are interesting points of likeness between Delsarte and Agassiz. Their method of viewing the universe, method of study, and method of teaching were the same. The one was an artist using the rigid method of the naturalist ; the other was a naturalist with the fine feelings of an artist. The method in each case was the same— they differed only in the subject to which they were applied.— Prof. H. H. Straight, Oswego Nor- mal School, N. V. Body and Mind. — In these days, when there is a great rage for educa- tion, a certain top-heaviness has been produced among children, and the good homely help-mate of the mind, the body, is decidedly neglected. It is looked upon as is the dull but sensible wife of some clever man, whose duty is to get through all the home drudgery. She must be in- vited out with him, but is ignored in society, and is only tolerated on account of her brilliant husband. Xow, I consider the body to be just as important as the mind, and that it ought to be treated with just as much respect, especially in these days of intense competition, when, given an equality of brains and education, it is the strong body that tells in the long run and gives staying power. That alone can help the mind to bear the strain, and anything that can assist our children to bear this daily- increasing strain is surely not beneath our notice. It is really surprising to see the amount of trouble and pains bestowed on the proper housing and feeding of horses and dogs, or other domestic 26 A DELSAETEAX SCEAP-BOOK. animals, while at the same time comparatively little attention is paid to these matters with regard to the rearing of children. Model stables and model kennels abound, while the model nursery is almost wholly un- known. Warming, ventilation, and aspect are all subjects which are thoroughly considered in the stable, while as regards the nursery they are generally left for chance to decide— though the health of a child is surely more important than that of a horse or a dog.— Jessie Oriana Woller, in Nineteenth Century. Born Delsarteans.— Nature is all right enough if left to herself. What is at fault, on the contrary, is the tmnatural life we lead, crowded together in cities, one half the people doing a double share of the work of the world, and the other half doing nothing at all. Added to this, there is our mode of dress, which robs the greater part of our muscles of their use and beauty. We are all natural-born Delsarteans, if I may be excused the term ; but from the moment our education begins— say at six years of age— nature is slowly but surely stifled. The mental is assiduously cultivated to the utter detriment of the physical and moral, and this in the face of the ordinary gymnastics, which frequently develop one special set of muscles at the expense of the entire nervous system. Depend upon it, there is a time coming when the folly of this will be recognized and amended.— Edmund Russell. Gladstone and Tennyson. — The Hon. W. E. Gladstone and Tennyson, the poet, were both at a public dinner lately. Mr. Gladstone ate with relish, laughed, chatted and told a good share of anecdotes, and played the boy by eating the sugar out of the bottom of his cup. Tennyson, on the other hand, moped through the time, being bored with nearly every- thing that occurred. Gladstone is the older man of the two, and has done more mental and physical work than the poet has. What is the difference in their lives ? Tennyson has been and is a tobacco smoker, and now sits, almost by the hour, with a number of new clay pipes beside him, from each of which he smokes once, then breaks it and throws it iuto his waste-basket. This is delightful and soothing to his nerves, no doubt, but bleeds away his vitality and leaves him a de- crepit old man who can scarcely endure his own existence, and is a trouble to all around him. Carlyle was a similar victim, and Spurgeon suffers from the same cause. Mr. Gladstone has made a study of health and practises what he believes. He expends his strength on muscular work, which keeps his nervous system sound and vigorous. Instead of being gouty, growling, and disagreeable at his age, he is sound in mind, hale and vigorous, creating joy wherever he goes — excepting among British Tories.— A. Cuthbertson. HEALTH, NATURAL EXPRESSION, ETC. 27 "Let not any one say that he cannot govern his passions nor hinder them from breaking out and carrying him to action ; for what he can do before a prince or a great man he can do alone, or in the presence of God, if he will." — Locke. "We have had something too much of the gos- pel of work ; it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation. "—Herbert Spencer. CHAPTER III. HEALTH, NATURAL EXPRESSION, GRACE. Delsartean development— " Know thyself" — The differ- ent kinds of exercises — Grace— Rest — Sleep — Labor — Corpulency — " The Pace That Kills " — Vital econ- omy—Broken-down old age. Delsartean development introduces a person to himself. As the avenues of expression are freed from restriction and our bodies become re- sponsive instruments, latent talents and possibil- ities are often awakened. Most people are capa- ble of more than they think they are. Lack of physical self-knowledge handicaps many people; they think their bodies are angular, clumsy, out of proportion, even deformed, when in truth the bodies are symmetrical, but are unnaturally, in- harmoniously used. The Delsarte philosophy teaches how to train 28 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. the nerves, how to rest, and how to move and act with economy of force. The Delsarte gymnastics develop habitual grace. They break up bad physical habits and establish natural ones. Awkwardness is a waste of force. The Delsarte relaxing* exercises remove waste- ful nerve-tension and conserve vital energy. They appeal especially to nervous, overworked people. The Delsarte sleep exercises have enabled many to overcome insomnia. The Delsarte abdominal exercises have over- come and can prevent that abnormal physical condition — corpulency. The Delsarte laws of expression furnish a key to character study. These laws underlie all art. The Delsarte work develops self-possession and overcomes self -consciousness. The Delsarte rhythmical exercises enable a per- son not only to appear and feel better, but by their reflex action to be better. " By seeming worthy we grow to what we seem." Physical habits have a reflex action upon the inner nature. " The improved man will differ from the man of to-day chiefly in the economy of nervous power," says Judge Tourgee. Many teach domestic econ- omy, political econonry; Delsarte teaches vital economy. Conservation of energy is the funda- HEALTH, 1S T ATUEAL EXPKESSION, ETC. 29 mental principle of the Delsarte development. By the freeing 1 or relaxing" exercises all nerve-ten- sion is removed from the muscles when they are not in use. Nerve-force thus drawn from the extremities and exterior muscles is conserved and reserved in the great nerve-centres, giving" " strength at the centre, freedom at the extrem- ities." This nerve-training benefits especially the army of nerve-bound, overworked people — those who waste vital force by the tension kept upon the muscles even when the body is in the attitude of repose. We should unstring' the bow when it is not in use. Bad physical habits — bad, because wasteful and irritating- in effect, unrefined in expression — can be broken up by the Delsarte scientific drill. In place thereof healthful, upbuilding- physical habits can be developed by the practice of the rhythmical, formative exercises. By disciplining the physical as well as the mental nature, we can escape the rigidity and heaviness of old age; we can retain youthful elas- tic^ and erectness of carriage. The Delsarte philosophy, in its entirety, is a tree whose roots feed at the heart of nature: whose trunk is science; upon whose branches un- fold all the departments of art. Through a knowledge of its principles, painting, acting, sculpture, music, poetry, oratory, man, and na- 30 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. ture, all speak a new language to the student. He becomes, in very truth, an artist. II. Expression development — Life gives force, education should give expression — Nerve-rest — Rhythm the law of health, growth, and beauty — The Delsartean gymnastics. The question is frequently asked, " Wherein do the Delsarte gymnastics differ from other sys- tems of physical exercise ? " They differ materi- ally from all other systems in their ultimate ob- jects, in the means of attaining them. Other sys- tems seek to develop muscle, to produce strong athletic bodies. The French master, by his sys- tem of symmetrical development, sought to ob- tain, not muscle, but expression. Delsarte observed that man's movements when he was governed by his higher impulses were not of the straight, thrusting, violent order, nor of the angular, jerky nature, but that they were in the order of curves and spirals. Conclusion : if man in his more exalted moments naturally ex- presses himself by easy, controlled movements, can he not, by cultivating such motions until they become habitual — second nature — produce those better inner states by means of the reflex action of the motions ? This, then, is the philosophy underlying all of the rhythmical, conservative movements of the HEALTH, NATUKAL EXPKESSION, ETC. 31 Delsarte system; the exercises embodying this principle bring* into play every muscle of the body without doing violence to any part; a sooth- ing, quieting influence is produced upon the nerves, which in turn carry this influence to the brain, and thus the whole body is at once invigorated and rested. Delsarte found that before bodies could be moulded to the desired expression of high thought and feeling, the human material must be made plastic, susceptible; that an undoing process must in nearly all cases precede an upbuilding process. By mental intensity and muscular restraint man is unconsciously restricted in all his movements; he holds on to himself either by a stiffness in the joints or by a tension in the muscles. This self- imposed restriction defeats nature; she cannot harmoniously express herself through such a high- strung instrument; worse than this, it is a great and unnecessary expenditure of vital force, a con- stant drain upon life's reserve capital. In order to get rid of this injurious tension, the " freeing," " devitalizing," or " decomposing " exercises are given. These exercises were origi- nal with Delsarte. Many persons use them in physical training who do not give credit where it is due, but all such movements are Delsartean in philosophy and origin. They consist in a series of gymnastics which free every muscle and artic- ulation of the body. 32 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. By the freeing* exercises we seek to undo bad, wasteful physical habits ; then, by the rythmical, soothing* movements of the formative gymnas- tics, to develop in their stead conservative, health- ful, and graceful physical habits; lastly by these better habits to create a self-poised, normal inner state. Let no one infer that the Delsarte gymnastics are antagonistic to other forms of rational phy- sical exercise; the contrary is true. In conclusion, the Delsarte exercises, remedially considered, appeal particularly to the many nerve- bound, overwrought people of this too intense age, and to that large class of semi-invalids. As applied to health they tend to husband the " struc- tural force or vitality," while other systems of exercises in general tend to develop the "func- tional force or working strength." Mrs. Coleman E. Bishop. The Study of Life.— How to live ?— that is the essential question for us. Not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense. The general problem which comprehends every special problem is— the right ruling of conduct in all directions under all circumstances. In what way to treat the body ; in what way to treat the mind ; in what way to bring up a family ; in what way to behave as a citizen ; in what way to utilize all those sources of happiness which nature supplies— how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage for ourselves and others— how to live completely. And this being the great thing needful for us to learn, is, by consequence, the great thing which education has to teach . To prepare us for complete living is the function which educa- tion has to discharge ; and the only rational mode of judging of any educational course is, to judge in what degree it discharges such func- tion. — Herbert Spencer. Wasted Nerve-Force.— As the gaining of spiritual strength comes HEALTH, NATURAL EXPRESSION, ETC. 33 through the full realization that from no selfish effort can we progress in regeneration, that the first necessity for spiritual growth is the drop- ping of self and selfish desires, so in this physical work the first object is an absolute letting go of all unnecessary tension— all tension that has been impressed upon the muscles through an excess of effort in our daily lives, although many times it is purely unconscious. How many trust- ing, patient souls do we see with the muscles of the forehead strained so that their eyebrows never fall to a normal height ? They believe them- selves to be trustful, perhaps even at rest. Help them to become con- scious of these strained muscles, to become sensitive to the unnecessary physical tension, and, as they learn to drop it, they are invariably led to consider the selfish spiritual tension which is the cause, and new light is perceived and new rest found. The divine in us meets external truths, and leads them to an internal light from which our lives are renewed. So the external evidences of the misapplication and misuse of our own wonderful machine, as we see them clearly and overcome them, lead us into new acknowledgments of the spiritual causes and new sense of the absoluteness of the divine power. First, all force must be dropped, the tension must be taken from our bodies entirely, which brings us as nearly to the state of a new-born baby as is possible. This cannot be done all at once ; it cannot be done with every part of the body at once. It must be taken piece by piece. First, there are motions to free the muscles connected with the head ; and it is surprising to find how much force we use to hold our own heads on, proved by our inability to let them go. Nature will hold them on much better than we can, and we only hinder her by endeavoring to assist. The personal endeavor hitherto has been unconscious. As soon as we become conscious of it, how can we cease trying until we have dropped our personal officiousness to that extent 1— Annie Payson Call. Development.— The faculties owe their development as much to the operation of the instruments of expression as to the impressions of the outward senses.— Sir Charles Bell. 34 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK "The wise man rules his stars, the fool obeys them. 1 ' " The enemy of art is the enemy of nature. Art is nothing but the highest sagacity and exertion of human nature ; and what nature will he honor who honors not the human? "—Lavater. CHAPTER IV. PERSONALITY. The art of expression — Personal power — The meaning of Delsarte's teachings — His methods of studying na- ture — His discoveries in harmony with other scien- tific discoveries— Prof. Tomlin's inquiry — Does the study of expression make one self-conscious ? — Self- consciousness or self-possession. The man who is master of himself is king" of men. He need not assert himself, for his pres- ence alone is power. Strength begets repose in himself and confidence in others. He is called original, great, "because his spirit controls mat- ter, because his body obeys his mind. Among the educational problems of the present day, none is more vital than this of preserving and devel- oping personality. The tendency of modern education is to mass, to organize, to move men in numbers as if they were automata. To carry the burden of civiliza- tion requires that man be put into possession of all his powers as instruments of his will, so that PERSONALITY. 35 he can control his body and his surroundings. The present civilized man knows more than he can do, feels more than he can express, is ham- pered in the development of his individuality by the requirements of convention, the subtle influ- ences of his social environment, the still more subtle influences of heredity. Whatever shall give him brain-power to solve the problems of life and nerve-power to transmit the mandates of the brain to educated muscles which shall ex- ecute them is of primary importance in a scheme of education. Until the coming- of Delsarte, empiricism was the only guide to the preservation and education of personality. But his Science of Expressive Man, the result of years of study of man's phy- siology and psychology ^ has given man absolute power to make of himself something more than the creature of circumstances; a being whose body is the exponent of his soul, responsive to every command of the spirit, and reflecting in its perfect rhythm the harmony of his being. u Nor soul helps body more than body soul." The science of expression relates to man as an organism, to man as a spirit. It builds upon the sure foundation of scientific discovery tne perfect superstructure of art. It transmutes every law of condition and structure into perfect motion and harmony of relations. 36 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. The walk reveals to every looker-on something" of the character of the person walking-, but to un- derstand the act of walking is the result of study of the science of motion. To understand the spiritual significance of a walk is the result of a knowledge of the laws of expression. The art of expression applies science to ascertain the cause of defective motion, after a comparison with the ideal walk has shown when the defective motion exists. The cause ascertained, it suggests the gymnastic which, will remove the cause and re- sult in giving harmony of succession and rhythm; in other words, the perfect walk. The same might be said of bowing", of rising, of sitting", of the movements of arms and hands, the poise of the body, the inclinations of the head. The art of expression always compares the action with the ideal, ascertains deviations, their causes, suggests the gymnastic which will correct the deviations, and relates the muscular and nerve action to the vital and spiritual meanings which most men only remotely apprehend, but w T hich are the most potent factors in their development. This it does by absolute law discovered by Delsarte. Hen- rietta Russell, pupil of the younger Delsarte, is a master of expression. Gifted with a per- sonal magnetism which compels the confidence of every hearer, she realizes in herself the grace of being and motion which makes a lesson on walking or the dramatic expression of a conso- PERSONALITY. 37 nant seem like a living" poem. Her epigrammatic statements of vital principles are like fine crys- tallizations of truth, and each lesson has a value extending far beyond the immediate subject into the manifold relations of life. The following pertinent anecdote forms the best introduction to a discussion of the principles un- derlying" a system of exercises designed to develop the human being. After Mrs. Russell's first lec- ture in Chicago, Mr. Tomlins requested a private conference on the subject of the Delsarte system. His first question at this interview was as follows : u How long must your student continue the prac- tice of these exercises before the conscious me- chanical motion can become unconscious — auto- matic ? " Only a man of genius could have asked a question which so touched the vital point — the test of all methods of teaching art — its power to make character — to create genius. For genius is only personality developed according to its own laws, or educated by circumstances in the direc- tion of native ability. To answer Mr. Tomlins' question involves a discussion of the laws of human organization — mental, moral, physical. It involves the consid- eration of the kinds of movements necessary to expression, and the gymnastics w T hich shall de- velop such movements. To get automatic action of a high enough sort to make the body respon- sive to high impulses and emotions, requires that 38 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. these gymnastics be carried far enough for the student to become master of them. Each motion which is made in perfect system — perfect obedi- ence to the laws of bodily growth and action, is made in harmony with many laws — complex and involved: hence its mastery gives power over many motions not at first apparently related to it. An illustration from the science of music is readily understood. Perfect mastery of the scales and some fundamental laws of harmony give the keys to an infinite number of combinations. This is true of every art. The essentials for the attainment of automatic action are these: the motions given must be few in number; they must be made in obedience to the laws of muscular and nervous action; and they must be in ac- cordance with the great fundamental laws of ex- pression. Said Delsarte : "All emotion must be expressed by the movement of organs in obedience to the law of succession ; that is, the expression must begin at the eye, then spread over the face, to the shoulders, over the whole body like a wave, using each articulation of the body as it moves down- ward." When a student has mastered one gymnastic, he has gained great power over others of which he is perfectly ignorant. Each gymnastic pre- pares for some deed or impulse, so that when the emotion rises, the body expresses it naturally and PERSONALITY, 89 unconsciously. " The gymnastics elaborated by Delsarte give not only grace to the general movements of the student, but each gymnastic is the nucleus of a series of gestures, and while the gym nasties are limited in number, the ges- tures derived from them are infinite. The stu- dent, from practice of perfect motions and ex- pressive gestures, learns to express himself in a beautiful language that may be read aright by a child as well as a philosopher." " Moreover, his knowledge of the meaning of motion gives him power to read the character of those with whom he comes in contact, so that he may be just in his judgment of people and able to protect himself in his relation with them." No greater error can be made than to suppose that artificiality and self-consciousness are the result of this training. By giving to the human being power to understand himself and to express himself, he is placed at once where he need only be himself in order to express himself with sin- cerity and dignity. What was the object of the old system of gym- nastics ? To give strength of muscle and precis- ion of movement. By imitation or direction the student was taught a series of movements in straight lines — conventional, unrelated to any re- quirement of actual life. To extend the arm 'straight out from the shoulder with fist doubled up, and movement made with great force and 40 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. precision, gave an excellent preparation for knock- ing* a man down, but it could hardly be considered effective in any other situation. More than this, it seems to be proven that such muscular drill was generally in opposition to laws of growth as stated by recent physiologists. Delsarte's state- ments of principles have been confirmed by inves- tigators of science, so that his great generaliza- tions stand upon the same basis of natural law. Emma D. Straight. Universal Man.— What is microscopic in one is largely developed in another ; what is rudimentary in one man is an active organ in another; but all things are in all men, and one soul is the model of all.— Olive Schreiner. "It is a fundamental law of our nature that the mind shall have its powers developed through the influence of the body ; that the organs of the body shall be the links in the chain of relation between it and the material world, through which the immaterial principle within shall be affected. ,, — Sir Charles Bell. The Study of Art.— True study of any branch of knowledge con- sists in giving the matter of that branch such repetitions of attentive consideration that it at length becomes an integral part of the domain of the consciousness, and can at any time, under any correlated stimulus, be made use of by automatic mental action. True study of art consists, primarily, in the attentive repetitions of the action of the physiological organs involved in the productions of that art until that art becomes automatic, and is as well and so naturally performed as any original reflex physiological functions.—" Lucifer.' 1 '' DELSARTISM IN ENGLAND. 41 " The dominant idea of Delsarte's method is that not only is every organ capable of expressing what is passing through the mind or heart, but that when there is complete unison of soul and body, all the members harmoniously and in certain succession transcribe outwardly the in- ward feelings. "—London Illustrated News. CHAPTER V. DELSARTISM IN ENGLAND. Owen Meredith — Sir Frederick Leighton — The elder Garcia — The secret of youth — How actors regard Delsartisin — All good acting in harmony with its teachings — Robert Browning — Lainperti and his method — The German school of singing — Salvini, Rossi, and Ristori at home. Mr. Edmund Russell, after several years' ab- sence in Europe, has returned to America. Mr. Russell is well known by his lectures on art, dress, decoration; and kindred subjects, as well as through his paintings, and while a talk with him is always interesting and instructive, it promised to be exceptionally bright after his travels and his meeting with world-famous people. Of course, Delsartism was spoken of first. " What is the condition and progress of Delsart- ism in England compared with America ? " "When we went to London three years ago the name of Delsarte was almost unknown there. I found but three persons in England who had 42 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. ever heard of him and his work, and, strangely, all of them had been personal friends of his. They were the elder Garcia, brother of Malibran; Sir Frederick Leighton, President of the Royal Academy; and Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith). They all spoke of him in the highest terms both as a man and as an artist. Prior to my visit to London, Felix Moscheles, the famous painter, son of the composer, had spent two years here and had heard me lecture on Delsarte. When he re- turned to England, he excited much interest in the subject by his frequent question at all gath- erings of artists, 'Have you ever heard of Del- sarte ?' and always met with the same negative reply. One day, at a garden party given by Burne-Jones, putting his question to a little old man whose piercing eye flashed the fire of genius, he answered : ' Heard of him ! yes; he w T as a friend of mine/ It was the elder Garcia that spoke. " It was my privilege," continued Mr. Russell, "to talk much with Garcia about his famous friend. ' He was the greatest singer I ever heard/ said Garcia one day; 'with, no voice at all, such was his expression that one would rather listen to him than to the finest voice in the world/ His voice is what would be called e veiled/ but his wonderful expression made his song seem alive. If Garcia had told me/' added Mr. Russell, " that Delsarte was the greatest actor he had ever seen, I should not have been surprised ; but when he so DELSAETISM IN ENGLAND. 43 praised Delsarte's singing*, the art of which Gar- cia is so superior a judge, then we must believe that it was more than wonderful. Indeed, every one that knew of Delsarte at all, in Italy and France, spoke of his singing-. The Baron de Moy- acque, an old Frenchman, told me that he had heard Delsarte when he was young-, and ag*ain twenty years afterward, and he seemed physi- cally unchanged. He seemed to have discovered the secret of perpetual youth. I must not forget to add that Garcia was present at the court of Louis Phillippe when Delsarte was so ro3 7 ally received there, and confirmed the distinguished consideration and esteem with which the monarch received Delsarte. I asked if he was well known in Paris. ' Certainly/ said Garcia; 'he was con- sidered the greatest artist and teacher of his time. Nearly all the present teachers of the Con- servatoire studied with him. No! no one knows him in London; but if Patti sneezes it is cabled round the globe. The great teacher is often for- gotten in the achievements of his pupils, who prefer to stand before the world as God-made geniuses rather than acknowledge that any earthly hand helped fashion them to a higher symmetry/ he added a little bitterly/' " Why is it, Mr. Russell, that the Delsarte sys- tem is nowadays applied almost exclusively to dramatic art or to aesthetic calisthenics, if Del- sarte himself was a master in all the arts ?" 44 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. " Because the system has been taken up by and presented through actors or those who were more interested in its application to bodily culture, and at first thought, the art of expression seemed most needed on the stage. The Delsarte system contains the fundamental principles of all art; it is universal in its application. It is not an inven- tion, it is not something new; it is simply a con- cise, scientific formulation of the hitherto undis- covered natural laws that are the foundation of every true work of art. If the system should be lost to-day it could be rediscovered. Delsarte had that many-sided nature that is necessary for a philosopher and a true artist, and his claim was recognized by monarch and peasant. The last cross of the Legion of Honor given under the Empire was bestowed on him, and he was deco- rated for many scientific inventions." " Why is it, then, that of all people actors most decry and avoid the system ? " " Because with most, if they accept its teach- ings as correct, their work would be found very faulty, and it would require much labor to bring it into accord with natural expression. They may have made a small hit somewhere, and are content. All great actors are instinctively in harmony with Delsarte's teachings. Their grace comes naturally, and they cannot understand how some must work to obtain that ease, but it can be obtained with patient study, and so well that DELSAKTISM IN ENGLAND. 45 it can be forgotten again and this time remain. Whether an actor accepts Delsartism or not, he cannot get away from its principles. Every time he does a good thing it agrees with Delsarte's formulations, and every time he does a poor thing he disobeys some natural law therein laid down." "Must a painting or a sculpture be true to ' Delsarte principles in order to be great ? " "Do not say ( Delsarte principles/ as if he in- vented some rules. Gustav Delsarte used to say : ' You Americans are always talking about teach- ing the Delsarte System. My father taught Art — he used the Delsarte System/ A work can be great in technique, in balance of line, in light and shade, in the perfection of representation of tex- tures, flesh, and color, in brilliancy of design or in daring execution, and yet in its core be entirely false. Delsarte said : ' Art represents nature with the non-essentials left out/ Most modern art wonderfully represents the non-essentials, and leaves out all that would move us and teach us and elevate us. People are not trained to look upon art seriously. A pupil is taught how to make charcoal look like plaster, or paint like skin, is given a little knowledge of art-materials, how to mix colors, when to use cobalt blue, when to avoid a vegetable color, etc., but no knowledge of the underlying art-principles of nature and ex- pression." 46 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. " Do you think it important for all classes of art-workers to practise the Delsartean exer- cises ? » "Certainly. They develop feeling 1 as well as bodily mechanism. The will must be taken out to leave a free passage for the expression of the emotions. Decomposing exercises should be prac- tised for the arm and hand to give a free sweep of the brush or a firm touch of the piano-keys. Rubinstein does not hold his arm motionless and play with his fingers : he raises the whole arm, bringing the hand down now with a heavy, now with a light touch, but using every muscle and in perfect rhythm. That is why he gets such resonance in both his folate and piano passages. The sinking of the wrist as in violin-playing, and the feather-movement for the hand, are invalua- ble exercises." " How were the Delsarte principles received in England ? " " With great curiosity at first, then interest, and even enthusiasm. Our first lecture was given at Felix Moscheles* studio, Robert Browning- was much interested in the system, and Gladstone said that he hoped it would be taken up by every school and college in England. Gladstone's ar- ticulation is the finest I have ever heard. In Italy the pupils of Lamperti all studied with us. Besides this, we had pupils from the Drury Lane and Covent Garden Operas and the Carl Rosa DELSAKTISM IN ENGLAND. 47 Opera Company, and man} 7 London actors, sing- ers, clergymen, and lawyers. "We spent summer before last with Lamperti, the great ( maestro,' then at Cernobbio. He is still teaching, although if you should ask about him in Milan, you would doubtless be told that there was an old mummy somewhere by that name who gave a few lessons, but that he was nearly blind and deaf, had almost no vital power, gave his lessons in bed ; and such nonsense. This is not true. I saw him give many lessons, and never heard lessons of such brilliancy and power. The severity of criticism, always kind, however, the subtlety of analysis, the patience and energ3 r , and above all his depth and knowledge I have never seen equalled. It is difficult to understand him, as he cannot speak English and prefers to speak his Milanese dialect; but his wife acts as his interpreter and, to a large extent, as his ac- companist. She is very much younger than he, but she adores him. When a pupil enters for a lesson Lamperti seems at first listless, but when the exercises begin the master becomes interested, and his fervor increases until he is wrapt in the lesson. His prices are from twenty-five to fifty francs a lesson for private instruction, and fifteen francs a lesson for dairy instruction to regular pupils, who have the privilege of hearing the criticism of others. He prefers to teach two at a time, giving first one ten minutes and then the 48 A DELSAETEA2T SCKAP-BOOK. other the same time. This allows the voice to rest, yet the pupil still is instructed in listening" to his companion. - He does not coach, except where the person has "been a pupil of his and is already thoroughly trained; then he will help him in a new role. " Lamperti does not work for compass or exe- cution," continued Mr. Russell, "like so many teachers. Quality — quality — quality is his aim, and to enrich tone is his chief care. He insists upon exercising' the voice very softly at first, for he says that if a good resonance cannot be pro- duced on a soft tone it certainly cannot be made on a loud tone. He practises for months just on tones. He also begins in the middle or medium range of the voice, saying that if you work on a voice at the centre it will grow richer at the ends, but if you work at the ends it will always thin at the centre. A Russian countess, who was a pupil of his twenty years ago, and who has lately seen him, says that his power of teaching seems to improve rather than grow less, and that he is greater to-day than ever, although he is over eighty years old. " He bemoans the decline of Italian opera and singing. Verdi's last opera, ' Otello/ was a great disappointment to Lamperti. ( Yerdi is no longer Italian, he is no longer Verdi/ he said sadry. He considers 'Rigoletto' to be Verdi's finest opera, but prefers Bellini to all other composers DELSAKTISM IN ENGLAND. 49 for the expression of real heart-feeling. Of course he is opposed to German opera." u What do you think of the effect of German opera on the voice, and can a singer trained in the Italian style of singing* take up German music without injury to his voice ? " "Yes, if a singer really understood his own voice he could, for he would know how to control it. But so few do understand the voice. They all try to get their effects with force instead of quality, and the voice soon goes. All opera-houses are too big for the average voice to fill without straining. German opera is very dramatic, and most singers do not understand how to be dra- matic without injuring their voices. They get their effects at a great expense of effort. Dramatic singing above all requires a perfect knowledge and practice of the diaphragmatic breath and the control of the abdominal muscles. Singers do not understand the Delsarte principle of con- trol at the centre in all great exertion. Dramatic power must come from control and not from exertion." " Did you see any actors of note ? " " I met Salvini, Rossi, Ristori, and others. Sal- vini is living in Florence, and is manager of the Teatro Salvini, in that cit}\ He told me that for the first time in his life he began to feel acting an exertion, and that he should not act much more. He has the highest opinion of Delsarte 4 50 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. and his teachings. His son, Mario, is a sculptor of dramatic ability. Rossi has a beautiful house in Florence and a villa on the hills. One room in it may be said to tell the story of his life, for it is hung- with life-size painting's of the actor in all his principal characters and lined with cases filled with trophies of his career, laurel crowns and rare gifts from all cities. Lord Lytton told me that Bernhardt had been a pupil of Delsarte, and I think her wonderful management of her arms tells the story. Ristori spoke to me in contempt- uous terms of Bernhardt^ Shakespearean charac- ters, declaring them to be nothing but grisettes. Dr. Momerie, the famous Foundling preacher, was much interested in Delsartism. He intends to visit America on a lecture tour next year. He is one of the most popular English orators, and is considered the most worthy successor of Dean Stanley. Some of his effects in oratory are re- markable. " If all Delsarteans would work together they would have an influence upon art and physical development such as the world has never seen. They could revolutionize the whole art world, for they hold the key to the noblest and purest truths known to man." The Singing of Gounod.— M. Gounod, whom I have just met at Madame Adelina Patti's, is most enthusiastic on the rendering of his music by the diva. I mentioned yesterday that he went through at her hotel the principal scenes in which Juliet appears, singing the part of Romeo as only M. Gounod knows how to sing. None who have not DELSARTISM IN ENGLAND. 51 heard the composer at the piano can realize what effect can be produced by a singer who has no voice.— London Daily Telegraph. Patti and Nilsson.— Mr. Russell, when lecturing atDrury Lane Theatre, speaking of the enthusiasm created by Delsarte when he sang in Paris, suddenly stopped short, and folding his arms and drawing himself up, imitated the "stony British 11 manner and voice of the aggressive female, who says "7 never heard of him 11 with an air as if to say "He could not have been great if I never heard of him. 11 Then, with a quick return to his natural manner, he said, " Perhaps not, he sang only two years, and— in Paris. But how long did it take you to ' hear of ' Patti, Nils- son, and others whose names are now household words ? Some of these ladies are certainly thirty -five years old, and have been singing for more than forty years." At this juncture two ladies, closely veiled, rose and left the theatre. Whether they were Patti and Nilsson or any other whose " names are household words, 11 must be left to the imagination.— Texas Siftings. Delsartism.— Delsartism helps to greater living ; for it gives to the human being power of complete expression. It sets the body to match the soul, that, together, they may be a unit which shall stand for truth and the expression of truth.— Clara Isabel Mitchell. The Course to Pursue.—" As the man who would discourse sweet music, must tune the strings of his instrument to the medium point of tension, so he who would arrive at the condition of Buddha must exer- cise himself in a medium course of discipline. 11 — Gautama. 52 A DELSAETEAN SCRAP-BOOK. "Of the peculiar value attached to the at- mosphere by the Orientals, and therefore of the importance of the personification of that element in their theological systems, we can judge from the fact that the Sanskrit root of the word for God in the Latin, Greek, and other derived tongues, signifies equally breath. The Greek Pneuma and the Sanskrit Div, the root of deity and divine, have an identical meaning in the air. The world was supposed to live by a process of breathing, and the thoughts of men's minds were regarded as inspired together with their breath."— The Keys of the Creeds. CHAPTER VI. THE BREATH OF LIFE. Control at the centre — Freedom at the extremities — " Lift up your chest " — How to acquire the habit of breathing naturally — The child and the animal — Reserve power. " You may add years to your life, if you will, by the simple act of breathing*. It makes all the difference in the world how you get the air of heaven into your lungs, and how much you get. The air we breathe, in the main, is not to be com- plained of; but the trouble is, few people know how to appropriate their due and needful share of it. They gasp and catch and push along in a nervous way, taking short, puny breaths like the forced puffs of a locomotive when the steam is low. Life is a hard journey; no one can hold out any length of time with spasmodic action. If one wishes to get the best from one's self it must THE BREATH OF LIFE. 53 be by steady work and gradual development and growth." The speaker was Mrs. Edmund Russell, the well-known exponent of Delsarte's philosophy of expression. "Animals and young children," continued Mrs. Russell, " breathe naturally. They take time to fill their lungs; they have no strain, no pressure upon them. The moment a child crosses the bridge of self-consciousness, the moment that feeling, emotion, mentality, come into play, nature is at a disadvantage. It grows worse and worse as the demands of life grow stronger. What is to be done ? Simply stop; go back to the ABC and learn how to breathe. Why! the men and women in the rush of life never think seriously of what they ask of their bodies, particularly of the lungs. They distort, compress, misuse, devitalize them with every breath. What stands in the way of changing this ? Want of time, want of thought, want of knowledge. People think f it doesn't matter/ They get on ' somehow/ Some day when organs, weakened by long misuse, give warning of their flagging, they waken to find that they have wasted the force of a grand ma- chine—they are not the men and women they might have been. " Delsarte was anatomist, physiologist, artist, all in one. He went to the hospitals, to the morgues, to the streets of Paris and studied men; 54 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. the science of humanity. He knew every muscle, joint, and organ of the body, and the special func- tion of each. He knew too that action and force depended upon the play of the lungs. If you wish to have command of yourself, you must know how to breathe ; if you wish to walk with erect and easy carriage, without swagger or wabble, affec- tation or stiffness, you must know how to breathe; if you wish to be able to express yourself freely, quietly, with the manner and tone that compel attention, you must know how to breathe. " The first movement is to get the chest up. I should like to make a call that would reach every man and woman in the country : ' Lift up your chest!' When one says this, nine-tenths of them stiffen at the neck, throw themselves back- ward, and project the body below the waist, the whole figure out of line : they have ( straightened up/ ISTo; you should get the poise of a Greek statue. Lift the chest, keeping the shoulders down, until it is on a line with the toes; this throws the tension on the centre of the body, where it should be. The heart and lungs now have free play. Close the lips; draw the air in through the nostrils, using the muscles below the diaphragm as a bellows, until the pressure against the ribs has a bursting sensation. Keep this ten- sion firmly and steadily as long as you can; then slowly and gradually let the breath out through the lips. If you wish to sing, to recite, or even THE BREATH OF LIFE. 55 talk, see what power is at your command. The muscles below the diaphragm are so little used except by professional people, who know their value, that they are weak and flabby with most people. " Try this breathing- — inspiration, retention, ex- piration — three movements — at night before you go to bed, when the body is free; in the morning, before you dress. When you walk up the avenue, take in great, grand, glorious ' lung-fulls ' of air until full breathing becomes a habit. You will at first, of course, forget it during the first few weeks of practice, when you go into the crowded shops and meet hundreds of restless, eager, hur- rying people, like yourself, who have more affairs to take care of than time in which to transact them. Like the rest, you will gasp and catch and jerk out instructions to milliner and modiste, and will come home worn out and faint, with a not-ivorth-while feeling about the whole busi- ness of life, perhaps. But recall now the ' breath of life/ and it will bring again repose, calmness, serenity. " Believe me, breathing properly is a certain cure for nervousness, shyness, and embarrass- ment. It gives command, freedom of motion, a sense of power. There is no better exercise to acquire a good habit of breathing than reading aloud. " Try how much can be done easily, without 56 A DELSABTEAN SCEAP-BOOK. strain, upon a single inflation of the lungs. Never permit yourself to gasp, to catch up or piece out of breath. In an artist, an actor or singer we would call it a wretched, bad method ; it is merely no method at all. You know what it is to have a person talk to you with a rush and tumble of words and ideas thrown at you, pitched at you, in a confused, breathless heap; pouring along, in a conversational current, like the waters of Lo- dore. You know what a tired, worn, nervous feel- ing comes over him who must listen. Women call it vivacity, sprightliness. It is a form of ner- vousness, of excitement that nothing but quiet, steady control of the lungs will overcome. The need of New York life is repose, calmness, rest. The man or woman who learns — it is a lesson to be learned — to create this atmosphere by manner, speech, tone of voice, who can give expression to self at its best, is student, teacher, philosopher, all in one." Mrs. Russell was asked for her ideas of relaxa- tion. "It is not necessary to isolate one's self for rest. You can 'let yourself go' for a few mo- ments in the midst of a crowd on Broadway, at the play, in church, anywhere. It is the universal habit to hold on to one's self, w T ith a grip that would almost lift one's ow T n weight; muscles tightened, nerves strained, to no purpose in the world. Mere waste — the mind is too eager and THE BEEATH OF LIFE. 57 fast for the body. A woman does a day's shop- ping" ten times over in her mind during* the hours she gives to it. She is always ahead of herself, at the next place doing- the next thing-. The result is exhaustion; in time, perhaps, nerv- ous prostration. " How shall it be avoided ? Take the will out of the body when it is not in action. In walking let the lower limbs do the work : the arms have nothing- to do; let them be carried as attach- ments, pendulums, if you will, at rest. If you ride in a cab, or in the street-car, let them fall in an easy, free position; do not feel that they must be clasped tog-ether in deathless grip of the little pocket-book. Try l letting- g-o ; ' it is a great rest. The command is given by the mind; it g-oes like an electric current to the tips of the fingers and toes. I know a lady who told me when she first came to study some of Delsarte's gymnastics with me, that on social occasions of importance she had the feeling of ' tying up in knots/ Yet she is a society woman. No one imagined how much she suffered. ' Letting go * one's self is like the habit of breathing — it must be learned and then acquired by repetition, repetition, repetition. One must go back, as I said, to the A B C of nature; must know what it is to be a child in naturalness. * Men try to do too much, to express too much. Reservation is strength. Look at Salvini. How 58 A DELSARTEA]S T SCRAP-BOOK. few gestures lie makes; how quiet his manner; every turn of the hand, every glance of the eye, means something. He wastes nothing; he is an economist of emotion until he reaches the climax, and then you recall — who can forget ? — the fury of the lion, Othello beyond himself ! But even at the supreme moment of his passion one feels still that the limit is not reached. His power is sug- gested ; he does not permit it to be measured." E. M. T. The Animal Breath.— In about nine-tenths of the animal kingdom, namely, all the invertebrata— the mouth is appropriated exclusively to taking in food, and has nothing to do with respiration.— &*> Charles Bell. Breathe Only Through Your Nose.— A Dutch physician has recently declared that a close connection exists between the exercise of our mental faculties and disorders of the nose. The opinion is expressed that if it were generally known how many cases of chronic headache, of in- ability to learn or to perform mental work were due to chronic disease of the nose, many of these cases would be easily cured, and the number of child victims of the so-called over-pressure in education would be notably reduced. According to the above-mentioned authority, it would seem that breathing through the nose is absolutely indispensable in order to secure the full value of the mental capacity. The Abdominal Muscles in Breathing.— The rhythmic motions of the respiration of animals are incomplete unless they extend beyond the organs adapted to the aeration of the blood, so as practically to include the mobile mass constituting the digestive apparatus and the pelvic con- tents, in the lifting, surging motion propagated from the chest. This mechanical impulse produces several indispensable effects, which in- volve the displacement of the fluids of the whole trunk, including the contents of the blood, lymphatic, lacteal, and other vessels, as well as the interstitial fluids depending on these ; promotes absorption of digested matter ; fructifies the muscular nutrition and power of all visceral organs ; and, not the least, maintains against gravity and all other forces combined the natural mechanical and also the physiological rela- tions of the contents of the pelvis.— Dr. Geo. H. Taylor. DRESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN. 59 " And as God created man to be the lord of the earth, and to occupy all portions of it, He consti- tuted him with a wide range of adaptability to meet the exigencies of the circumstances and conditions in which he might be placed ; but always, of necessity, under this great and immu- table law, that in proportion as man turns aside from the truth of his natural and perfect consti- tutional adaptation, and educates himself, by vir- tue of his constitutional adaptability, to habits, circumstances, and conditions less adapted to the truth of his constitutional nature, he impairs all the powers of that nature and abbreviates his ex- istence.'- -Sylvester Graham, M.D. CHAPTER VII. DRESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN. Dr. Sargent, of Harvard University, on physical devel- opment — The waist-line — The hips — The origin of lacing — The pure ideals of the early Greeks— Some physical experiments— A race for health — American women. Since the hips of woman are much wider than those of men of the same stature, we should ex- pect to find the waist proportionally larger in women than in men. In women of the primitive ages there could have been no waist, and in some of the Indian tribes of the present time there is no evidence of the slightest bodily constriction in this region. "What, then, is the primary cause of the narrow contracted waist as seen in woman throughout the civilized world to-day ? At the time of the worship of the beautiful by the Greeks, women quickly discerned the harmo- 60 A DELSARTEAltf SCRAP-BOOK. nious curves and symmetrical lines that received the approval of the men of that age, and they fashioned themselves accordingly. The ideals predominating at that time have been trans- mitted to us in marble and bronze, and illustrate the highest ideals of feminine beauty and loveli- ness of figure. As soon as the moral fibre of the Greeks grew lax the courtesans set the fashion, and in order to make the hips more prominent the graceful curve of the pelvis was gradually increased by constricting the waist with a many- layered girdle. This custom was then carried to such an extent that, according to Cerviotte, Hip- pocrates "vigorously reproached the ladies of Cos for too tightly compressing their ribs and thus interfering with their breathing powers." The custom was imitated by the Romans, and the works of Martial and Galen frequently allude to the unnaturally small waist of the women of their times. In fact, stays and breast-bands were regarded by Galen as the cause of many of the evils attributed to them at the present day. From an anatomical point of view the tissues of a woman do not differ materially from the tis- sues of a man. The bones, muscles, arteries, and nerves are similarly constituted, and are gov- erned by the same laws in their development. So, also, are the heart, lungs, stomach, and brain. Anything that will impair the function of an organ in one sex will certainly interfere with its DEESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN. 61 action in the other. If you put a tight bandage around the waist of a man, the physiological func- tions of the abdominal and thoracic organs are for the time impaired, and the man is unable to make more than two-thirds of the mental and physical exertion of which he is capable. When we reflect that woman has constricted her body for centuries, we believe that to this fashion alone is due much of her failure to realize her best opportunities for development, and through natural heritage to advance the mental and phy- sical progress of the race. We are the more firmly convinced of this fact from the rapid ad- vancement that women make in health, strength, and physical improvement under favorable cir- cumstances. This would seem to indicate that their bodies had been held in arrears and were pining for freedom of movement and exercise. In order to ascertain the influence of tight clothing upon the action of the heart during ex- ercise, a dozen young women consented this sum- mer to run 540 yards in their loose gymnasium garments and then to run the same distance with corsets on. The running time was two minutes and thirty seconds for each person at each trial, and in order that there should be no cardiac ex- citement or depression following the first test, the second trial was made the following day. Be- fore beginning the running the average heart-im- pulse was 84: beats to the minute; after running 62 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. the above-named distance the heart-impulse was 152 beats to the minute; the average natural waist-girth being 25 inches. The next day cor- sets were worn during the exercise and the aver- age girth of waist was reduced to 24 inches. The same distance was run in the same time by all, and immediately afterward the average heart- impulse was found to be 168 beats per minute. When I state that I should feel myself justified in advising an athlete not to enter a running or rowing race whose heart-impulse was 160 beats per minute after a little exercise, even though there were not the slightest evidence of disease, one can form some idea of the wear. and tear on this important organ and the plrysiological loss entailed upon the system in women who force it to labor for over half their lives under such a disadvantage as the tight corset imposes. In order to ascertain the effect of tight cloth- ing upon respiration the spirometer was tried. The average natural girth of the chest over the ninth rib was 28 inches, and with corsets 26 inches. The average lung capacity when corsets were worn was 134 cubic inches; when the corsets were removed the test showed an average lung capac- ity of 167 cubic inches — a gain of 33 cubic inches. Who can estimate its value to the entire system ? Why preach the gospel of fresh air to women who deliberately throw away twenty per cent of it by the use of tight stays and corsets ? DRESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN. 63 At the present time women as a class have more leisure than men for self-improvement, and we must look to them to help on the higher evo- lution of mind and body, not only in perfecting* themselves, but in helping to perfect others. Al- ready three-fourths of the school-teaching force in the United States is composed of women, and they will soon be in the majority as instructors in physical training. The gospel of fresh air and physical improvement is being slowly imbibed by our best families, and the stock of fine specimens of physical womanhood is slowly and steadily im- proving. When the young women throughout the land shall have felt the influence of this new religion, and become thoroughly aroused to the importance of making the most of themselves in body as well as in mind, we shall not only elevate the average mental and physical condition of the masses, and so raise the athletic standard, but we shall be much more likely than at the present time to produce a few of the intellectual giants that are needed to grapple with the great prob- lems of our complex civilization. The Dressing of the Neck.— Mr. Russell utterly condemns the high standing collar. "The neck requires perfect freedom of motion, " he declared, " else natural expression and grace must be destroyed. The neck is the stem of the flower ; to contract it is to make the whole body stiff and expressionless.'" The habit of wearing gloves at all times was also condemned, because that, too, hindered expression by making th3 hand stiff. "A stiff hand looks larger than a pliable one," said the lec- turer, '* and lacks in beauty, too ; for motion is a much higher beauty than form. So with the foot. Flexible shoes should be worn in-doors as 64 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. much as possible, the soft Oriental shoe being much better adapted to preserve free aud untrammeled motion than the foot-wear demanded by our streets." The craze of American women to be doing something was attributed to nervousness. li The necessity for something to do — tidy-making, crochet- ing, fancy work of various kinds— had made American parlors atiorror,'''' he said. "Relax ! relax ! Let go the tense hold of your arms that is wearing out your vitality, and let them hang limply at your side. You will get rest by doing this. Sleepless people will fall asleep. Stop holding your- selves in a knot and relax. The old-school gymnastics were fundamen- tally wrong. They tightened up extremities, causing a loss of control at the centre. Reverse this by holding up the chest, breathing slowly and deeply through the nose, and relaxing the extremities. "—Chicago Tribune. A SCHOOL IDYL. Ram it in, cram it in, Children's heads are hollow ; Slam it in, jam it in, Still there's more to follow— Hygiene and history, Astronomic mystery, Algebra, histology, Latin, etymology, Botany, geometry, Greek and trigonometry — Ram it in, cram it in, Children's heads are hollow. Rap it in, tap it in — What are teachers paid for ? Bang it in, slam it in— What are children made for? Ancient archaeology, Aryan philology, Prosody, zoology Physics, clinictology, Calculus and mathematics, Rhetoric and hydrostatics — Hoax it in, coax it in, Children's heads are hollow Rub it in, club it in, All there is of learning ; Punch it in, crunch it in, Quench their childish yearning For the field and grassy nook, Meadow green and rippling brook. DRESS AXD DEVELOPMENT OF AVOMEN. 65 Drive such wicked thoughts afar, Teach the children that they are But machines to cram it in, Bang it in, slam it in — That their heads are hollow. Scold it in, mould it in, All that they can swallow ; Fold it in, hold it in, Still there's more to follow. Faces pinched, sad, and pale, Tell the same undying tale- Tell of moments robbed from sleep, Meals untasted. studies deep. Those who've passed the furnace through, With aching brow, will tell to you How the teacher crammed it in, Rammed it in, jammed it in, Crunched it in. punched it in, Rubbed it in, clubbed it in, Pressed it in and caressed it in, Rapped it in and slapped it in When their heads were hollow. —Puck. " The brain can be trained just like the hand. This is the great object of education. An empty head is an evil head ; an untrained brain is a mischievous brain. The brain must be used all round ; and perhaps the greatest danger of school education at present is that the memory is cultivated principally or almost alone. It is not walking encyclopaedias that do good in the world, but skilled brains able to think and not merely to remember." "We need to consider the old elements and the new in every question. There is danger of that too cautious spirit which resists all change be- cause ' the past has been good enough/ The past has held many errors which modern thought is bringing to light, and, as higher aims and bet- ter methods are coming to the front, they rightly claim our assistance and influence.'" 66 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. " iEstheticism within us represents our faculty, conscious or unconscious, of apprehending and appreciating the tendency toward the perfect in nature. A nature's higher order of harmony per- vading all realms of creation.' 11 — G. Von Taube. "Education in any line is conscious training of mind or body to act unconsciously. ,, — Wm. Geo. Jordan. . . . " An all-explaining spirit Teaching divine things by analogy, With mortal and material.'' 1 — Fest us. CHAPTER VIII. THE NATURAL HUMAN FIGURE. A London letter — The role of the body in expression — The effect of disturbing harmony — Our eyes ac- customed to discord — Tight lacing — Health, beauty, and expression dependent on perfect freedom. To the Editor of the London Homeopathic World. Sir: — In taking" up the question of corsets from the point of view of health, you are no doubt on perfectly safe ground. But the question has other bearing-s which have been brought to my notice in attending 1 the lectures on " Expression " by Edmund Russell, the Delsartean artist from America, and on these, with your permission, I will now make a few observations. The human fig-ure has a beauty of its own which is no less precious than health; and the human body is an instrument of expression second only in import- THE NATURAL HUMAN FIGURE. 67 ance to the face; and in some respects not even second, as it multiplies all the face says and adds passion and emotion to what it tells us, the face being- principally mental in its role of expression. All the greater harmonies and higher cour- tesies of life must extend over the whole body. Most people will be ready to deny this right off, I have no doubt; but let them for a single day observe the shapes and attitudes of the bodies of those they have to do with, and then ask them- selves if this is not the case. The cramped chest, the bent body, the rounded back, do not give us the same impression as wide shoulders, upright carriage, and unbroken front. I do not deny that the artificial life of modern times may produce bodily deformity in a man of strong and upright character; but I maintain that the man's power in the world would be greater if his spirit was not "cabined, cribbed, confined" in such a wretched shell. But to return to the question of beauty. We are told that man was made upright; and if we look at the nobler specimens of savage tribes we may believe that this was the case. It is rarer to find in civilized nations examples of perfect physical form. We go back to the ancient Greeks for our typical instances. A free, open- air, athletic life was eminently conducive to the production of health and beauty, and for our ad- miration and admonition they have left us me- 68 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. morials of themselves in stone. Take one of the most perfect examples of them — say the Venus of Milo — and put on a pair of stays. Imagine that the stone has become soft, and lace them up till you have produced the much-coveted hour- glass contraction which modern young- ladies tor- ture themselves to produce, and see how you have improved on your statue. It is evident that you have completely ruined the harmony of its contour; and that is precisely the effect of stay-lacing on modern young ladies. It is not so apparent as it would be in the case of the Venus of Milo, for this reason : Nature is so kind and accommodating that she will always do the best she can under any circumstances, however un- toward ; and as soon as the harmony is broken in one part she tries her best to change all the other parts to suit the new conditions. The figure de- teriorates in all directions, and the original out- lines become less and less conspicuous. The back becomes rounded; the spine loses its original beautiful curves; the ribs fall in, and the stomach obtrudes itself unduly. There is no help for this. The great organs of the body should by rights hang suspended under the arch of the ribs in the space formed by the dome of the diaphragm. But when this space is obliterated, or nearly so, by the modern corset, the poor squeezed organs must find some place to abide in — and that is below the milliner-made waist. THE NATURAL HUMAN FIGURE. 69 The question of expression may at first sight be thought identical with that of beaut3 T , but in reality the two are quite distinct, though related. A man may have a handsome figure, but if he holds himself badly he may betra3 T an unpleasant character. A woman may have a pretty face, and yet have an unpleasing expression. With- out our knowing it, we create an impression, fa- vorable or otherwise, by the way in which we hold ourselves; and without our being aware of it, we take our impression of other people from the way in which they hold themselves or present them- selves to us. In all great emotion the chest ex- pands, and especially the lower part of the chest, where the ribs are freest and meant to expand most. Now, this is just the part that corsets constrict most and include within the artificial waist. Possibly they may not compress the ribs in all states, but they must inevitably prevent their proper play and movement, and so hinder their development. The ribs are kept down. A generous character is made to give the expres- sion of a mean character, incapable of feeling any great emotion, and, in my opinion, the character itself does not wholly escape injury. It is of the greatest importance that men and women should show their true front to the world, and not make themselves out to be less noble than they really are. They will never be able to be true to them- selves so long as they squeeze in their ribs, round 70 A DELSAETEA^" SCKAP-BOOK. their backs, and practically break their bodies into two pieces, with a narrow isthmus between. I hope I am not taking up too much space, but I have been much interested in what I have seen of the Delsartean gymnastics. I am told that in America they are extensively used in public and private schools. Can you tell me if you know of and approve of them ? Do they resemble the Swed- ish gymnastics ? Are they suited for schools ? Yours faithfully, C. G. W. The letter we publish from our correspondent, C. G. W., opens up another aspect of the stay question, which will perhaps appeal to some of our readers more powerfully than the question of health. Mr. Russell is the apostle of the Del- sartean philosophy, which takes for its basis the triple nature of man — moral, mental, and physi- cal — and asks the question of every department >f nature, art, and life how it stands related to nan in respect to these three divisions of his oeing. It thus affords an analysis of immense practical importance that is capable of being brought to bear on questions of the most varied character. Brought to this test, Mr. Russell tells us that corsets are injurious in more respects than that of health. They destroy the beauty and the har- mony of the figure; they damage, to an immense extent, its power as an instrument of expression; THE NATURAL HUMAN FIGURE. 71 they rob it of the power of expressing its emo tions; and the result of all this is to react unfa- vorably on the mind and character of their unfor- tunate prisoners. Of course all this has a very decided bearing on health, as Mr. Russell would be the first to allow. "A sound heart and a sound mind in a sound body " is the very essence of the teaching of Del- sarte and his disciples; but if either the body, or the mind, or the heart is ill-treated, the whole being will suffer loss. This is self-evident on the face of it, and we trust that the consideration of it will rouse up those most interested to enter into the practical difficulties with which the ques- tion is beset. It is a question of the morals as well as of the manners of expression. Mr. Russell says, "A beautiful woman is on her lowest plane in a tight- fitting dress; an ugly woman on her highest in drapery. Further, "a woman may not lace to the ex- tent of lapping her ribs together, but most dresses are fitted to the smallest breath instead of the largest. Revealed form is always vulgar, espe- cially when distorted and robbed of its power to move in harmonious expression with the rest of the body; and tight lacing, even without speak- ing of it from a physiological standpoint in its relation to health, makes the body no longer a harmony of line in itself, robs it of proper rela- 72 A DELSAKTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. tion to dress, which should radiate from its points of support, and completely kills it as an agent of expression by giving- no freedom or range of mo- tion. "Beautiful sentiments and manners can only be expressed by high harmonies in motion. Low, vulgar, every-day, commonplace things express themselves in harsh, quick, broken angles and lines. Modern dress is fast killing out our capa- bility of the expression of feeling; soon the feeling Will go too. "The German-soldier man and Noah's-ark wo- man seem to be our ideals." ****** In answer to our correspondent of last month, we can emphatically recommend the Delsartean exercises for schools. We have seen the very greatest benefits ensue from their use, their great- est drawback being such rapid improvement in shape and increase in girth of chest as to make new clothes a necessity. Compared with Ling's exercises, we think they are more philosophic, more fundamental, and more interesting. A competent and wise instructor is a sine qua non. If badly taught, like every other good thing they may do harm. Corset- Wearing.— Professor V. A. Manassier, a distinguished scientist of St. Petersburg, has been investigating corsets. The professor is not the first man by any means who has turned his attention to this momen- tous subject, but he goes about the business in such a cold-blooded, crit- ical manner as to deserve attention. In the first place, the professor THE NATURAL HUMAN FIGURE. 73 finds that the corset- wearer has a decreased vital capacity of lung ; that while expiration is not impeded, inspiration is deficient. In other words, the ordinary corset- wearer receives into the lungs one- third less air than the person whose thorax is untrammelled by the contrivance. He also finds that the respirations are shortened and the breathing is rapid. While the non-corset-wearer is breathing five times the corset-wearer will breathe seven times. A hurried respiration means a more rapid pulse, and hence, heart troubles. The learned professor also declares that the corset-wearer suffers from chronic oxygen starvation ; that there circulates through the tissues of the unfortunate individual who squeezes the ribs together a large amount of carbonic dioxide— much to the detriment of the health. He also asserts that the arterial tension is chronically low. This means that the person is apt to be in an anaemic, or bloodless, condition. He further states that the lungs of such a person are inviting abodes for Koch's bacillus. In fact, that when a Koch's bacillus sees a person wearing a corset, it, so to speak, laughs for joy, and straightway makes for the home so admirably fitted for its use. He says that out of twenty-eight persons wearing tight corsets who were examined, he found that six presented morbid processes in the apices of their lungs. Who Invented Smiling ?— By some accounts this facial spasm is itself an innovation, and was a trick of fashion set so little time ago as at the beginning of the last century ; and the mode, said to have originated at "Vienna, coming to Paris, was there, it is reported, called La Vien noise, and from that centre, so rapid is the spread of absurdity, extended to the ends uf Europe. And surely this unmirthf ul smile that we all employ, this grin that is only of the lips, is an absurd thing; neither natural nor decorous ; for why should I smile inanely and endeavor to seem glad when I meet an acquaintance ? Why should he return this conventional salutation with a corresponding contraction of the muscles of his face when he sees me ? How is he to know that I am not weighed down by some secret sorrow which my smile of greeting but thinly conceals ? How am I to be sure that my own smile should not rather be a groan of sympathy or a silent tear ? W T e smile in concert, hypocrites that we are, while perhaps our very hearts are torn asunder ! How much wiser is the courteous gravity of the Portuguese peasant, or the stern salutation of the Oriental, who has not yet caught this European trick of the lips, and who meets and greets his acquaintance with the grave sympathy of one wayfarer meeting another on this rugged, tortuous path of life that has its ending only in the mysterious grave \—Osivald Crawfurd. 74 A DELSAETEAN SCRAP-BOOK. " Begin with children at five years to teach them to breathe well, speak well, walk well. " Ungraceful movements are a violation of the law of economy. " Repression in American manners is a Puritan idea ; it ends in ugliness of motion. " Once, to be ladylike was to be negative and still. " Quiet persons move in angles when they do move. " Movements which show effort do not express dignity and grace. " Flexibility gives grace.' 1 ''— Henrietta Russell. CHAPTER IX. A WOMAN ON WALKING. The faulty carriage of belles of Broadway and Fifth Ave- nue—Walking up-stairs — A society girYs lament — Walking naturally not necessarily walking beauti- fully — The anxiety and strain of the shopper — Nervousness versus dignity — Some suggestions as to the cure of certain natural defects. This expression fell upon my ear the other day : " Oh, dear! I wish I could walk like some people that I see ! Sometimes, on the street, I imagine I am walking* with great dignity and elegance, but when I catch a sight of myself in the big win- dows I am simply a fright. I look stiff, strained, and awkward. I don't know what is the mat- ter." This, from the lips of a well-made, nice- looking, ambitious American society girl, led to a chat upon this topic with Mrs. Edmund Russell, the Delsartean representative in New York, in A WOMAN ON WALKING. 75 the course of which many interesting- facts and theories were developed. "In the first place, walking" naturally," said Mrs. Russell, " does not mean walking beauti- fully, save in one case in ten, when the whole phy- sical instrument is naturally in tune, one chord with the other, and harmony or grace results. In the other nine cases, one portion of the body keyed too high and another too low produces the physical discord which on sight is termed ' awk- wardness/ " The proportionate tension or laxity of the mus- cles of the body makes its music, or expression. " One person, in walking, allows the knees to bend excessively and continuously, producing' thereby a general tumble-down flabbiness of the whole personal expression commonly believed to emanate from the character, and termed l weak- kneed.' In such case the upper portion of the body is disproportionately stiffened to express the courage — the muscles have to do what the knees confess they have not. " One of the most common faults in woman's walk is undue tension or stiffening of the ankle muscles, producing a straight up-and-down 'churn-staff motion' of the feet and the con- sequent ' bobb3 T / cramped walk so observable on Fifth Avenue Sunday mornings, among a saintly and stiff-ankled generation. " FolloAving this is a ' thudding down ' with all 76 A DELSAKTEAJSr SCEAP-BOOK. one's force upon the heel, producing- a jar through the nervous system only equalled by the exceed- ing homeliness of the locomotion. This is often done with an idea of walking straight, to assist which the stomach is pitched forward, a hollow is produced in the back, and the lady, from the novelty of her appearance— not its beauty — is dubbed ( very stylish ' by — her milliners. " The undue roll of the hips may be seen five times an hour daily on any popular promenade in New York. " This consists of an alternate pushing forward of each hip, after the position a man might adopt in offering the hip-pocket of his trousers to a tailor to have a stitch set in it. It is adopted by those wishing* to appear particularly voluptuous and fascinating. It is carried to a great extent by untrained actresses. " Excessive relaxation of the neck, pitching the head forward with undue strain of the lower body, is a common expression with time-worn or desk-wrecked men. "All these unconscious or premeditated awk- wardnesses, still further accented by peculiar ten- sions for ' fad's ' sake (such as the present squar- ing of the shoulders, extension of the elbows, and the clutch of the pocket with both hands which is sold to each fair dame with her fur cape), are as many breaches of the harmony, dignity, and grace of womanly form to a connoisseur. A WOMAN ON WALKING. 77 "It requires no connoisseur, however, to be horrified at the daily exhibitions of feminine clumsiness among- the hurried shoppers of Four- teenth Street, Sixth Avenue, and Twenty-third Street. "When belles and ladies of leisure, with thoughts centred on their attractiveness, fail in this, what can we expect from those poor lit- tle huddled, crunched-up, strained, care-battered creatures — upon whom the rack and thumbscrew of time and money are both pressing hard — who flood those fatal districts daily in the vain en- deavors to buy ten dollars* worth with five dol- lars, and to get home before five o'clock ? " See how they do huddle ! Shoulders up, heads away out, arms wildly clutching", eyes straining* and fairly starting" from their sockets in the men- tal struggle between pocket and window contents, and the physical fig-lit with long- distance and short time. What waste of motion, what awk- wardness ! They have not been taught the ' law r s of expense ' in muscle, any more than in time and money. They are wildly grabbing- in the dark, with a dead waste of physical and mental forces, and at thirty have to add chronic visits to physi- cians to the list of their daily drudgeries. "One feels tempted to call to them, 'Stop! stop ! ! All of you stand still a minute ! ! ! Let go ! Shake yourselves loose ! Relax your muscles and fetch back your wandering- thoughts, which are 78 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. three or four blocks ahead of your bodies and are scattered in three or four different stores at once ! See those dents in your hands from clutchings ! Straighten out those criss-cross furrows on your foreheads; take that fierce, agonized look from your wan faces; smile once at nothing-; and either begin again fresh or go home and rest ! ' "Added to this are accidental pressures, such as rainy days, climbing up muddy stairs with a load of heavy skirts in one hand, three loose packages in another, an umbrella to be kept out of people's bodies, and fare to be taken out of un- handy pockets, while bells ring, the train is called, and the gates slam. " Talk about grace ! "This same nerve and muscle strain, to the total forgetfulness and disregard of personal ap- pearance (or expression), enters into the homes not only of the middle class, with family anxiety alone, but of the wealthy society dame, whose ambition makes a battle-field out of a flower- garden existence. " Rich ladies, beautifully dressed and in elegant rooms, may be seen entertaining with shoulders up to their ears, chests hollowed into furrows, contracted brows, spasmodic face motions, inces- sant lacing of the fingers, and nodding and hunch- ing of the head and shoulders." This is no overdrawn picture. You cannot make three calls this afternoon without coming A WOMAN ON WALKING. 79 across the original, especially if you are an " im- portant person," of whom your hostess stands somewhat in awe. In this way many good women misrepresent themselves frightfully. They conceal possible nobility, courage, enthusiasm, womanliness, by a cloak of green, affected school-girl awkwardness. Their motions, instead of expressing the best that is in them, indicate but the little, the petty, the ungracious, the nervousness, which is all the re- sult of lack of thought or training and over- anxiety to enter the camp of the " Four Hundred." The word dignity comes from the word " dig- nus," meaning worthy — worth supposably cloth- ing itself with becoming muscular development and carriage. That this is but a theory is shown in the amount of very undignified and unimpres- sive expression that conceals vast hordes of worthy minds in our circle of acquaintance to- day. Stair-climbing is a feature of feminine locomo- tion as peculiar as it is important. "Show me," says Mrs. Russell, "a town of stairs, and I will prophesy thin, eye-circled, cross- looking women, and vice versa" Yet, strange to say, this disease, to the untrained, is our most potent gymnasium in teaching the art of walk- ing. The prophecy should be reversed. Trained stair-climbers should be the healthiest, as the most graceful of women. Baltimore with its steep 80 A DELSARTEATT SCRAP-BOOK. hills (which are natural stairs) shows in its women (who are taught to mount them) the most grace- ful pedestrians in the country. New York shows a race of clumsy-walking, drawn -faced women. " In going up-stairs there should be no wad- dling from side to side — none whatever; no trudg- ing, as though the object were to push holes into the steps; no leaning forward and no apparent weariness. The body should remain erect, the step should be taken with the ball of the foot, and the movement to the next step be made with a springing motion — a caress of the structure, if you will, instead of a kick. This produces s grad- ual, graceful, poetic elevation, instead cf i cum- bersome hauling of the body upward, ar i places all the strain upon the strong muscles of the calf of the leg. " This slightly accented springing from step to step leads to the true system of pacing on level ground, hence the stairway is made the walkers' gymnasium, and its correct use is made a cure for many abuses. "You have to but observe the different styles of walking to be seen nightly on the various stages of our city to realize that ordinary climb- ing does not produce either satisfactory or similar results of expression." Some people need little or no suggestion in this regard. With some, a little thought and obser- vation will work marked improvement, while A WOMAN ON WALKING. 81 others, in order to attain an}- sort of satisfactory symmetry — any power or beauty of personal ex- pression — must go into a regular course of train- ing- and development, and this physical prepara- tion, be it easy or difficult, swift or slow, tedious or delightful, must underlie success in any art. "A writer, a scientist, a man may be a cripple; a,n actor, a musician, a flirt, a belle, a society leader, a singer, or a swimmer must have perfect control of every key to the human instrument, which, first of all, must be in perfect tune." Fannie Edgar Thomas. Mrs. Russell Talks to a Company at Mrs. Wanamaker's.— This administration seems to have an ambition to lift society above a mere exchange of salutations, and introduces into it something of art and lit- erature. Mrs. Wanamaker yesterday afternoon gave the second of the unique assemblies in her music-room to a class of young ladies whom she had invited to hear Mrs. Henrietta Russell in a lecture lesson on the laws of expression as taught by Delsarte. Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Russell Harrison, and Mrs. Windom were present, as at the first of the series on Saturday. Mrs. Wanamaker seems to have got one step beyond the English fashion of " lending the house " to an artist, and sets an example to those who can afford to be patrons, by herself employing the artist to give a course of lectures and then inviting the class. The two first lessons have been on " Walking " and " Bowing. 11 At the adjournment of the class Mrs. Russell congratulated Mrs. Har- rison on having discontinued hand-shaking at receptions. Mrs. Harrison said she would like to shake hands with everybody kind enough to wish to meet her, but it was simply a question of endurance ; it was a sort of physical violence which, continued during an evening, few could stand. Mrs. Russell declared that promiscuous hand-shaking with strangers was inartistic, inexpressive, and preposterous— only one remove from the miscellaneous kissing among school-girls. Bowing, she said, was much more respectful, because less familiar. In England they have a custom which America would do well to copy, which dictates that young eirls 6hall not shake hands with gentlemen= Among the young ladies were the daughters of the Vice-President and the Misses Windom. Mrs. Russell woro a picturesquely-con structed gown of Havana brown cloth, which clung to her figure from top to toe like a jersey, and was 6 82 A DELSAKTEAN SCEAP-BOOK. made with a Greek free neck. The front was draped with brown velvet, spotted with gold like a leopard, and the long train of velvet was hung to the front with a golden cable. At the interesting talk given at Wil- lard's in the morning, Mrs. Ingalls, Mrs. Snider, Mrs. Burrows, Mrs. Riggs, Mrs. Clarkson, Mrs. Webber, and a number of other well-known society ladies were present. William Blaikie and the Vassar Girls.— Mr. William Blaikie, the well-known writer and lecturer, who is an enthusiast on physical culture, has been visiting Vassar, and his comments are more pointed than gal- lant on the style in which the college girls run. " There are no women nowadays who can run, 1 '' he said to them when they showed him the track laid down in the gymnasium. "Yes, Mr. Blaikie, we can! 1 ' "Off with you, then, 11 and the girls were speeding around the course, ambitious to convince him. After two laps, he says, they were blowing like porpoises ; there wasn^ one who had any wind, and they all came down with a thud on their heels, when everybody knows you can't run unless you get the spring from your toes. Words. — In our crazed brains words are visions, visions ecstatic, visions chimerical, are visions without models and without object, ideals rather than images, desires rather than reminiscences ; and how distant these ideals, how painful these desires ! There is no woman who gives us the radiant dream that lurks beneath the word Woman ; there is no wine that realizes the intoxication imag- ined by the word Wine ; there is no gold, pale gold or dusky gold, that gives out the tawny fulguration of the word Gold ; there is no perfume that our deceived nostrils find equal to the word Perfume ; no blue, no red that figures the tints with which our imaginations are colored ; all is too little for the word All ; and no nothingness is an empty enough vacuity as to be that arch-terrorist word, Nothing.— Entile Hennequin. ANOTHER WOMAN ON WALKING. 83 "The dancing on the stage at the present moment might be described as ungraceful or dis- graceful ; the merely graceful has vanished.'" CHAPTER X. ANOTHER WOMAN ON WALKING. How one ought to walk in order to be graceful — How to gain strength and ease — Advantages in health and beauty to be derived from a proper carriage and gait — Exercises which develop the muscles all over the body, head, shoulders, chest, waist, knees, and feet, all concerned in the art of walking well — Methods of training each in turn. Grace of motion is a woman's supreme charm and the one least often exemplified. In Edward Bellamy's now fashionable "Looking- Backward," the magnificent health of the maidens of the mil- lennium is enthusiastically dwelt upon, and the reader is informed that it is in part the result of natural selection. This law, one would suppose, should be at work in our own time. The more lovely a woman is the larger her field of choice when she marries. She who enjoys the largest liberty selects, one may assume, the finest speci- men of manhood for her husband, and the world is peopled with beautiful children. It is true that according to this principle ugliness and awk- wardness ought long ago to have become extinct, 84 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. which is by no means the case : witness the num- ber of handsomely-attired women on the avenues at the hour of the fashionable promenade who walk like automatic geese wound up for thirty minutes' waddle. Under the natural dispensa- tion the woman who was most graceful and beau- tiful would be likely to become the mother of fine daughters, because she would be a fine creature, a grandly-constructed animal, in whom grace of motion would be the expression of the highest physical perfection, her queenship over her kind proclaiming itself in step and carriage. But nowadays it is often the chic little rat of a thing, with big hollow eyes, no waist, and not a drop of wholesome blood in her body, who minces along in tight shoes with a half-limp to favor the foot that hurts the most, who has the widest liberty of matrimonial choice and peoples the world with physically-uneducated citizens. It is not real grace, the grace that one admires in marble or in Greek friezes of dancing maidens, that attracts most, for the simple reason, perhaps, that we are but now getting our eyes open to its possibilities. The art of walking should be taught to girls as carefully as the art of reading, for one is the basis of physical as the other is of mental education, and awkwardness is as directly the result of care- lessness, as bad spelling. Before learning to walk one must learn to stand, to poise, and to bend, and the basis of all these is learning to breathe. ANOTHER WOMAN ON WALKING. 85 The first thing- to be acquired preparatory to all farther effort is the knack of lifting" the chest into its proper position by the action of the waist and intercostal muscles, and holding it as the promi- nent part of the body — a post of honor too often usurped by the inferior abdomen. The same mo- tion which throws out the chest should draw in the lower part of the trunk, hanging" it from the curve of the spine, instead of resting it clumsily in the pelvis like a great pudding in a basin. In the proper attitude for good breathing the hips turn slightly inward and the chin goes back but not up, the shoulders being left absolutely out of consideration. Throwing them back or attempt- ing forcibly to straighten them results in half a dozen evils more to be dreaded than round shoul- ders. Take care of the chest and the shoulders will take care of themselves. Now inflate the lungs fully, and when the chest is naturally, but without exaggerated force, expanded, step up in front of a door, letting both toes touch the wood- work. If at the same time the forehead and the chest meet the varnish, it is safe to conclude that you are taking for the nonce a good standing position. In the best standing attitude the poise seems to be a little forward of a straight line, a perpen- dicular from the chest falling, as above stated, between the toes; but that this is the absolutely erect position for the body is shown b} r the fact 8b A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. that it is the only poise from which a ballet dancer can rise to the very points of her tiny toes and come down in the original position again without swaying backward out of line. In this position the head is poised as if to carry steadily a burden on the crown, and the weight of the body rests on the balls of the feet and not on the heels. Many teachers of physical culture will tell you that to stand correctly is easier than to do otherwise; but with the average person the ease is an acquired, not a natural one, and during the probation period a constant and conscientious watch must be kept over one's attitudes. Until practice has accustomed the body to the shifting of the centre of gravity forward, the novice used to standing on the heels will feel insecure, as if about to tumble forward; but this accords well enough with the dicta of the physiologists who are accustomed to define a walk as a succession of constantly-interrupted falls. Quite as bad as the sense of unsafety is the stiffness, the awk- wardness and self -consciousness, the feeling as if being constantly on dress parade which comes of the first efforts to change one's standing position. How soon these disagreeable sensations will wear off depends somewhat on the individual and more on the persistency with which she practises cor- rect standing. Some women, after a month of lifting the chest and holding the body erect in a straight line, will lose all thought of the process ANOTHER WOMAN ON WALKING. 87 and come into their new kingdom of elasticity and beauty of carriage, while others may be a year, after fully grasping" the idea of graceful motion, in teaching their muscles to interpret it of their own accord and easily. Some of the finest examples of erect and elastic poise are found in English women of good position, accustomed all their lives to out-door exercise, and occasionally one of these may be studied to advantage in turning over Du Maurier's pictures. For a daily exercise to be practised night and morning, take a good standing position and then inflate the lungs fully several times, forcibly ex- pelling the air. Having thus prepared the sys- tem for work, rise slowly as high as possible on the toes, holding the body a moment at the final position attained and then descend slowly and lightly and rise again. This exercise will quickly fatigue the ankle, but it is unequalled for giving elasticity and grace to the instep. Constant prac- tice will strengthen the muscles, and one should soon be able to stand for some length of time in the raised position, to rise first on one foot and then on the other separately, and to walk good distances to and fro in one's chamber poised on the toes. This presupposes some foot-covering which allows comfortable play to the instep and the foot muscles, and all the exercises to be given presupposes freedom from corsets. Otherwise they are either impossible or harmful. 88 A BELSARTEA^T SCRAP-BOOK. For the ankle proper, take the same position and sway slowly hack and forward from the ankles without "bending- the knees. Do not ex- pect to swing* through any great arc of motion, for the ankles will not permit it. This motion is rather harder than the first to do properly, but it gives security and certainty of carriage. Prac- tise it on both feet, then with each foot sepa- rately, holding up the other by bending the knee. Now, straightening the body again, lift both arms as high as possible above the head, keep the legs firmly poised without bending the knees, and sway the upper part of the body forward, bending only at the waist, carrying* the hands and arms toward the floor. This will give strength to the trunk muscles, the tissues which anato- mists say women allow to degenerate until they almost lose them. This exercise is fatiguing, but should be practised in moderation until one is able to touch the carpet with one's fingers, or even to lay the palms of the hands flat on the floor. A good deal of the virtue of it consists in doing" it very steadily and slowly. To obtain full re- sults, bend also to the right side and then to the left, also diagonally forward in both directions. To complete the training- of the waist muscles, roll the body around slowly in a circle on the hips, bending at the waist, and describing day by day a curve of greater diameter as more flexibil- ANOTHER WOMAN OX WALKING. 89 ity, particularly in describing' the backward mo- tions, is obtained. A walking- exercise which does much to develop the leg- muscles and to give grace of poise con- sists in standing- on one foot and extending the other leg at as nearly a right angle as possible. In this position swing it slowly in a circle, back- ward and forward, and see if the effort to main- tain the balance does not prove its efficacy. This movement forms a part of the training of ballet dancers. As a knee exercise throw the right foot well in advance of the left and bend the knee as much as possible; then straighten that leg with an elastic spring*, transferring* the weight of the bod}', which has been borne by it, to the left leg, which is ad- vanced in its turn and bent similarly. Cross the floor practising the knees in this way. Another ballet girl's exercise, which is also good for the knees, is to stand on one foot, holding the other up at right angles to the knee, with the toes pointing downward, and kick with vicious energy. An excellent walking exercise is to decompose the walking movements, taking each element separately by standing on the left foot, holding the right leg* bent at the knee, and then swaying* forward on the left leg* until you feel that you are actually falling*, when the right foot is brought down in a supporting position and the left one lifted for the same round of motions. The calves 90 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. can be strengthened by giving* an especial spring to the walk, coming down well forward on the foot, almost on the toes. Mrs. Russell on Walking.— Let us learn to obey the laws of our own body. We have a system of levers to do the work, and they act precisely as all levers do. One leg is a lever to pry the body over the other leg, and the latter becomes a pendulum and swings back by force of gravity to its place. When you walk three miles and feel as if you could walk ten, you are walking that way. When you are tired out and feel weary, you are taking irregular steps and walking on your heels. A great de- fect is trying to step too far. It is bad walking when you lift your foot and put it down. If the bottom of the foot is seen, it should be from the back. Raise yourself on both toes at the same time. What is wanting is elasticity. We have many joints to do the work. If you leave out the ankle you give it to the knee. If you walk on the heel you get a bump and a jar, and the waste of force of thirty per cent in a day. People say, turn your toes out! What for ? If they were to be that way, they would have been made that way. Gilbert, the English sculptor, says that the anatomy of the foot shows conclusively that it never was intended that the toes should be turned out. Grace is where ah muscles take part ; where each has its work to do and does it. It is a sin now, Mrs. Russell said, to be awkward. Grace is com- plex, but simple, when the science is known. There is science in gesture as there is science in music. Few walk gracefully. Swinging of the arms in walking, which is universal, is absolutely unnecessary ; it is purely a waste of strength. Marching never makes beautiful walkers, and should not be taught in our schools. Hurrying is a great cause of awkwardness.— Camden Post. A PRIVATE LESSOR. 91 to It is repose, and not absence of expression, that is to be aimed at. 11 — Sir Charles Bell. "Social pre-eminence is not with us an inheri- tance, but an achievement. 1 ' — Nym Crinkle. CHAPTER XI. A PRIVATE LESSOR. Being resthetlcally carved — Nell Nelson takes a lesson and tells her interesting experience in the New York World — Vanity completly crushed— The Delsar- tean's dissecting-room— Breathing and walking- Falling as a pastime. Mr. Edmund Russell, teacher of expression, interior decoration, and art, gave me a private lesson in Delsarte. It took him eighty minutes to carve me up assthetically, and when he got through there wasn't any more swell to my van- ity than there is to a pin -pricked rubber balloon. The Delsartean received me in his Fifty-fifth Street drawing-room. He was dressed in a cop- per-colored suit of Irish linen plush, made with the regulation trousers and a tight-fitting round coat, ornamented with old Pompeiian belt of cop- per-mounted leather, jewelled with carnelians. At his throat a scarf of cream-tinted silk was tied in a large, loose bow-knot, and the silken wrist- bands were fastened with quaint copper orna- ments that once ornamented the sword-hilt of 92 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. some ante-Delsartean hero. His feet were dressed in maroon leather Persian sandals embellished with silver embroidery, and on his left thumb were two large copper rings of historic value and unmistakable weight, that looked as though they might have been dug out of the ruins of Carthage. I told Mr. Russell that I had neither the time nor the money to give to a course of Delsarte, that I was out of harmony with myself because of my crudities and obliquities, and that if he could give me enough of the philosophy of taste in one lesson to enable me to get into aesthetic plumb I would be pleased. " Ye-s," was the reply in two syllables, a glow- ing enthusiastic light filling his fine gray eyes. And then, lowering his full musical voice to a mellifluent tone, he asked : "Can you bear brutal candor?" "Brutal candor?" " Yes. I will have to be brutally candid with you to point out your defects in a single lesson. I will have to play surgeon and use the knife. I warn you it will hurt and your vanity will make you bleed. But it will benefit you." The last sentence gave me courage and I told him I was ready for the knife, but I did not want the theory. " I could not give it to you in ten lessons if you did. Well!" And then this American disciple of the new dispensation arose, struck a didactic A PKIVATE LESSON. 93 attitude, and took in the points of his slab-sided, hollow-chested, self-conscious pupil. " Some persons are deformed by nervous trou- ble and some by bad training," he began slowly, " and you belong* to the latter class. You have taken your ideal from the military school, and as a result you are stiff, set, rig-id, angular, and inflexible. Nature intended you for a graceful woman, but you have been schooled into hard lines and an attitude of constant repression. You trust others, but have your own personality under constant suspicion. Now, that won't do. You are not doing yourself justice. Now, please, let go of your military idol. Set it aside. Let it drop. Have you relinquished ?" " I think so." "Very well. Now drop your shoulders. Let them down more! That's it. There is no beauty in a square back; too high shoulders are a defor- mity. Raise your chest as high as you can; bring it up and round it out by deep breathing. Let your shoulders drop, I said — put them clown, let them go, don't think any thing about them! Just remember that if your chest is up your shoulders will be in proper position. Close your mouth — not so tight; yes, just to have your lips meet." This was a task, as I am short on upper lip, al- though amply supplied with tongue. "Breathe deeper; not with your shoulders! 94 A DELSARTEA^ SCRAP-BOOK. Keep them still. Use your nostrils, chest, and diaphragm. Now, then, fill your lungs; be quiet about it; take deep, full breaths till your lungs are fully expanded and then exhale slowly. Take that sort of a lung bath in the open air two hours a day, and you will have a correct method of breathing, a good chest, stronger organs of respi- ration, a better tone qualit3 r and you will be less liable to colds and throat trouble. If you can't go out-of-doors, throw open a window for fresh air and go through the exercise twenty or thirty times and continue the practice until deep breath- ing becomes habitual. " You should eat more at meals," was the next observation. "Why?" " So you would not have to bite your lips." This was the beginning of the brutal candor. "Are you aware that you talk very badly ? " "Perfectly." " Shall I tell you what is the trouble ? " " If you please." "Your collar is too tight. You are in a state of semi-strangulation all the time. The vocal life is choked out of your words. " Why do you wear such a high collar ? It is not becoming to you. It destroys the connection between your head and body." I told him that my neck was not like Annie Laurie's, and that I paid the coming Queen of A PEIVATE LESSON". 95 England the compliment of appropriating her * chokers." Mr. Russell advised me to have my dresses fashioned without a collar, and to embellish my scrawny throat and bony chest with a necklace or jewelled band of ribbon sufficiently barbaric to be pertinent for common use. When I hinted at the probable expense of barbaric ornaments, he suggested a thick ruching sufficiently high to throw charitable shadows into yawning concavi- ties without engulfing the column that joins the regions of the heart and soul. te You sit badly. From your chin down there is no life in your body. If you were beheaded your personality would not lose anything. All your animation is in your face, all the expression comes from 3 T our head. You talk with your mouth and e} 7 es and gesticulate with yo ur head. The rest of your body is dead as far as expres- sion or emphasis is concerned. You want control at the centre and freedom at the extremities. Let yourself loose, can't you ? Shake off the re- straint, the conscious forces that are holding you. Unbend yourself. You are as irresponsive as a dressmaker's dummy." This delicate compliment had the desired effect. I had a well-I-never feeling, and w r as about to get away when my tutor threw up the hand with the thumb rings and said : "That's much better. Won't you please let 96 A DELSAKTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. your hands down and unclasp your arms ? You have the habit to which your sex is addicted. Nine out of every dozen women sit with hands folded and resting" at the belt, the stomach leading, mak- ing a sort of mantel-shelf for them. Drop your arms, unfasten your hands, and use them to ex- press yourself. Why do you wear such tight gloves ? " " To make my hands look small." "But they doirt look small; they look de- formed. Besides, you can't use them. Your lingers have no play and you can't make a grace- ful movement with them to save your life. It is the same way with your feet. Your shoes are altogether too tight. They do not fit you." I protested that they were not tight in the least. " Then balance yourself on the toes of your left foot for two minutes." I tried, but failed. "You understand now my meaning. Your feet are a support to you, but nothing more. You have no freedom. Your shoes and gloves should afford as much flexibility and play as a mitten." And Mr. Russell raised one of his Persian-slip- pered feet. " "What you want is a course of falling- to take the stiffness out of your joints, but as you are now dressed you would break your neck or your back if you did this," and down on the floor went A PRIVATE LESSON. 97 my aesthetic athletic tutor in a heap as lifeless as any Juliet on the stage. He fell fainting-, fell swooning", fell in despair, fell in a fire and a crowd, and fell off every chair in the room alternately. Then he rose, straightened his bang and his belt, and told me to practise that at home, showing me the science of the fall. Mr. Russell told me among other pleasant things that I had " no grace," that I was " fid- getty." " You have no repose whatever. What you mistake for repose is rigidity. And it is all due to your repression of self. You are not ex- actly awkward, but you are not easy. Now won't you please be seated ? " I slowly lowered myself into a corner-chair, threw my head back, brought my chest up, my elbows in, put my hands in my lap, turned my toes out, and looked up for an approving smile. There was a smile, with this encomium: "You are just about as wooden as it is possible for you to be. If you kept your eyes still and I saw you in a shop-window I should take you for a lay figure. The tension of your body is perfectly painful. In the name of grace unloosen yourself. If Bernhardt comes to town I want }~ou to go and see her. It will be worth the price of admission to you just to see the ease and free- dom with which she fills a chair. Her great charm is the length of her poses. She is all lines. You are all angles. She throws herself into a 7 98 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. chair and her extremities remain just where they fall. You go down jack-knife fashion. You are a succession of right angles. If you will take the trouble to study nature you will find that there are no angles in her work. The human body is one series of curves that melt into one another, producing a grand harmony of grace and beauty. Now, won't you throw yourself into this chair, please ? Not violently. Just relax your muscu- lar system. Go down as if you were tired. Well, that will do for a beginning. I wish you would practise that at your leisure. "This exercise you must always practise. It is called decomposing," and Mr. Russell began to shake out first his fingers, then his hands, and then his arms. " It will limber your joints and give you the flexibility you need so much. "Your dress," scanning with critical attention the details of a very scant and simple brown dress that had done duty through a second sum- mer, "is genteel in color and quiet in pattern, but the style does not suit you. The effect is spotty. You have a discordant white patch in your hat, another white dab at your throat, and a white handkerchief there in your belt, all of which de- stroy the harmony. Why do you wear that belt?" I didn't want to tell him that it was a make- shift to cover a bad place in my waist, so I waived the question. A PRIVATE LESSON. 99 "You should never wear a belt. You are too short. It chops you off — bisects you, as it were, and makes angles at your hips and arms. You should have some long lines, some folded effects of drapery." After this playful tirade he allowed me to take a position on the carpet with my chest vaulted and my body so poised that if a plumb were let fall from my ear it would pass through my shoul- der, hip, and ankle, while he told me : " You belie yourself. Your body is all screwed up, the re- sult of bad clothes and bad health. You are, in brief, all out of tune, and when you feel a nice thought you don't know how to express it. You want limbering: your circulation wants quicken- ing; your body should quiver with life. Then instead of stiffness you will have grace, and in- stead of repression ease. You need control; you need to stop biting your lips and folding your hands and shying off. You think that by shak- ing your head you are vivacious, whereas in reality you are extravagant. The same emotion would, if distributed, make you charming. You need to be tuned first — then you can make music." Mr. Russell then told me to walk for him. I did so and elicited the first word of commendation. "You are not so heavy on your heels as I ex- pected, but there is nevertheless considerable of the waddle about your movement." This negative compliment dislocated me, and 100 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. after I got in position again Mr. Russell placed a copy of the " Portuguese Sonnets " on my head and told me to walk across the room without displacing it. At the very first step Mrs. Brown- ing toppled over and jabbed me in the shoulder. Just then another private pupil was announced. The lesson cost me $10 in cash and several hun- dred dollars' worth of contentment, and in the hour's practice I did before the mirror I broke a chair and covered myself with large blue polka dots. Nell Nelson. The Mistresses of the White House.— Mrs. James A. Garfield never got into harmony with the ostentation, excitement, and vulgarity of public life. She is a woman of innate refinement, very domestic in her tastes, and the presumptions of the public grated on her. She could not reconcile her- self to the privileges assumed by agents representing photographic and advertising companies, business firms, newspapers, artists, and charita- ble, industrial, and social organizations, and when she sent down word that she did not wish to become an advertising medium, that she did not want to be photographed, painted, interviewed, or entertained, and that she begged to decline the testimonial of the club to which she was a stranger, she w r as most severely and cruelly assailed by message, letter, and paragraph. In all her public life she did not receive ten reporters. Scores applied to her for audience, and very often poverty was offered as a plea for the coveted interview. To these importunators she frequently sent a sealed envelope containing a bill and a "please excuse me from newspaper comment 11 written on the back of her visiting card. She used to say that she " felt like a baby elephant 1 ' every time she received with the President. While fully recognizing her obligations as the wife of the Chief Magistrate, she argued at home and among her friends that she was not a politician, was not in office, and in no way compelled to make an exhibition of herself, her home, and her children. There was no time between the election and burial of her husband when she would not have gladly paid the newspaper writers and artists to decline the work as- signed them. These very sentiments are entertained by Mrs. Harrison, who dreads publicity, suffers from demands made upon her by strangers, and shrinks from the ordeal of hand-shaking., committees, and delegates bear- A PRIVATE LESSON. 101 ing testimonials, resolutions, or documents requiring her approval. Last winter, while a member of Mrs. Wanamaker's Delsarte class, she entered the drawing-room just as Mrs. Russell was showing the Wana- maker girls how to bow. There was the little bow of the head which would suffice for an employee in the " depot ; " there was the warmer salutation, with an advancing of the chest, for the formal caller ; there was a still more cordial salute, accompanied by a responsive movement of the head and torso, and finally the low, grand, sweeping bow from the head to the ankles, expressive of great respect, such as the queen is ac- customed to receive. Mrs. Harrison listened with undivided attention, and when the lesson was ended asked to be presented to Mrs. Russell, and during the conver- sation that ensued talked very freely to the New York aesthete. She re- ferred to the G. A. R. reception, when she carried a fan and bouquet, so as to have ample excuse for not shaking hands, and to which innova- tion the Logan division took such violent offence. " I was sorry,''' Mrs. Harrison said. "I did not mean to show an indis- position to kindness or courtesy, but it was a physical impossibility for me to extend my hand. Had I been permitted to shake hands it would have been different, but to have others do it was more than my strength was equal to." This aversion of the First Lady to cross hands with the grasping multi- tude will be the means of amending the etiquette of the reception and drawing rooms of Washington, if not the United States. During her residence in the White House Mrs. Cleveland stood up in all the beauty of her young womanhood and bravely shook hands with the mighty public until she had to take her rings and gloves off. until her fin- gers were swollen, her arm was lame, and her hand was like a puff-ball. After every reception her maid had a solution ready to bathe her dislo- cated members, and it was often necessary to rip her sleeve up in order to get it off. Mrs. General Grant has not one adverse criticism to pass on the great unwashed. She admits that she cried like a baby the day she left the White House. A special train carried the general's party to New York, but, she says, " I watered the journey with my tears. The general stood between me and any annoyances that might have occurred, but I was very happy. My life was eight years of bliss and one round of pleasure." —New York World. 102 A DELSAETEAN SCRAP-BOOK. " A sign in the rooms of a hotel reads as fol- lows : ' Indian clubs and dumb-bells will not be permitted in any of these rooms. Guests in need of exercise can go down to the kitchen and pound a steak.'' ?' CHAPTER XII. FOR COMFORT IN DRESS. Some ideas on men's clothes — The stupidity of modern fashions — The effect of fits — Linen, plush, and Orien- tal slippers — Some novel ornaments — A subtle com- pliment. " Man is the only animal that doesn't practise Delsartean gymnastics/' is the way Mr. Edmund Russell sums up the iniquity of bad taste and the sins against health and expressiveness in pose and motion for which the tyranny of the fashion- plate is responsible. Mr. Russell is an American who went abroad to study art and painting. His attention was turned to the application of the principles of art to dress, household decoration, and other ends sometimes considered utilitarian. From studying 1 them he began to teach them, and for three years in the most aristocratic circles in London, and even in the classical shades of Cambridge Uni- FOE COMFORT IN DRESS. 103 versity, the novelty and originality of his ideas made his lectures the popular thing. Mr. Russell does not profess to be a reformer. He simply teaches people the principles of art, and then they may apply them or not, just as they please. In his room at the Palmer House last evening he chatted delightfully to a Morning Neivs re- porter of expression in dress, how it could he ob- tained, and how fashion absolutely destroyed it and at the same time naturalness in pose and even health. " Men's clothes," he said, " are a rank stupidity. They don't fit. They aren't graceful. They de- stroy health and all individual expression. Tailors and others try to devise variety, but they only succeed in changing a button or two in the style. And as for color, they can't get away from sombre, funereal, unnatural black. Why ! when the negroes were first brought to this country the hardest thing to get them to do was to put on black clothes. " Your tailor makes your coat tight across the chest and tells you it is a good fit. But it is just too tight to admit of the fullest inspiration. The result is the chest is compressed down upon the abdomen. What is the result in the expression of the ordinary attitudes ? They become common- place, vulgar. One of the most important things in expression is that the chest should lead the 104 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. other portions of the body. All the best Greek and Egyptian statues present the human form standing- with the chest on a vertical line with the toe. But with each succeeding coat made tighter than the other to fit the receding chest this pose is lost. Instead of the weight of the body being supported on the arch of the foot, the stomach protrudes, throwing the weight on the heel, and there we stand. "Now, all these positions and gestures mean something. Delsarte didn't invent a system of gestures and poses to express certain feelings or emotions. He studied what position and gestures mean. He studied naturalness. But how can one be natural if in addition to such a coat he puts on the ordinary shoe, pinching the foot out of shape, and with an inflexible sole destroying mobility in the foot ? Each step, instead of being of a springy, graceful movement of the whole body, becomes a succession of plunk, plunk, plunks on the floor. "On the street I dress very much as other people do. But when in my own house I think I may please myself in the matter of dress. These shoes," and Mr. Russell pointed to his feet, which were incased in a pair of Indian slippers hand- somely embroidered and with pointed ends turned up, " I wear because they are perfectly flexible. If I should wear the ordinary English shoe con- tinue uslv for a few davs I should notice the fact FOR COMFORT IX DRESS. 105 in a stiffening of my whole body. The Persians have the best shoe in the world. Here is a pair of them. They are as flexible as stockings. When one goes out he slips another heavier pair over them, which are removed before again entering the house. " This jacket is a linen plush. I don't wear it as a model. It pleases me. It wouldn't please others, perhaps, nor wouldn't become everybody. I advocate not a style, but individual expression in dress. Now I want some ornament. But for a man ornament must be strong, virile. So I wear these, which are bronze Japanese sword- hilts," and Mr. Russell took off a belt of the same material as the jacket, which was threaded through holes in the hilts. "You see," he con- tinued, " there is strength of expression in this- ornamentation. " Our fashions have no respect for age. The straight, severe outlines of men's garments show every bend and deformity. How different is this; " and he put on an Indian street garment made of camel's hair with exquisite cashmere embroidery, that was presented to him by an Indian prince who was his pupil at Cambridge University. "Particularly notice that the front, instead of being cut straight, as English coats are made, is pointed. Now, when I sit down, instead of dropping to each side, it folds gracefully over the knees. Salvini, as Othello, wears a similar 106 A DELSARTEA^ SCEAP-BOOK. garment, and you have noticed in his swinging* walk how the line of the front follows every motion of his body. And did you ever notice, too, how his motions are not simply of parts of his body, but of the whole of it ? "Speaking of animals, the elephant, ungainly as it looks, doesn't move -in jerks or awkwardly, but with a most complicated combination of mo- tion that is exceedingly graceful and dainty. I spoke of this once to one of my Indian pupils. He replied that it explained the lines of one of their oldest Sanskrit poets, who said that the highest compliment that could be paid to a wo- man was to say that she moves like an elephant or she moves like a swan. I told him the elephant comparison as a compliment was obsolete in this country, used only occasionally by husbands who I was afraid did not understand Sanskrit senti- ment." French Politeness.— The mayor of a French town had, in accordance with the recent regulations, to make out a passport for a rich and highly respectable lady of his acquaintance, who, in spite of a slight disfigure- ment, was very vain of her personal appearance. His native politeness prompted him to gloss over the defect, and, after a moment's reflection, he wrote among the items of personal description : ' ' Eyes dark, beautiful, tender, expressive, but one of them missing.' 11 Falling- Down-Stairs. — There is something in it, even for the Phil- istine. An entire lecture with demonstrations could be devoted to " The Art of Falling Down-Stairs. " Mr. Russell thinks no more of falling down three or four nights of stairs than Col. John W. Hinton does of talking eighteen hours a day about the protective tariff. His muscular system is so admirably trained that falling down-stairs becomes an agreeable, graceful, and entirely harmless pastime. Thus even so prac- FOR COMFOET IN DEESS. 107 tical and prosaic an institution as an accident insurance company may- find profit in the popular study of this comprehensive scheme. It is entirely true that Mr. Russell is engaged in a most laudable educa- tional work for which he is peculiarly fitted by his store of artistic knowledge, his clearness and readiness of speech, and his fine physical development. — Milwaukee Sentinel. — Editorial. The High Priest of Delsarte.— Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Russell, the high priest and priestess of Delsarte, have been giving a series of lectures upon art study and criticism, color and house decoration, dress, grace, gesture and expression in oratorj r , acting, painting, and sculpture. They have recently returned from England, where for three years they have been giving these lectures in private houses, art studios, and theatres. Many of these lectures were attended by Gladstone, Alma Tadema, Holman Hunt, Whistler, Owen Meredith, Robert Browning, and William Morris. Mr. Russell is a young man with a head and face which seem to have been stricken from some old Roman coin and set upon a pair of sturdy American shoulders. To see him in the picturesque garb he wears in-doors, one is moved to wish that all men could dress in that fashion for a part of the twenty-four hours. Mr. Russell holds that if a man have a love for the beautiful and artistic he should be permitted to give it full sway in his house dress. His coat is something like a shooting-jacket belted at the waist. Three great bronze Japanese sword-hilts, inlaid with gold, form the buckles of this belt. He wears Oriental slippers turned up at the toes and embroidered with gold ; upon his hand a mag- nificent turquoise given him by an Indian prince. When he rises and throws about him a superb cameFs-hair robe, the gift also of an Eastern friend, and, walking across the room, insists that aged men should wear such robes as these instead of an ugly black broadcloth Prince Albert coat, which reveals all the defects of age, you quite agree with him. Mr. Russell declares that the modern male dress has no respect for age and no regard for beauty. "I insist, " he says, "that man has quite as much right to the beauti- ful in dress as woman. Now don"t misunderstand me. When I say this, straightway one fancies that I mean we should return to the fopperies and fripperies of Charles II., the lace ruffles, silken coats, and powdered wigs. No, those details are too effeminate. Man should have strong, dramatic, barbaric things. What is more manly than furs ? or plush and velvet ? There is no such thing as th e artistic dress. I would not presume to lay down laws for individual dressing. Because this costume suits me, shall I say that other men must wear this only ? By no means ; let the artistic dress suit the individuality of the wearer ; let it combine freedom, grace, health, dignity of motion, comfort, peace, and rest ; let it take the complexion, age, and circumstances into consideration. Does the fash- ionable dress do this ? No; it sets itself up as a model to be followed by all. I do not believe in fashion. Art is looked upon only as a fad, some- thing to be taken up as a fancy, when in reahty it is civilization. We must wear clothes ; we must live in houses. What are clothes and houses but phases of art ? "Shall, then, our art be good or bad ? I hold that the highest art is the building of a home. Many homes are mere rubbish heaps, curiosity shops, museums, jetsam and flotsam which 108 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. have floated with us down life's ocean. Go into some of the finest man- sions in this city. What do you see ? A collection of tawdry and com- monplace things— Sevres vases, gilded tables, crimson curtains, all dem- onstrating the ignorance of opulence. However, Fifth Avenue is not the test of art culture any more than it is the test of mental culture. A taste for art is growing everywhere in America— a gradual diffusion of art. People should study more the surroundings that shall harmonize in the individuals than strive to display a rich collection of china and pic- tures. I would be glad to see in every school in this country art classes which should teach students how to build and furnish a home. 11 Mrs. Russell is a delicate little woman with great, blazing dark eyes and an aesthetic bang, like a halo around her fragile face. She has a sweet smile and is the perfection of languid grace. Her gown was of classically-draped crape shawls of ashes-of-rose hue. She wore a curi- ous necklace of Oriental workmanship and gray Suede slippers.— Edith Sessions Tupper. How to Wear Your Diamonds. — The woman with the long neck and long purse is in great luck this season, for necklaces are wonderful, elaborate, and exquisite affairs, concealing with their sparkling splendor any aggressiveness on the part of bony structures, any scantiness of muscular tissue. The Princess of Wales dog collar is here in all its glory. Sometimes it is a fluted ribbon of gold filigree with diamond petalled flowers set in its convolutions. Sometimes it is a crazy network of diamonds and rubies set close together in irregular rows, with ruby flowers blazing from the glittering background at unexpected intervals. It may be a simple collar of diamonds with a fringe of gold ensnaring diamonds in its meshes, or a single row of superb stones from which depends in front a festooning of fine gold chains incrusted with tiny diamonds, in the centre of which flashes a magnificent pendant. One very handsome necklace consists of a row of gold flowers with diamond hearts, from which falls a network of diamonds so delicate and brilliant as to seem like hoar-frost in the sunshine. Gold necklaces with no jewels have a fringe of gold pendants which encircles the neck, or a fall of swaying flowers in gold or enamel depend- ing from supple wire. The woman with the exceptional neck will doubt- less go to the other extreme and wear a slender gold chain, almost invisi- ble, from which falls a fringe of diamonds strung on strong invisible wires, and a blazing pendant. More rare and costly than all the others are the pierced diamonds and pearls strung alternately on a single striug. Diamonds arranged in this way must be cut in the rose style and alike on both sides. The great expense is in the drilling, and the stones thus drilled are less marketable than those undrilled. Chrysanthemum and hearts are the favorite design for pins and ear pendants. The diamond chrysanthemums, with their convoluted petals set outside and in with sparkling stones, are even more effective than the stars, particularly for the hair, while the enamelled chrysanthemums are beautiful in coloring and design.— New York Sun. TVOMAN IN BLACK. 109 "The human face, if endowed -with any measure of intelligence, nobility, or charm, must rise superior and not be subservient to its raiment ; a variety of colors is not brilliancy, nor is be- dizenment distinction."— Hamilton Aide. CHAPTER XIII. WOMAN IN BLACK. A popular fallacy — The traces of age— Street and house dressing — Colors for evening — How to wear jewels — Massive ornaments — Powder and rouge — The effect of "make-up." "It is a popular fallacy with every woman that she looks her best in "black. Does she ? Emphat- ically, no. Black makes the flesh look a little whiter by contrast, but it makes every shadow duller, it makes every line deeper. It ages a person more than anything else. The only peo- ple who look well in black are those who are fair, and plump with no lines, no cares in their faces. Black is inimical to correct taste; people wear black until they think of choosing nothing else." Bold words for a young man to speak before an audience of stylishly-costumed ladies in whose adornings black largely predominated. But never- theless such words spoke Edmund Russell. While he discouraged the wearing of black, Mr. Russell particularly dilated on the beauties 110 A DELSAKTEA3" SCEAP-BOOK. of gray, describing- it as " combining- the negative quality of black and the purity of white." " Dress " being the subject of Mr. Russell's lec- ture, the subjects touched were innumerable. The colors of a dress were to be considered just the same as harmony in a picture. On the street a negative, conventional dress was imperative. In the house individual fancy might reign. It used to be thought that a blonde must wear blue, purple, or green. Worth was the first to robe a blonde in gold color, in harmony with the tints of her hair. That was a sure guide. If the hair be brown, all shades of brown would be becoming to the individual; if gray, nothing would look more impressive than a gray costume with a dash of pink. If the hair were black, the lady should wear gray trimmed with black, perhaps, and the effect would be superb. For evening wear there could be nothing pret- tier than colors relating to the flesh — soft, inde- scribable pink\' browns and drabs. Blue eyes could be intensified by wearing a blue dress. Beauty in color was exactly like music. The study should be to make a harmony, not a sharp contrast, such as wearing brilliant red, which made a woman, unless she were brilliant and scintillating, look chalky and insignificant. Like wearing magnificent brocades, one could see noth- ing but the gown. The personality of the woman was hidden. If ladies would but turn such gor- WOMAN IN BLACK. Ill geous stuffs inside out, where the colors of the big pattern mingled vaguely and delightfully, they would have prettier garments. Then Mr. Russell did not approve of satin; he stigmatized it as "vulgar." As for jewels, the solitaire diamond ornaments were severely criti- cised. They were mere " spots of light " with no relation whatever to the rest of the costume. Diamonds were difficult to wear except when very small, as settings for other gems. "Women had the fault of buying jewels as they did Christmas cards. Instead, they should make jewels a study, and should wear them to enrich the harmony of a costume. To some garnets are especially be- coming. Let such a one buy a beautiful collec- tion of garnets and wear them as her own partic- ular jewel. In fact, gems are only effective when worn in regal quantities. Mr. Russell was greatly in favor of reviving the old-fashioned jewelled girdle and stomacher; also the less expensive and more universally becoming jewels, such as the topaz, the moonstone, the opal, the turquoise. The conventional hat was lightly touched, the lecturer simply stating that hats shaping to the head were by far the more expressive. He re- versed the fashionable adage that it is legitimate to powder, but a crime to paint. A dash of rouge might sometimes be an improvement, but powder rendered faces expressionless by making them opaque and spoiling the delicate shadows. Dark- 112 A DELSAETEA^ SCRAP-BOOK. ening the eyes and reddening" the lips gave pre- cisely the look that hardness and wickedness pro- duced. The hair, too, possessed a character all its own. Worn at the nape of the neck, it was domestic; lower, romantic; on a level with the head, classic; on top, dashing — stylish. Stout ladies, Mr. Russell insisted, should wear heavy materials and draperies .that concealed the lines of the figure. Small, slight persons might don thin goods with many fringes and objects of graceful disarrangement. Masculine Women.— The pernicious thirst in women for masculine attire has been the corruption of good form, and it is to-day followed by a loss of conventional social dignity. Because of this looseness men are careless in their treatment of women. They study their own com- fort, and not only go to dinner in their slippers, but make evening calls in a tennis suit. If it suits them to keep their hands in their pockets they do so, and seem to think that it is hardly worth while to assist a lady into a car or coach or step aside to let her pass in or out of a pub- lic doorway.— Nell Nelson. The Woman Who Knows How to Shop.— What a blessing to her family and the community at large is the clear-headed, sensible woman who knows just what she wants and buys accordingly, fights shy of the bargain counter and auction room ; does not consider anything cheap that she does not need, and scorns to struggle with a hurly-burly mob of people for the sake of securing an article for two cents less than the regu- lar price. To shop with discretion and follow the beacon-light of econ- omy is to avoid the shoals and sand-bars of extravagance. Those who do not need to count the cost of what they buy are in the minority, and hence this matter of shopping should be so cultivated that it will become an art. Indeed, it should be recognized as part of a girl's education to shop wisely and well. Even the most careful of mothers give this all- important matter but little thought. Music, art, and the languages are added to a substantial English education, with perhaps a few lessons in cookery thrown in ; but where is the teacher or parent to be found who thinks it necessary to so train a girl in the art of shopping that she will be brought to consider thrifty management not a bore, but a most womanly accomplishment that, once acquired, will bring with it a de- lightful feeling of self-reliance ? MORE ABOUT BLACK. 113 Harmony.— Heonypeck : " Have you got a dye that will change the hair and beard to a delicate ecru ? " Druggist: "No, s-ir. Why, may I ask, do you wish to dye in that peculiar shade ? " Hennypeck : " Well, you see my wife has had the library decorated in that shade, and she thinks I don't harmonize with it. 11 CHAPTER XIV. MORE ABOUT BLACK. "What it does to Mrs. Langtry and Mrs. Kendal — "Lace by the mile" — Diamonds — Girdles — Rings — Artistic dressing — Mme. Blavatsky — Marie Decca — The In- dian princes. Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, a petite wo- man, in her toilets carries oat the idea of that clever speech of hers, " One should buy lace by the mile, not by the yard." Mrs. Russell teaches the harmony of gowning" and its relations to complexion and physique. Certain white-skinned, dark-haired women look well in black, but it ages any woman who has passed thirty. It deepens shadows in the face and throws character lines into bolder relief. Certain lines come with time, and time forms character, but it is needless to advertise one's age by means of black gowning. Bernhardt, that queen of good dressers, realizes 114 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. this, and spangles her crape with jet. Mrs. Lang- try looked her oldest in the death-agony of Lena Despard as she trailed some costly black stuffs over the stage. It is rarely that either of these actresses is seen in black. Mrs. Kendal looks well in a magnificent black gown as Susanne, but the bodice is low-cut and of velvet. Her jetted gown for Claire in the " Ironmaster," which the actress declares cost a lot of money, ages her quite ten years. Mrs. Russell's ideas regarding diamonds are that they age a woman and detract from the brilliancy of her best points — eyes and teeth. Why should one tip the ear with diamond fire that holds the gaze from its curves and coloring ? The pearl is of all gems the likeliest to soften the face, but every woman ought to study which jewels suit her tints and expression and make a collection of them. It is chic to have a special jewel, as Mrs. Langtry has the turquoise, or Agnes Huntington the sapphire. As to rings, Mrs. Russell thinks that many or none should be worn. An exquisite hand requires no jewels, but the charm of one less perfect in shape, if it be white, is enhanced by a blaze of gems. Mrs. Burnett's fancy runs to rings, but among her choicest ones may always be seen the cold gleam of a tiny moonstone, the gift of Mrs. Har- riet Beecher Stowe, and upon which Mrs. Burnett MORE ABOUT BLACK. 115 imagines turned the tide of her fortunes, as great luck followed the gift. Sarah Bernhardt cares but little for jewels, except in clasps and girdles. The swaying grace, the tigress-like spring of this bundle of nerves and mistress of eccentricities was acquired from Delsarte. Most graceful women who face public audiences are without stays. Contrary to French custom Bernhardt does not wear them, neither does Mrs. Russell, who relinquished them for health, and continues without them for comfort and artistic effect. This charming exponent of Delsarte be- lieves the best effect in dress and motion to be obtained by wearing silken tights or flannel com- bination suit, with the silken or muslin petticoat cut princesse and fitting the figure from the neck down. The gown is of similar cut, with drapery according to taste or becomingness arranged upon it. A secret of artistic dressing is to match the hair nearly as possible for day and the eyes for evening wear, the idea being that if a woman have golden brown or the copper-colored locks of high fashion, let her produce an all-over effect by drapery and veiling and head-gear of the same shade. It is startling, but quite swell. One of the loveliest stage gowns in existence was designed by Mr. Edmund Russell for Marie Decca, as Filina. A grand train of cloth of silver 116 A DELSARTEAN" SCRAP-BOOK. was given her by a German princess. It has sil- ver arabesques, with wreaths of silver lilies woven upon them. The front and loose, sweeping- sleeves are silver gauze, edged with lilies of silver, and the train comes from the right shoulder across the front and flows behind. It is a mistake to think that correct drapery and softly-flowing robes increase the apparent bulk of the figure. Mme. Blavatsky, the seeress of theosoplry, a woman of huge proportions, be- comes graceful and majestic in her simple flowing robe of black satin or of some Eastern stuff. Sal vini's artistic robes as Samson do not materi- ally increase his massive proportions. As has been aptly remarked, a stout woman looks her worst and shows each line of her bad figure in stays and close-fitting gowns. The Easterns, who understood the art of poetic dressing, wore flowing robes, designed with a view to comfort and graceful effect. An Oriental robe of earners hair, richly embroidered like an Indian shawl, is so designed that the fronts lap over one another like points. These swing awkwardly in standing, but w T hen seated they follow the curves of the figure. As the Easterns usually are seated, this design w r as quite correct. These Indian princes had decided views about English life and English women. When taken to parties they were shocked to see the ladies' MORE ABOUT BLACK. 117 faces and shoulders uncovered, and the scandals of the British nobility horrified them. When Mr. Russell walked along* Regent Street with them, after one of their first Delsartean les- sons, they were impressed by the women looking* in the shop-windows. " That is the cause of so much divorce among 3 7 ou," one of them said. "It is the perpetual shopping of your women. Clothes bring discontent into your homes." These young Indian princes were most apt in catching all the grace of the Delsartean move- ments. They declared it to be like the native grace of the Nautch dancers. Delsartism is natural grace of motion and ex- pression. It is tuning the instrument. Nature gives grace to her creations and the exponents of Delsarte teach us to give expression to that grace. Even the elephant is graceful despite its bulk. Its trunk is ever in swaying motion and its tread is light. Nocturnes in Dress Goods.— He has a pretty collection of those aesthetic goods, and has a knack of flinging them over himself in a pleas- ant artistic way that makes the folds hang like the draperies of Greek statues and ravish the eyes like the smiles of flirtatious girls. There is one piece like a streak of moonlight in vague unrest— a silky something of gree^'-grayej^-blue, that now seems one shade and now another and melts into waves of light and shade as its loose folds unrufHe themselves in different glints of sun. It is to color what a nocturne is to music ; an underlying strain of romantic sentiment runs through it not untouched with sadness, if one can comprehend ; it is a hybrid, as it were, a cross between Kathleen Mavourneen and Shuberfs Ave Maria in dry goods. Then there is another piece of this queer varying silk that ever seems as though a film of smoke overhung its surface— a burning, fiery, poppy 118 A DELSARTEAN" SCRAP-BOOK. color that somehow melts away into greeny-gray under the very eye of the spectator, somewhat as a chameleon's hues will change, only more suggestive of the iridescent varying of color in mother-o'-pearl. Then there are rich gold textures, magnificent as the war march in " Les Hu- guenots,'" and eminently adapted for the attiring of stout women ; and there are also— but the art critic and the musical critic would have to work together for a week before they could work out the necessary similes to describe even a percentage of the materials in Mr. Russell's treasure-chest.— Milwaukee Sentinel. The Authoress op " Little Lord Fauntleroy."— They tell a story of Mr. Edmund Russell, who, with his wife, has been an object of idolatry to New York women inclined to physical culture of the aesthetic descrip- tion ever since the Delsarte craze set in. Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett came to Mr. Russell to ask his advice and assistance about a gown. The material she had chosen was a large-figured brocade, which did not promise results that were alluring. "Which is the right side of this fabric ?" asked Mr. Russell. " This, 1 " said the novelist, indicating it to him. "You are mistaken, madam," rejoined Mr. Russell, turning the sump- tuous material over on the other side, where the threads of silk and gold aud silver ran together and the large pattern became indistinct. ' ' This is like poetry, the other is prose. The artist does not recognize the ' right side' of the shop-keeper. 1 ' Mrs. Burnett then helplessly appealed to a matter-of-fact English dame for her opinion, who said : "Well, since Mr. Russell has explained it I perceive that the wrong side is the most beautiful, but I can't stand by in cold Christian blood and see you make it so."— New York Mail and Express. The Music Was Too Much.— A lettter just received from London says that the other day a thief broke into a mansion in Belgravia early in the morning and found himself in a music-rocm. Hearing footsteps ap- proaching he hid behind a screen. From 7 to 8 o'clock the eldest daughter had a lesson on the piano. From 8 to 9 o'clock the second daughter took a singing lesson. From 9 to 10 o'clock the eldest son had a violin lesson. From 10 to 11 o'clock the other son took a lesson on the flute. At 11 o'clock all the brothers and sisters assembled and studied an ear- splitting piece for piano, violin, flute, and voice. The thief staggered out from behind the screen at half-past 11, and falling at their feet cried out : " For heaven's sake have me took to the station, but cheese that bloomin' band ! " DEESS AND PEESONALITY. 119 " Heretofore we have looked upon art as em- bodied in a beautiful picture or statue, to be set in a corner and admired by a privileged few. Now we begin to get glimpses of the great under- lying principles of art in everything as applied equally to dress, household decorations, literature, and social relations, and finally to character itself."— 5. M. hunt. CHAPTER XV. DRESS AND PERSONALITY. The gown and the wearer — What's wrong ? — Different types of women and what they should wear — Cleo- patras and tea-biscuits — Studies in color — Contrast or harmony — How to dress a stout woman. " I spend hundreds of dollars every year for my gowns," said a woman of society, in despair, " and half of them are failures. I am all enthusiasm and hope when I order them; when I get them on I see in a moment there's something- wrong- in color or cut. I can't say where the fault lies, but somehow they seem to be at odds with me. If onhy I knew how to put myself at my best ! If I could only be always certain of the results ! " She had struck the keynote of the difficulty — the gown and the wearer "at odds." Women have been perplexed and harassed with this question of dress since the world began; they have renewed the wrestling and striving with the 120 A DELSAKTEA^ SCRAP-BOOK. return of each rolling season. The richness and variety of materials offered, the breadth of choice in style and fashion, being- but an increase of in- decision and additional embarrassment. In the past twenty-five years women's ways and methods have been given more consideration, and the impulse which demands the development of selfhood does not leave them out. The study of personal relation in the accessories of her life is with each woman, or should be, as close and individual as the peculiar form and phase of each subject presented to a physician. The woman who fails to make a personal analysis, to recog- nize and understand her " type/' will do random work all her life. Nature has impressed every human being with the stamp of a distinct person- ality. A contradiction of this in the relation of the " things " of life brings discord, want of bal- ance, failure. The woman who is disappointed in the effect of her gowns, her bonnets, her jewels, her house, her dinners, her friends, must realize that her perception is at fault; the adjustment of "relations" is bad. It was Jean Francois Millet who said " the beautiful is the suitable." And again, Edmund Russell defines art itself as " rela- tion : the right thing in the right place." The tint of the complexion, the color of the hair and e3 r es, are but a small part of the personnel. The whole physique, the build of the body, mind, manner, will, nerve — all must be taken into ac- DRESS A1S T D PERSONALITY. 121 count in the general " make-up." The type is a fact fixed and inevitable; the wise woman accepts it, and thus sets herself to develop and emphasize its beauties, to overshadow and efface its defects. This thought will guide and control her choice in the purchase of material much more than fashion or cost. " How do you like \ii\y place ? Redeco- rated, you see — everything new; and this Egyp- tian gown ? — it was the most unique thing I could find in Paris." We paused and looked at the wo- man before us. Brown hair, gray-blue eyes, soft color, but the fresh tints of youth lost some years since; eager in thought, but a trifle timid in man- ner; the pond-lily type. If one must give the answer in truth, it must be this : " Why, my dear woman, what a mistake you have made ! The gown is handsome and brilliant; the belongings artistic and beautiful; perfect in relation to each other; in relation to you, nothing' could be worse. Do you imagine yourself Cleopatra, Medea, Phedre, or Theodora ? Wh} r this flame of color in hangings and rugs, these swords and chains, tiger-skins and leopard-spots ? And this gown, with its glow and glint of purple and gold, sug- gestive of passion and intensity ? These are all very fine, but you have contradicted yourself. You, who should be chief and dominant here in your own place, are overweighed, dwarfed, and diminished. Send here a woman dark, flashing, restless, defiant, and your picture is complete. A 122 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. woman such as you needs repose in her surround- ings; the harmony and quietness of nature's un- dertints ; the low tones of blue, gray, and green ; and for accent the flush and gleam of sky-color at sunset." But wall-paper, hangings, and belongings fall into remote value when compared with the near and intimate association of a woman's dress. This is a part of herself, with silent but powerful ex- pression. Throw a length of material over a couch, or a chair, or on the floor, and it is noth- ing — a rag, a rug. Fashion it into a garment, and it has through the wearer life and influence. It lends to her; it borrows from her. Edmund Russell, in his lectures on dress, gives some good points on the construction of a. cos- tume in its three attributes — texture, color, and form. He urges a greater simplicity and higher dignity as necessary to the best expression of the w r earer. " For a woman of light physique," said he, " delicate coloring, vitality, energy, and move- ment, any draping, clinging material — soft wool or lustrous silk — has a peculiar adaptation. The hard, stiff forms of the old brocades, with their prosaic, stencil-like patterns and strong contrasts of colors, suit but few women. They destroy poetic suggestiveness. A large, stately woman may wear them; a small woman, light and wil- lowy, must not ; it is a sin against herself. Re- pose is an idea inseparable from size; let the DRESS AND PERSONALITY. 123 « stout woman's dress create that feeling- : material that will fall in rich, heavy folds, unbroken lines, deep, soft color, and she is at her best. The tight- fitting" black satin, her usual grand costume, is a great mistake. The lights reflected from the brilliant surface reveal the form; revealed form is vulgar, suggested form is poetic. A tall, angu- lar woman wants something light and floating — a material that will follow every movement, mul- tiplying lines and obliterating angles. Proper radiations of lines has everything to do with the grace and expression of a gown. The shoulders and hips are natural points of support. Let the drapery fall from these, and the result is a series of long, curving radiations that give life and beauty. With every change of position there is a new series of lines, all free to follow the swing and sway of movement. Little catches and fast- enings are stiff and meaningless; they break the long sweep that alone gives ease and grace." In the matter of color, the woman of mezzotint takes all the tone from herself when she brings a contrast with depth and intensity. She needs a background, a setting that will harmonize and blend; not black, nor white, nor steely gray, nor chill blue; these are rigid and unsympathetic; but low, warm tones — old-pink, old-blue, rich greens and reds, tints that are not aggressive. The artist's rule suggests the color of the hair or the color of the eyes as a guide for a becoming 124 A DELSARTEAX SCRAP-BOOK. gown. A bright flower in the bonnet, a conspic- uous cluster on the corsage, may add to the style of a costume, but unless the wearer have a glow and brilliancy that give her the vantage, she dare not accept the challenge. What she gains in style she loses in personality. A brilliant lining in a sleeve, a panel, or vest, a striking em- broidery, a showy garniture, if not reached grad- ually as a climax or as a high light in the tone of color, breaks the succession; it means opposi- tion, as when one changes without warning from a major to a minor key in the chords of music. There is a jar, the rhythm is gone, harmony and relation broken. These are but the beginnings of the science that recognizes the trinity of life and seeks to define and ennoble the personality by true and proper expression. It is ever " the first step which costs." The day must come when woman's dress will be much more than the weight-record of a purse. Emma Moffett Tyng. Bulk and Texture.— Diving into the application of his talk, Mr. Rus- sell said that stout women should make a study of textures. " A slight, willowy figure, in constant motion, may wear soft stuff and clinging draperies. A stout woman should wear something in harmony with her bulk, clothes that take heavy folds, suggestive of dignity and calm. We usually see the stout woman bursting out of a black satin, shining like stove polish, perhaps garnished with Jacqueminot roses, or point lace and diamonds, giving the general effect that she is rich and uncomfort- able. If stout women would learn to move in grand, slow rhythm, and wear textures so heavy that the lines of their figures are concealed, they would have a grandeur and dignity that no slender woman could hope to attain/ ' DEESS ATs T D PERSONALITY. 125 Looking Backward. — " ' Where is the clerk ? * V I asked, " 'I have no need for the clerk yet,' said Edith ; ' I have not made my selection.' " ' It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make their selections in my day,' I replied. " ' What ! To tell people what they wanted ? ' " ' Yes ; and oftener to induce them to buy what they didn't want. 1 " — Edward Bellamy. Heard in the Highlands.— " O Marianne, I do think that gown of yours is just too lovely for anything, and it is so appropriate to wear up here ! " The other smiled self - appro viugly. " es," she said, smoothing down the folds of the frock in question, " I do think this gown sets off the mountains better than any other I ever had on.' 1 Fifteenth-Century Veils. — It is not easy, even for "extremists in style," to comprehend the fascination of "veils upon veils," as worn four and five centuries ago. At one period the wives and daughters of well-to-do citizens were satisfied with nothing less than a framework of brass or wire rods upon which to rest the fashionable structure of such gauzy fabric as their purses could command ; never less than two feet, often three feet or more, the precious veiling was upreared, floating over the shoulders like gossamer streamers. A season later additional breadths were in request as a face protector, and swiftly following came Dame Fashion's order for a limitless amount of material to be so bowed and twisted over a starched underpinning as to reach fabulous heights. —Harper's Bazar. A HINT TO BEAUTY. Milliner and hatter show Work to please the beU and beau. But as change is still the passion Of the votaries of fashion, That which just now has a pull We to-day call beautiful. Fashion-plates made in the " fifties," Show us all how weak our gift is To discern what time will cherish From the things that soon will perish. Mother Eve in fig-leaves dressed, Pallas, with her armored breast, Caesar, in imperial state, Show a beauty without date ; While the portrait, once delightful, Forty years may make seem frightful. So let your head be always bare When seated in the artist's chair. — G. F. Hanson in Puck. 126 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. "A knowledge of art is a question of intelli- gence, not 'talent. 1 We study art as we would literature, to appreciate, not necessarily to write poetry."— Edmund Russell. CHAPTER XVI. STYLE OR EXPRESSION. Tight-fitting garments — The lines of drapery — Design and ornament — The selection of brocades — Texture in dress — Fashion-plates are made for nobody in par- ticular, the artistic dress studies the individual. Mr. Edmund Russell, the rising- young* artist who has excited so much interest of late by his lectures on art as it relates to dress and every- day life, says that the dress of women is con- trolled by the word " stylish," which means one thing to-day and another to-morrow, whereas it ought to be governed by expression, which is the outward evidence of interior taste and character. He declares that art underlies all of life and brings us into harmonious relations with all the forces about us. . . . He deprecates the wearing of tight-fitting dresses. The figure should not be revealed, but STYLE OR EXPRESSION. 127 suggested by the motion of graceful clothing. He would not have detached figures in stuffs, such designs as say, looking out from a contrasting surface : " Look at me ! I am a water-lily, or a rose, or a tulip, or a strawberry, or a bunch of grapes." Designs of a distinctive character may be used where the object is large enough and the folds of a size to conceal and suggest rather than to display, but a woman's dress should "sing," not talk. Its lines should yield to every motion of the pliant figure, and should suggest every possibility of beauty and grace. He cites Ellen Terry as an example of grace- fulness and perfect harmony of color and design in dress, but says that generally the dress of wo- men is like the furniture in their houses — a mere collection of unrelated parts. Some of the stuffs designed by the Associated Artists were exhibited as models of beauty and of skill in manufacture. The majority are for upholstery purposes, but after much close exam- ination he had found nothing so suitable for artis- tic dressing. The reverse side of the richest stuffs was best suited for dress purposes, because on these the colors were blended in shimmering beauty, through which the designs were outlined and suggested like the landscape in a lake. Some looked like cloth of gold on the under side, and in all it was quite a subject for discussion as to which was the prettier. 128 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. Soft silk and silk of lighter texture he recom- mended for the slender and willowy women — the more massive textures for larger women, who should wear Watteau, princess dresses from the shoulder, but no tiny lace ruffles or small ribbon bows, or coquettish little frippers of that sort. He was very severe upon whatever tended to check the natural growth and development of the body, to prevent full and deep breathing, or to alter the pure outline of the human form. An error of this kind he considered more serious than we can imagine, because the mischief does not end with the displacement — the loss of vital power of any one organ. It changes the rela- tions of the human being to the whole human race, making a mass of discords instead of a har- mony. No dress could possibly be devised that would suit all, or ought to suit all, dress-reformers to the contrary notwithstanding. The ultimate dress would be partly the result of the general intelli- gence of the race; partly of the taste and culti- vation of the wearer. He thought an ugly thing — a thing that does not belong where it is placed — a sin and an affliction, though often we are not conscious of it; and he said the world had suf- fered, or rather had not begun to feel the joy it would experience in a knowledge and adaptation to the true relations of beauty and harmony to activity and growth. True art holds all good- STYLE OR EXPRESSION. 129 ness in a loving embrace, and is a religion in itself. Jennie June. Blackie on Beauty.— Lecturing last week on "Beauty," Professor Blackie made some very wise remarks on woman's dress, dealing with the question much in the same way as Mr. Edmund Russell. Without doubt, a vast number of women who now present a most unattractive appearance, however expensively and stylishly dressed, would add in no small measure to their charms if they would but cast aside convention- ality, and dress to suit themselves— that is, study their own coloring and physique, rather than the uncompromising rules of fashion, which are apparently made on the assumption that women are all exactly alike.— Ladies' 1 Pictorial, London. The Limitations op Wealth. — The present times give indications of a revival of taste, but the wealth of the masses is so recent an acquisi- tion that as yet the art knowledge is far from enough to even pass around among the great numbers who buy and wear elaborate and numerous costumes and who buy and live in costly and unbeautiful homes.— Henrietta Russell. As we cannot see color without light, neither can we expect sensibil- ity to beauty to grow up naturally amid sordid and depressing sur- roundings.— Walter Crane. 130 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. "An art in some degree peculiar and special to each individual, with the modifications due to his peculiar constitution and the circumstances of his growth.'' 1 — Walter Pater. "The artist gets upward like the humhle but worthy worm, constructs himself, so to speak, as he crawls. 1 ^—Nym Crinkle. CHAPTER XVII. HOW I HEARD OF DELSARTE. An adventure in a milliner's shop— Noses and bonnets — Learning to fly — The relation of dress to expression — Good taste — Artists' wives — Dress and the human body — " Coats of skin" — A Greek investigation. Fate sometimes likes to conceal her art and give us our greatest life-lessons in the form of accidents. Napoleon was accidentally born one day while his mother was on her way home from mass, and he was wrapped up in a piece of old tapestry embroidered with scenes from the Iliad. That was his first lesson in history. If his mother had reached home and he had been born on a clean sheet, he might have been contented to carry home washing all the days of his life and never have dreamed of writing the boundaries of France in red ink instead of blue. And I might never have heard the name of HOW I HEARD OF DELS ARTE. 131 Delsarte if I had not been dragged, into that par- ticular milliner's shop on that particular day. I had just returned from Italy, where I had been studying- painting" in a Florentine studio, and of course thought I knew all there was to know about Art. While I was asked to be the judge whether it should be trimmed with crushed peppermint or crushed caramel, my attention was diverted from my companion to a little lady all in brown and gold, who, with singular grace, was trying on a bonnet. She stood at a large table, tossing over a lot of frames. She did not look in a glass, but would take one and say, " Why, that makes my nose turn right up." I then looked more critically at her face, which I had not examined in detail, and thought to myself, " Of course, it always turns up — a decided pug, in fact." The pile was turned over again. "Now, this makes my nose turn down too much." Sure enough, it was positively Dantesque ! I became alarmed at this " lightning change " business, and watching more closely, saw that she was not satisfied with things that were merely beautiful in themselves, she seemed searching for something more — what, I could not find out. She would hold the bonnet at arm's-length and study all its lines; she seemed to have decided that browns and golds were her most becoming colors, 132 A DELSARTEAJNT SCRAP-BOOK. and to keep to them. Then she seemed in some way to study the relation of the shape of the bonnet to the shape of her jaw, her nose, her mouth, the line of her eyebrows, of the hair on her forehead, and above all, the relation of its g-eneral expression to her romantic type, until at last she found one that seemed "just her," and when she put it on one forgot all about the bonnet. Now, the one she bought was not so pretty a bonnet as the one she threw aside, but when she went out some one said, " What a pretty woman ! " and it stung me with deep shame that I, an artist, did not know all this, for, when my lady companion, who had been taking my super-Flor- entine advice, passed out of the door with me, people only said, " What a pretty bonnet ! " I forgot something, and went back to desper- ately ask the madame if she knew who the lady in brown and gold was who had just bought a six-cent bonnet. " Oh, yes, she's a Delsartean," was her reply. In my ignorance I supposed Del- sartean meant something akin to Tahitian, and thought perhaps I had made a mistake in study- ing art in Florence instead of the Pacific Ocean. I caught sight in the glass of my derby and wondered what it did to my nose. At last I ven- tured : " Delsartean ! and what's that ? " "Oh, I don't know what. They have classes where they stand in rows and flap their wings and try to crow like chickens." HOW I HEARD OF DELSARTE. 133 As I was just then wanting to learn how to fly, I employed a private detective, found and joined the class. Well, that is one of the best lessons in art I ever had, so in gratitude to the milliner's shop I cannot refuse when asked to say a few words on dress, although they will be but a repetition of that lesson. Dress really should be " an art in some degree peculiar and special to each individual, with the modifications due to his peculiar constitution and the circumstances of his growth." It is the most complex and difficult of all the arts, for resting on the framework of the human body, an adjunct and accomplice in all man's ex- pression, it requires the broadest knowledge of humanity and individuality to understand its mysteries. And as the hand of the pianist must be kept in perfect mechanical condition to play well, so must the body, on which all dress de- pends (in every sense), be kept in perfect mechan- ical condition to dress well. A decoration is to make something else beau- tiful. It must not assert, but sacrifice itself. It is difficult to apply art knowledge to daily, ordinary life. We have many good pieces of composition and color in pictures, but artists' wives are notoriously bad dressers, and why ? Because this art belongs to a different realm — the realm of expression. A dress isn't going 134 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. to be admired in a gold frame or on a pedes- tal. It is going" to be on a human being; part j of his life; part of his reality to other men. His every movement will change its expression. Its every line will alter his. The taste that only grasps the beauty of an individual object is a very primitive one. The higher knowledge of art will take that object and so relate it that it becomes part of a harmony — one note in a whole orchestra of beauty; failing this, a home — our highest art work — looks like a mu- seum, a curiosity shop or, oftener, an upholsterer's. So in dress. It is not difficult to become a con- noisseur of a beautiful bust or to see that a hip is a trifle too wide for perfect proportion — to tell rose point from Valenciennes, to know a pretty bonnet when we see it on a dummy or on a mil- liner's assistant. But few know by instinct, and fewer by knowledge, those subtler relations of line and coloring to the lines and colors of the wearer, the expression of different orders of mo- tion as revealing character, the expression of dif- ferent textures in materials, the relation of the lights in jewels to the gleam of the eyes and teeth, to the shadows or high lights of the com- plexion. How to enhance a virtue here and "nugatize" a defect there, and more than this, how to make a dress represent its wearer in char- acter at her best — an art which few know can be studied, and it can be studied. HOW I HEARD OF DELSARTE. 135 It is so much easier to go the way the crowd goes. Most people merely emphasize the general principle of respectability in society by parallel- ism. They " consider it their duty to be of the same religion as the family they are with," as the servant-girl said. The artistic dress is one especially designed to suit all the characteristic points of the individual. The fashionable dress is made for no one in par- ticular; it is adopted by all people, not for their expression, but for its. But no matter how ludi- crous is the combination of dress and woman if it is the " style." I saw a fat woman recently standing on the piazza of the West End Hotel in an Empire gown and a sailor hat. If art — by art I do not mean the study of the special technique of painting and drawing, but real art principles — were made a part of our or- dinary education, we should not have to send abroad for our fashions. Being unable to put the stamp of beauty on ourselves, we accept what others (tradesmen usually, not artists) call beau- tiful, and substitute the words " fashionable " and " stylish " as a compromise. The dominant quality of modern life is wealth — and ignorance of how to use it. The dominant quality of modern art is talent — and ignorance of how to educate it. The greatest need of modern life is a knowl- edge of the principles of art. 136 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. Our changing* fashions are but a confession of ignorance — we do not know enough when we get a good thing to keep it, like an actor who before he finishes one gesture begins another and ex- presses nothing. When in this article I use the word we I do not refer to Americans particularly; for I think in no country in the world has there been such an ad- vance in the study of decorative art and the prin- ciples of good taste, but to the civilized world in general. But yet America, independent, original as she is, has to send across the water for all her ideas as to what to put on her body. (Apologies to the Associated Artists' silks, the finest textile fabrics of modern times, which few, as yet, know enough to use.) We shall grow out of this some time. It won't be at a jump. We have an idea that some one will write the American novel or play, or build the American house. It was never known in the history of art that anything great came all at once. Study the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman. You cannot find the place where one leaves off and the next begins, or where a period does not show the influence of what has gone before. So we must expect a certain imita- tion of continental styles and ideas. Art is a de- velopment, not an invention. A great artist will not arise all at once and hand us a ready-made costume — certainly, we wouldn't accept it if he HOW I HEARD OF DELSARTE. 137 did. When, in our common schools, we discuss not simply the boundaries of China on the prac- tical side, or the " whichness of the what " on the philosophic, but make a study of actual life and how we can best fit an individual for his work in the world — we will find that, above all, he must live and move naturally; that his dress should not interfere in any way with this, and that the studies of correct breathing, free motion, a good poise, harmonious rhythm, are vital problems. Then good dressing may come as something which will help, and not interfere with, these things. Victor Hugo says : " If you want a great na- tion, educate your grandmothers." In the Garden of Eden the Lord gave the spirits presents of " coats of skin." The subse- quent varying and changeful climate of the globe rendered it necessary for them to make them- selves " over-coats." The earliest dress was dra- pery for several different reasons, all closely relat- ed to man's body. The savage in winter took a blanket or a piece of fur and wrapped it around him because he was cold. Then the nations who had ideas of what we call modesty wrapped it around them to hide their form. When people became vulgar enough to consider the human form indecent, dress was no longer made in rela- tion to it, but became itself the important object 138 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. and a mere vehicle of display. It was ornamented and put on because it was beautiful in itself. Our modern dress combines the three purposes, to warm, to cover, to make beautiful, but princi- pally to display the opulence of the wearer. In a natural dress the radiation from the points of support which the body furnishes becomes its highest beauty. Motion constantly changes these radiations — and makes it alive. Dress is the only decorative thing that moves. It is almost a lan- guage by itself. It then takes a still higher beauty from the expression of the wearer — so a simple white drapery thrown over the figure may become very complex in its meaning and take on to itself the expression of everything high or low that a human being can say. Dress is a human, not an artificial study. At one time the natural beauty of the human form was not merely a tradition, as it is now, and the Greeks not only remembered that they " were all naked under their clothes," but even demanded occasional public investigation of the fact, to see if their youth were growing up ac- cording to nature's laws or not; and if not, to apply some remedy of physical culture or gym- nastic, to lift the chest, straighten the limbs, make flexible the tightened joints or strengthen the flaccid muscles, always with an eye to both health and beauty. They regarded the " perfect HOW I HEARD OF DELSARTE. 139 physical sanity of their young" men and women as the noblest sacrifice to the gods." It would have been considered then a crime against nature to lash the ribs together so they lapped over; to imprison the feet till their elab- orate mechanism was reduced to a flat tread, which robbed them of their spring and jarred the whole nervous system in walking; and to kill the expression of the neck in a high stiff collar. Now, it is dress that makes the man and not the bearing of the man that gives the expression to dress. It is now of no importance whether we are even human beings under our clothes, pro- vided they are good clothes. I should not care to form one of a Greek in- vestigating committee in these days, but the lit- tle I know of motion and expression compels me to despise a form of dress that in any way dwarfs or hinders the natural expression of the body or prevents it from speaking its highest and best. Edmund Russell. The Life op Art.— To keep the eye clear by a sort of exquisite per- sonal alacrity and cleanliness, extending even to its dwelling-place ; to discriminate ever more and more exactly ; select form and color in things from what was less select ; to meditate much on beautiful visible objects ; to keep ever by him if it were but a single choice flower, a graceful animal or sea-shell, as a token and representative of the whole kingdom of such things. -Walter Pater. 140 A DELSARTEAN SCKAP-BOOK. " When we believe the world to be good and beautiful, when, in fact, we can see poetry in nature, we may, in the course of time, learn to express that poetry by rules of art. " Were I a great preacher, or speaker of any kind, I would make it my mission to teach this one lesson to America— the love of the beautiful." —Joaquin Miller. CHAPTER XVIII. "GONE DAFT ON DRESS." The effect of the preceding chapter — Chicago ladies crazy on the subject of being artistic — Edmund Rus- sell to blame — Milliners say that since he began lec- turing there they cannot please their customers — Mrs. Hardcash and Miss Simperum — She wanted something to carry out the color of her eyes. She was trying on, one after another, dainty head-gears fit for the beauties who figure in a "Thousand and One Nights." Truly, regarded from an artistic standpoint, some of them were improbable creatures, but in and of themselves they were pretty and each and every one was becoming to her. She had a delicate oval face, as softly rounded as a Raphael cherub, with fluffy hair shining where it caught the light like corn- tassels. Anything was becoming to her. If she had put on a battered old "tile" it would have looked well, and this was the reason why she was "gone daft on dress." 141 valuable as a seller of hats and bonnets. Mrs. Hardcash, who was well on in the forties, and Miss Simperuin, whose age was so thoroughly a movable feast that it was never fixed, each fan- cied that they saw themselves as others would see them when her flower-like face was beneath the bonnet they each willingly selected after she put it on to let them see " just how it would look." The pretty girl stood amid the bewildering array of ribbons and flowers and all sorts of bright-hued gew-gaws, with smiling acquiescence putting on bonnets and hats from the different show-cases, but there was a plainly visible under- tow in the expression and manner as she turned to search for something she did not find which was inquired for by one of her customers. At last they moved on without having made a purchase, and, with a vehemence wholly at vari- ance with her rose-leaf daintiness, she exclaimed, sotto voce: " Out upon Edmund Russell, anyway ! I wish to goodness he had gone with McGinty before he ever struck Chicago ! " Then, observ- ing in a mirror opposite that she had an auditor, she turned and, with heightened color, explained that since Edmund Russell was here two-thirds of the women in Chicago were daft on the subject of being artistic. " Much they know about it," she continued en- ergetically. " They come in here and inquire for things that never were in this or any other 142 A. DELSARTEAK SCRAP-BOOK. stock." Then seeing sympathy in the face of her listener, she added : " Pve been in the trade three years. It looks very pretty, but it is the very hardest stock in the world to handle. What- ever else a woman wears who dresses at all, or however she wears it, she expects her bonnet or hat to make her look pretty. It was hard enough to manage 'em before Russell was here putting all sorts of impossible notions into their heads about matching the color of their eyes and hair and the ' tone ' of the complexion, but now it is little short of maddening. I just -wish with all my heart he had to fit out all his pupils and their friends, for the thing is as bad as small-pox — it's catching, with spring hats and bonnets. He would never live through it — no man could." At this point in the pretty little saleswoman's tirade a group of customers made their appear- ance, led by a woman of enormous bulk, who came up puffing like a tug headed against a heavy sea. She seated herself and inquired for some- thing dressy and stylish, either a bonnet or toque, in gray with a strong suspicion of green in it. " Something," she added, " that carries out the color of my eyes," and she rolled up two small, bulging orbs, resting between cushions of fat, for inspection, while the little saleswoman, with a you-see-how-it-is expression of face, turned to the cases to look for some sort of a head-rig of " gray with a strong suspicion of green in it." "gone daft on dress." 143 After much searching' and trying" on, a lilipu- tian capote of ash-green straw wreathed in leaves of the same shade was brought forth. On the head of the girl who was trying" to sell it, it was bewitching enough to have turned the head and enmeshed the heart of St. Anthony himself. But the woman in fat, with her sallow skin, lustreless eyes, and puffy, colorless cheek, " angels and min- isters of grace defend us," how she did look in it ! As she sat ogling herself in the mirror, to see that her eyes were exactly matched, she resem- bled nothing in the world so much as a Chinese joss. However, her eyes were matched, as her friends assured, and ordering- her old bonnet sent home, she sallied forth with the evident convic- tion that for once in her life she was artistic as to her bonnet. " That was a very mild case," said the little saleswoman, who had grown thoroughly confiden- tial. Then a woman with all the ear-marks of the would-be aesthete came in and asked to see all the newest shajDes, as she wished to study them in relation to her face. " That's another of them, and it will go hard with the shapes," whispered the vender of mil- linery in passing. Then as one after another of the different styles offered this student of herself in relation to bonnet shapes was rejected, the saleswoman ventured the remark that the shape she then had on was becoming to her. She ob- 144 A DELSAETEAT^ SCEAP-BOOK. jected that it was too old for her, although how she could arrive at this conclusion was a mys- tery, as the strong" side light on the mirror brought out in hold relief her full set of wrinkles. After asking for ashes-of-rose, pink, and divers other colors and combinations of color which were not in the stock, she decided to take a fifteen-cent frame, which in shape she said was harmoni- ous with her ensemble. After having inquired if the little saleswoman had attended the Russell lectures, and declaring that he should have be- gun by instructing tradespeople, as really one could not dress artistically when one could not get artistic materials, sighing like a furnace over the shortcomings of those who cater to the public needs, she took her departure. "Hear Russell, indeed!" exclaimed the irate girl as she replaced the stock of bonnets and hats which had been used by this woman in making her " study." " Fve heard enough of him, heaven knows. For the past two months Fve heard nothing but f A decoration is to make something else beautiful; it must not assert, but sacrifice itself/ Ui Dress is the only decorative thing that moves; it is a language of itself.' " 'A secret of artistic dressing is to match the hair as nearly as possible for day and eyes for evening wear.' " ' The producing of an all-over effect by dra- "gone daft on dress." 145 pery, veiling, and heed -gear of the same shade is most thoroughly artistic.' " And also all about mezzo-tints, keynotes, ad- justments of relations, and all the rest of it. The worst of it is that it is the women that have money who listen to him. Our best cus- tomers are no longer suited with anything we can show them. My commissions are just nothing at all. The manager says it is only a fad and that it is the cold weather that is ruining the trade, but I know better; it is Edmund Russell, and I just hope that oblivion will take him un- der her languid wing before he ever has a chance to come back here," and # with a determined little nod and a bewitching smile she turned to attend to a newly-arrived customer. Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth.— Herein lies the great art of dress : to know just how far to draw attention to clothes and no farther; never to allow them to impinge upon the interest that should be centred in the face. I have seen intelligent human beings who apparently chose that their attire should be the first and last thing one thought of in connection with them. No beautiful woman, if she be clever withal, makes this mistake. Her dress may be sumptuous ; it may heighten her attractions if judiciously chosen ; it should never astonish and be- wilder us. We read of the gorgeous attire of Queen Elizabeth, and are dazzled with the cloth of gold, the pearl-embroidered ruff, and jew- elled stomacher recorded in Zucchero's portraits of that vain and ill- favored sovereign. They are the woman ; and take an undue prominence in our recollection of the thin, shadowless face, surrounded and over- powered by so much magnificence. But of her beautiful rival's clothes we hear little ; and when we think of th 3 Hollyrood portrait of Mary, it is the refinement and dignity of the lady we remember, not the splendor of her apparel.— Hamilton Aide in Fortnightly Review. IO 146 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. "Some hosts have no more idea of hospitality than a Congo debutante has of Delsarte.' n — Bill Nye. CHAPTER XIX. IS A CHANGE IN DRESS IMPENDING? The Prince of Wales — The queen's drawing-room at Balmoral — Our present clothes ridiculous, inartistic, and uncomfortable — Sir Edwin Arnold at home — An Indian philosopher and the English ladies— Russian emigrants — Madame Ponisi's description of Rachel. Abroad there is at present great discussion about change in dress. All look for it to come from some higher source than themselves. Some look for a great genius who will invent an en- tirely new order of costume, or declare if the Prince of Wales could only become the leader of the new movement its success would be assured. But, alas! the Prince of Wales' dress consists of trousers, coat, and vest of different colors and different patterns. His dress is like his mother's drawing-room at Balmoral, which is carpeted with Highland plaid, with furniture checked off in the red and green of the Stuart clan. I am tired of waiting for the higher authorities. I put on the garb of mourning in the street, but in the house I claim my right to beauty, to color, to IS A CHANGE IN DRESS IMPENDING? 147 line, to expression, and will take them from any country or age where I may find them. An art- ist who spends his time in the study of beauty and whose mind becomes awakened to the ugli- ness of the pot hat, black coat, check trousers, finds it intolerable to put them on every day. A musician would go mad with such discord in his ears as we have to stand always before our eyes. The musical discord is for a moment, but the color stays and will not change. Modern dress has no beauty of line, design, texture, or color. It hides all the plastic beauty of the figure and robs it of freedom of expression. It cuts the form up into parts and pays no regard to its expression as a whole. There is no reason in our garment. As William Morris said : " We wear a coat without a front over a vest, which is a coat without a back." Clothes are pinched at the chest and are not free at the extremities. They do not give an opportunity for a deep diaphragmatic breath. They constrain the form so that a singer or speaker cannot give full tone to the voice or an actor a good poise to the figure or grace to his movements. A walk like that of Salvini when he appears in answer to the summons of Caesar is only possible in loose garments that grace the form, give freedom to the extremities and liberty of action to every part. ****** I spent a Sunday with Sir Edwin Arnold just 148 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. before leaving- London and found him wearing the Indian " choja " — so dignified and so beautiful. The lines of his beard continued by the lines of the garment, the charm of his manner repeated in the graceful, poetic lines which varied with every changing- expression. I have noticed that when the Indian students attended receptions in Lon- don in their own costume every one asked, " Who are those distinguished Oriental strangers ? " but when they adopted our style of dress it was, "How badly they look in Engiish clothes;" and their grace and dig-nity are spoken of no more. The change is so great that one then realizes the hideous ugliness of their eternal blackness. The high choking collar of modern style prevents moving the head and gives a stiff-necked appear- ance. Properly speaking, the collar should not come above the point where the neck joins the body. I asked a native of India what he thought of our ladies. He replied they reminded him of magnificent antique torsos with movable heads. The Indian woman covers her head with a veil and turns her back when spoken to. Her body is graceful and moves in undulating rhythm. He had never seen an English woman's body move. ****** There has never been a period of such utter stupidity in dress as the present. Even old age is not respected now, and an old man wears the same cut of clothes as his grandson, and all the IS A CHANGE IN DRESS IMPENDING? 149 dignity of lines, flowing* garments, dark rich colors, fur, and velvet, have passed away. Among some Russian emigrants the other day I saw an old man with a long gray beard wearing a coat of gray wolf-skin which ran into all the tones of his beard. With him was another old man with a long red beard who was like a picture in a coat of bear-skin of reddish-brown. Was it accident that these two ignorant peasants had chosen colors to harmonize with themselves? Was it accident, design, or instinct ? If it was accident, then our stupidity must be design, and if it is in- stinct, what is cultivating our instinct ? I think that in every public school there should be instruc- tion in all that relates to the making of a home, to dress, etc. We learn many sciences. We can " poss the impossible," but we can't make a home. We have a little industrial drawing, a little endeavor to make charcoal look like plaster casts and paint like skin. I rarely meet even a well-educated person who can select a good car- pet, a wall paper, and a ceiling and have them all in harmom T . The greatest art work the individ- ual has to do is the building of a home, and there is nothing in modern education that fits him to do it. The principles of line and color, of arrange- ment and of expression, can be as easily taught as the rules of algebra, the movements of the planets, or the boundaries of China. Education should fit us for the life we are going to live and 150 A DELSARTEAN SCEAP-BOOK. should both preserve and develop our individual- ity. What we need is more study of art; not of the arts with their special technique, painting', sculpture, and music, but a knowledge of the principles of art at the centre, the art human, the art of daily life. The models which seem to be followed in dress to-day are the German-sol- dier man and the Noah/s-ark woman. People are less anxious to wear what is becoming than to wear what is the latest style. The fundamental laws of beauty are violated by modern costumes. The beauty of lines radiating from the points of support which is so fine in the Grecian dress is ignored now. A beautiful woman is on her low- est plane in a tight-fitting dress — an ugly woman at her best in drapery. The graceful undulations of the form are prevented by the tightening, which is just enough to cramp motion, and not tight enough to reveal beauty; and the laws of health, as well as those of beauty, are violated. The freedom of motion and the grace of carriage are no longer possible. Men and women are me- chanical; their movements are abrupt and lack the grace of expression. The gestures of people in conversation and of actors on the stage do not extend over the whole body, but are spasmodic, broken, and expressionless. The fundamental law of expression is control at the centre, free- dom at the extremities, and perfect flexibility of all parts of the body, so that it responds to the IS A CHANGE IN DEESS IMPENDING? 151 passing emotion and translates it faithfully. The loves of to-day, not the scars of yesterday, re- quire the highest harmony of motion for their ex- pression. In great actors the body is so sensi- tive that the motion passes over it in great waves, so fine, so complicated in its harmony that we think of it as expression, not gesture. Thus we often hear it said of a great actress, " Oh, she makes very few gestures." Talking once with Madame Ponisi about Rachel, she said : " I can- not describe her. I can only speak of her effect on the audience. We fairly clung to our seats in horror." " What did she do ? " I asked. " Oh, she did not do anything. She only stood by a pillar." Rachel motionless by a pillar and the modern girl motionless in a tailor-made suit stand on the opposite poles of expression. Intervieiv with Edmund Russell. The Home op a Soul.— The house in which she lives, says a mystical German writer, is for the orderly soul which does not live on blindly be- fore her, but is ever, out of her passing experiences, building and adorning the parts of a many-roomed abode for herself, only an expansion of the body; as the body, according to the philosophy of Swedenborg, is but an expansion of the soul. For such an orderly soul as she lives onward, all sorts of delicate affinities establish themselves between her and the doors and passage-ways, the lights and shadows of her outward abode, until she seems incorporated into it — till at last in the entire expressive- ness of what is outward, there is to her, to speak properly, no longer any distinction between outward and inward at all ; and the particular pic- ture or space upon the wall, the scent of flowers in the air at a particular window, become to her not so much apprehended objects as themselves powers of apprehension and doorways to things beyond— seeds or rudi- iments of her faculties, by which she dimly yet surely apprehends a matter lying beyond her actually attained capacity of sense and spirit. —Marius the Epicurean, 152 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. "The end and aim of all our work should be the harmonious growth of our whole being."— Froebel. "Make work what God meant it to be: the school of character. There are only two states, life and death, the presence or absence of helpful association.'''' — Heber Newton. "Books are no more education than laws are virtue." —Frederic Harrison. CHAPTER XX. A TALK ON HOUSE DECORATION. A woman's description of another woman — How to ar- range our walls— Striking contrasts call too much attention to themselves — Complexity in color — Black again— Practical art — What is conventionalization ? One of the most unique, winning, and attrac- tive specimens of womanhood it has ever been my lot to see. Medium size, lithe, panther-like in motion, dark hair and eyes, surrounded by a cloud of wonderful gold-red silken robe which hung about her in straight, scarcely-draped lengths from shoulder to floor. It was the color of sumach-leaves in late fall. It formed a small circle just above the collar- bones and well below the turn of the neck. The back was close-fitting, with corsetless, plump sin- uous curves. The front hung as in the pictures of old Roman senators, ever so slightly raised A TALK ON HOUSE DECORATION. 153 from the feet to the left, forming a few easy folds like so many swan's necks. The sleeves were smooth and long-. The neck was hung in strands of red coral, punctuated at intervals by knobs of carved coral, large as walnuts, from which strands depended irregularly to the waist. The dark brown hair was coiled low on the neck and brushed out at the sides as in that Egyptian picture yon- der. The dark eyes glowed like soft coals of fire from under a low, broad forehead. White teeth snapped and gleamed while she talked, and the small hands spoke quite as much as the lips, I think. Fun of it was we all sat there looking for her appearance from behind a quaint Indian screen that graced the stage entrance, when to our astonishment up she swirled through the aisle from behind us, her long golden train snaking along after her noiseless motion, her graceful head curving from right to left in recognition of the soft " womany " glove-pats that greeted her appearance. Her voice was pitched in a musical, gurgling alto distinct and adaptable. Her man- ner was exactly as it might be here in this ele- gant boudoir talking to us two — anything less like a female lecturer you cannot imagine. " 'Em ; what did she say about the decoration ? " The very first sentence made me think about Mamie D. She said that inherent or natural beauty should never be snuffed out by adorn- ment. You know, Mamie just dredges herself 154 A DELSAKTEAIST SCRAP-BOOK. with, brilliant stones after she is dressed, so that in looking* at her we see nothing* but them, and it never occurs to us that she has wonderful sparkling- eyes, teeth, and complexion. She said that the least bit of inherent beauty was ever so much more important and attractive than that which was accessory, and that when the latter was placed over the former good taste was violated and unconsciously the mind rejected, es- pecially if a trained, attentive mind. She explained the leaning of a cultivated mind to light and delicate hues by saying that sharp contrasts of red and white, black and yellow, blue and red, were but the beginning of observation as in children and the ignorant; the finer varia- tions of color appealed only to developed taste. Good idea I have often wondered why the " com- mon colors" were considered vulgar. Indeed, I remember when they were more attractive to myself than they are now. She objected to pictures as wall ornaments and square frames for backgrounds, saying* they more often than not disfigure the heads and faces of people standing in front of them. For instance, see me stand in front of this yellow frame, green landscape, brown and red figuring, with my blonde tints and lavender dressing. The discord- ance is as bad for your paper too as for me. Prob- ably "low taste" would not experience the sensa- tion of seasickness which such conjunctions pro- A TALK ON HOUSE DECORATION. 155 duce upon the artist in color. Besides, she said that after the first newness pictures were never looked at, studied, or even enjoyed, and that every object taken into the mind mechanically, like this, was bad for the mind, which should be either di- rectly exercised or soothed by that upon which it rested. How many in the audience do you imag- ine remembered looking* at any one picture in their room this week? Just two. She asked them. She objected to portraits as decoration, saying their presence, if at all impressive, was too stimulating. She said it was astonishing the number of things upon which the eye rested and of which the mind took no notice, and asked as a proof of this and also as an education that we count the number of colors in a gray or brown picture. We should find hundreds where we had thought of but two. " The Angelus " she said had thousands. It really looked like the shadings of two, did it not ? You know Mons. Delos is painting my little Margaret, and what was my astonishment to see him mixing up green paint to make her golden curls. " Why, madame knows," he said, " that the shadows of the blonde are al- ways green ! " Who'd ever thought of it ? She said that for herself she could not see the objection to color and variety of it in dress. I could have gone right up then and hugged her. You know the ambition of my life is to dress like 156 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. a gypsy or an Arab chiefs daughter. She did not see how ladies had such a variety of exquisite colors hung- on their walls while they themselves went around in dead-black. All black, she said, except when cut low, invariably made a woman look old. Never was a greater mistake made than in adhering to it so closely. The extrava- gance of compliments that is showered upon a female on the appearance of an unaccustomed black costume is never accorded the woman who habitually wears one. Then we have black, black, black, to match, even to black note-paper ! How long before we shall have black borders on white walls or rooms clad in black upholstery ? There was nothing decorative, she assured us, in black gowns. A bright idea she suggested in this direction was that the religiousness of the nations had, in a way, led to the idea that while there was no harm in the representation of variety on canvas, the slightest approach to adornment of the per- son was a species of vanity that was sin. She illustrated by the case of a celebrated painter who fumed with rage because, forsooth, a lady had asked him to paint her fan ! Many artists, ancient and modern, have stained-in a forest of artistic ideality on square canvases in square frames who disdained to make anything beauti- ful that could by any possible means be made useful as well. Souls and bodies of masters had A TALK ON HOUSE DECORATION. 157 been immolated on ideal " Mother Marys." Why disdain to adorn and beautify the real mother of humanity? Indeed, she thought, however much religious motive the old painters had in painting' these holy women, it was because we de- ified motherhood that we loved their works so well. She spoke of a modern artist who created a sensation and no little fame by his one-color pictures. There was a "red woman," a "blue group," a " white lady," etc., results wrought by grouping all the numerous tints and shades of one particular color. Parodies of this artistic novelty appeared in the blue, red, green, and yel- low rooms which were tiresome masses of single color. She illustrated the idea of the "realistic" in sculpture and painting by a story of a Chinaman who, when given an old pair of trousers from which to model a new pair, copied them exact- ly, patches and all. Speaking of the modern practice of purchasing foreign pictures through agents, she said that few American business men got more than a vainglorious satisfaction out of this sort of thing; that one dared not buy what gave him sensations of pleasure because his sen- sations of pleasure in this regard were not suffi- ciently trained; that their training was a ques- tion of more time than his short, busy life afforded, but that for his children the agency purchase was best, as contemplation meant culture, the 158 A DELSAKTEAN SCKAP-BOOK. better the picture the better the training*, and the next generation could doubtless dispense with the agent. For my part I pity the poor man who must use his wealth and forego his sensations of picture pleasure for the good of his posterity. "Cute ideas, all of them, are they not, dear ? Tired ? " "Oh, dear me, no; these are just the things I want to know. You see, Walter insists on mov- ing- into one of those Riverside palaces in May, and as his taste is fine and time limited I can be a helpmeet to him by being ' up ' on the latest." " ' Helpmeet ! ' Before I'd make as much work keeping- a husband in good humor as you ! That's well enough for a lover or one you are not sure of, but " " There's where you make your mis* take, dear! One is never sure. It means more work to keep than to g-et them. Besides — but g-o on with the decorations." An entirely new idea to me was that of " con- ventionalizing " subjects to make them fit for decorative purposes. I had often heard the word, but did not know what it meant. It means mod- ifying- the representation of a real thing to make it in keeping with its surroundings as a decora- tion. For instance, you know the subjects usually chosen to make a frieze or border on a wall have been of a fanciful, poetical picturesque. Well, in the studio of the celebrated Walter Crane, of London, is a remarkable innovation in this line. A TALK ON HOUSE DECORATION. 159 The frieze represents a scene from a London drawing-room during a reception. The scene transferred bodily from life, with the inevitable mingling of grace and awkwardness, beauty and iomeliness, delicacy and stiffness, would have Jnade anything but a desirable ornament. The really real was first spiritualized by being copied in bas-relief. Then only such figures were chosen as possessed unusually fine proportions of limb and figure. They were disposed on curving hard benches to show them off to best advantage, in- stead of upholstery, which swallows curves. The unconventional in dress was chosen — the empire gown, the unsewed robe — for of all the inartistic things in all nature or art the seam is the worst. Men of unusual length of limb were chosen to soften the effect of the modern evening dress, and a still greater license Avas taken with one who was engaged in giving a recitation. His figure was draped in Florentine costume tinted in pale color. The effect was electrical in the decorativ? world especially recognized by such authority as Mr. Crane. The question arose with me whether we should not now, in the interest of art, choose our friends by their length of limb and fill our parlors only with gracefully disposing figures. I>3 T the way, she analyzed the word convention- ality by saying we convene together and decide so and so — that hats shall be worn at such times 160 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. and removed at others, that we bow on meeting* acquaintances, etc. This way of putting- it robs the word of half its horror. Her name ? Oh, dear me, to be sure — Mrs. Edmund Russell. Her nation? American. Her art ? The art of art. Good-by ! Fannie Edgae Thomas. The Fulfilment op the Law.— There is no branch of human work whose constant laws have not a close analogy with those which govern every other mode of man's exertion. Exactly as we reduce to greater simplicity and surety any one group of these practical laws, we find them passing the mere condition of connection or analogy, and becoming the actual expression of some ultimate nerve or fibre of the mighty laws which govern the moral world. However inconsiderable the act, there is something in the well-doing of it allied to the noblest forms of manly virtue— the truth, decision, and temperance we regard as honorable con- ditions of spiritual being have a derivative influence over the works of the hand and action of the intellect.— Buskin. What a Stout Woman Must Not Wear.— The stout woman is always asking what she shall wear. Now these are some of the things she should not wear : She should not wear a tailor-made suit fitting her figure closely ; it brings out every pound of flesh for the benefit of the looker-on. She should not wear a rosette at her belt, either at the back or front ; it makes her look thicker through. She should not wear a lace or ribbon ruff about her neck, though the soft feather one is per- missible if it have long ends. She should not wear a short skirt ; it gives her a queer, dumpy look that is specially undesirable. She should not wear her hair low on her neck ; it should be high and arranged with great smoothness, though it need not look oily. She should not wear a string of beads about her neck, rings in her ears, or, if her fingers are short and fat, many rings on them. Compliments which we think are deserved we accept only as debts, with indifference ; but those which conscience informs us we do not merit we receive with the same gratitude that we do favors given away. IVORY AND GOLD. 161 "Decorative art is at once the seed and the fruit of all great art. " —Frederic Shields. CHAPTER XXI. IVORY AND GOLD. The relation of objects — A copper dining-room — Com- plexion and wall-paper — A study in harmony — Frieze of magnolias — Painted portieres — A new simplicity. Edmund Russell, who is to set sail for Eng- land shortly, has taken up his residence in Brook- lyn for a time, in order to complete a work of in- terior decoration in the house of a Brooklyn citi- zen. Two rooms have been treated by him, one in gold and ivory and the other in copper and pale, warm brown. The parlor has been tinted — walls and ceiling — in a not very positive white (the last attenuation of gray with a suspicion of green in it), and this is mottled w T ith gold, flecked lightly and loosely over the surface. A broad frieze, separated from the rest of the wail by a thin strip of moulding, is adorned in a large, free, simple stj'le, with leaves and blossoms of south- ern magnolia grandiflora and conventionalized suns a la Japonaise. The color throughout is kept light and refined, and the decoration is easy 162 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. and unforced. In the room adjoining, where a pale tint of copper is used as a background and is overlaid with dashes of bronze powder of strong copper tint, the frieze decoration is a suc- cession of pine boughs, lightly fringed with their needles, and striking upward diagonally in brisk and angular growths. Above the large sideboard is a boldly-executed panel, representing magnolia blossoms and their heavy, polished leaves, with much brown in their stems and shadows. The first room seems suffused with a tender light, that clears and softens the complexions of its occupants by emphasizing the delicate flesh tints, while the second room has a suggestion of warmth, cheer. It would make a good dining- room, and is, perhaps, intended for one. Between the two hang silken portieres painted with lilies. The lilies are not painted on the silk in oils that are disposed to spread and look greasy around the edges, nor in water-color that looks weak and is in danger of removal in the process of wiping off stains with damp cloths, but in ani- line dyes laid on with water-color brushes, and instantly becoming part of the very texture of the fabric. This is a bold experiment, and should not be tried except by experienced draughtsmen and colorists, for a false line or a spot of false color is there to stay, and might spoil the entire por- tiere. The gold and copper used in flecking over the walls are merelv two shades of the common IVORY AND GOLD. 163 bronze powder that is purchasable in all sorts of tints and is easy of application. Mr. Russell's decorations are a new departure, not toward a merely greater simplicity, but a higher simplicity. Our houses have become so "cluttered up," to use the housewife's phrase, and so few have the gift of massing and arrange- ment whereby the tone of a room is maintained, and not converted into discord, that this reac- tion toward simplicity is one that appeals to the best taste for countenance and support. The scheme of decoration adopted in the instances above described can be nullified by the introduc- tion of things that have no affinity to it in form or color. The delicate gold and ivory of the par- lor is injured by the heavy blacks and browns of the doors and window-casings; it can be com- pletely spoiled by red and green carpets, gorgeous Turcoman portieres, plush furniture in red and blue with walnut and ebony foundations, pictures in walnut frames or surrounded with shadow boxes, crazj^-quilt tidies on the chair-backs, and vivid cloths and scarfs for the tables. Every- thing in the room should be light and delicate in color. "Water-colors in pale gray mats and gold frames or white frames would be better on the walls than oil-paintings, unless the latter were represented by vaporous Corots or high-ke3 T ed Fortunys; furniture not of the Renaissance shapes, because the} T were affected and weak but 164 DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK of the colors employed by upholsterers of the Renaissance epoch, would be more fitting" than objects in dark woods; the curtains should be of Madras, with creamy tints, rather than cold and starchy-looking" lace ; the rug" or carpet, while a little stronger suggestion of stability and sub- stance is permissible under foot, should be of small pattern- and delicate color. A room like this is one of the few that will bear a marble fireplace and mantel, though tile would serve a better pur- pose. Whatever bric-a-brac is distributed should be in pale shades of yellow or rose. A few peach- blow vases would not upset the color equilibrium. In the dining-room more positive color is not only admissible, but necessary, in order to match the browns and reds of the copper and terra-cotta tints. Black walnut can be endured there, but cherry and ripe oak are better, and more play and liberty can be given in the choice of pictures, portieres, carpets, and ornament than in the par- lor. There is, perhaps, in such cases a tempta- tion to go to excess, and to overload the apart- ment with objects that are of intrinsic value and beauty. The room bears such treatment better than a light one. If strong reds are introduced, the complexions shown against them are apt to suffer. " I know a house," said Mr. Russell, (i with a red room that gives the whole family the color of raw beef. They are rather highly-colored people— high livers, probably — and the strong- IVORY AND GOLD. 165 red of the walls brings out the strong* reds of their cheeks, so that they look like butchers." C. M. Skinner. Dresden and Sevres.— Mr. Russell uses in his illustrations what are known as the fabrics of the "Associated Artists, 11 which, he naively re- marked, "lam proud of exhibiting as triumphs of American manufac- ture, and which I really consider superior to any fabrics I have ever seen abroad, either ancient or modern." These fabrics were designed by Mrs. Wheeler, of New York. Taking up a piece of rich brocade, a harmony in ivory and gold, with a suggestion of leaves and the long stems of floating lilies, Mr. Russell said: "Twenty years ago, this would have been made with yellow ground, green leaves, and white lilies— a veritable torture to the eye. Now, however, we have learned to use colors as we would notes in music — for suggestion, not literal imitation. Our room must be a harmony, not a botanical garden. So here we borrow but the line of the lily's stem, and subordinate its color to the color harmony we wish for in our cur- tain. Here, also, 11 remarked the gentleman, "is a piece of Dresden china which completely violates the principle that a decoration should be subordinated to the thing decorated. It belongs to what I call the 'scrap-book ' school of art, a near relative to the crazy quilt, although it may be stamped with a royal monogram. The little realistic roses spotted around its edge are unrelated enough to the general design, and the pair of lovers in the centre of the plate who might be seen to smile sentimentally through clear jelly, would cut but a sorry figure beneath roast beef and gravy. My summing up of Dresden and Sevres is, Venus rising from the sea in a soup-plate. 11 The Right Thing in the Right Place.— In a studio effect we may associate objects for mere beauty— an old rag may be kept for an effect of color. In a museum objects are related by their meaning or truth, and a mediocre work may illustrate a period. In a workshop usefulness, worthiness is dominant. In a home our relation is a larger one and all degrees are comprised. Things must be beautiful and true and good, re- lated to us, belonging to us, expressing us at our best— our taste and culture, our personal likings, our comforts and needs and not merely the high-tide mark of our purses.— Edmund Etissell. 166 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. " We cannot arrest sunsets nor carve mountains, but we may turn every English home, -if we choose, into a picture which shall be no counter- feit, but the true and perfect image of life in- deed. "—Ruskin. " The beautiful is the suitable.'"— Jean Frangois Millet. CHAPTER XXII. THE MAKING OF A HOME. Our highest art-work — "Walls or people— A dramatic study — The world in mourning — Picture-frames — Wall-paper — Decorations — Lighting, etc. The highest art-work of the individual is the making* of a home. What a striking* picture the people made in "Louis XL" as Irving' gives it, though they are assembled in the stone chamber of a castle. A few evenings after seeing this tragedy, I attended a reception in a New York mansion. The walls were covered with pictures, the rooms full of furniture, plush curtains, mirrors, gilt frames, placques, vases, statues, bronzes — everything speaking of commercial prosperity — wealth. Pres- ently the people entered — they were all in black THE MAKING OF A HOME. 167 and sat round, with rigid arms and nervously- clutched hands. In the ancient time the people formed the pic- ture, the few decorations of the old castle offset them and made an effective background. The modern parlor gives too much ostentation of wealth— says simply " we have money enough to own all these things" — the walls form the picture, and the people are but some more spots in the general spottiness. The difficulty of a harmonious arrangement in- creases with the number of objects to be arranged and related. Art means the right thing in the right place. A beautiful thing is not beautiful out of place and proper relation. We have too much in our rooms. William Morris says: "Have nothing in your home that you do not either knoiv to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." Begin by tak- ing out those objects of indifferent use or beauty. Many picture frames are so gorgeous that they strike the eye as a blinding square of light and we do not see the pictures. There is too much gold in our rooms. Mature gives us gold in small quantities. A frame is to protect a picture and to relate it to the wall; the frame should not be in strong contrast either to j)icture or wall. Group etch- ings together, and put engravings in the port- folio. 168 A DELSAETEAN SCRAP-BOOK. Let a picture be suggestive and restful. Pic- tures that describe things or tell too much of a story disturb a good wall surface, as they insist on being examined in detail. Don't be in a hurry to cover your wall. Get a good wall first. Probably there is not a person present who could not improve his parlor by taking out half the things in it. In wall paper we must distinguish between a picture and a dec- oration. A decoration should be subordinate to the thing decorated. Our wall paper is but a background — it should be backward about com- ing forward. Scrap-book pictures — Cupids, garlands, etc. — are childish and out of place on a ceiling. Beware of things that shine. Lighting is an important matter. A central chandelier adds years of age and care to the face, by throwing a shadow under every line and wrin- kle. Besides, it merely lights the room and gives no dim and interesting corners. "Don't take anybody for authority in art," said Mr. Russell in conclusion. " Study principles instead. Don't think that because a rug or a vase is Oriental it must be beautiful. It is true that the Oriental has an instinctive sense of color, but even he sometimes makes bad things. We never do anything so w T ell as he in his best work, but that is no reason w T hy we should not apply the principle of color in judging his pro- THE MAKING OF A HOME. 169 ductions. These principles I suggest to you, leav- ing you to apply them 3^ourselves. In decorating a room study, too, the people who are to live in it. Complexion is a legitimate study, only put your paint and powder on the wall." Art in the Kitchen.— There was once a woman who had the strongest faith in the value of home missions. She put a contribution for the con- version of the heathen in the plate at church once or twice a year. She belonged to several boards of ladies who managed charities, and she read a great deal of literature written to show just what was wrong with society, and just how it should be set right. But all the while, she confided to her husband, she was more interested in domestic missions than in any one of these stirrings after a general millennium, and her principal mission station was in her own kitchen. "Now, you know, 1 '' she said to that sympathetic person who used to listen to reports of mission work after dinner, " that there are several members of our board who are greatly interested in the question of im- proving the tenements. They are trying to get new ones built where there will be lace curtains and pots of geranium at the window, which will elevate the tenants and set a standard of beauty and cleanliness for them. I think it's a very good idea, and I mean to apply it in my own kitchen." In course of time there were hung at her kitchen windows little cur- tains of dotted muslin that could be easily washed, and though no gera- niums were put on the window-sill, because they would be in the way there, there were two pots of fresh scarlet and green in cheap swinging iron brackets that could be turned out of the way when the window was raised. Three or four small rocking-chairs that cost but little had their tops tied with bows of bright ribbon, and across the mantel was a strip of crash with a bit of outline needle-work upon it. The missionary re- ported that this has as good an effect in the kitchen as it possibly could have in tenements, that the maids had begun to pin up on the walls some of the prints from the magazines, and that they had bought two more pots of flowers and a canary. Pursuing this idea farther, the mis- sionary bought a book-shelf and filled it with books. "I observe, 1 ' said she, "that all people who follow any industry are supplied or supply themselves with the literature of their trade. But no one supplies house-:- ervants with books to tell them how to improve their 1 service, and yet most of them know how to read." So she bought several cook-books, including Juliet Corson's, and books of advice to young housekeepers, and books that tell how to live on five hundred a year, and selections from the large supply of excellent matter that experienced housewives write for the benefit of those less experi- 170 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. enced, and finally she subscribed to a magazine devoted to such matter. It was suddenly revealed to her that the mistresses had been reading these things all the time, while those who were in far greater need of in- struction never had an opportunity to improve their minds. This litera- ture had not the sudden success of a Virginia authoress 1 novel, but in course of time the gay bindings and pictures attracted attention, and the book-shelf got patronage. The effect was not long in appearing. The magazine was looked forward to and read with interest, and a thou- sand new suggestions as to possible ways of doing and improving their work were gathered and acted upon.— Harpers Bazaar. A vast similitude interlocks all, All spheres, grown, un grown, small, large ******** All men and women— me also, All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages, All identities that have existed or may exist, on this globe or any globe, All fives and deaths— all of past, present, future, This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned, and shall forever span them, and compactly hold them.— Walt Whitman. THE PEACOCK DINING-ROOM. 171 " The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter — perfect in its bud as in its bloom, •with no reason to explain its presence, no mission to fulfil— a joy to the artist, a delusion to the philanthropist, a puzzle to the botanist, an acci- dent of sentiment and alliteration to the literary- man. 11 — Whistler. CHAPTER XXIII. THE PEACOCK DINING-ROOM. Foreign palaces and American homes — How houses should be decorated — The colors used should har- monize with the complexion of the hostess — Brie-a brae must be selected carefully and not merely be- cause it is pretty — Choosing pictures — Some famous rooms. American homes, considered from an artistic point of view, are superior to those of England and France. Edmund Russell, the art critic and lecturer, is authority for this statement. He declares that no matter how much we imitate English man- ners and customs, our homes show a higher grade of decorative art than those of our cousins across the sea. In a chat with a Mail and Express re- porter Mr. Russell said : " Nowhere is such good modern decorative art found as in America. The old palaces of England 172 A DELSARTEAN SCEAP-BOOK. with their striking* crimson curtains suspended from glaring- gilt cornices, their landscape car- pets and crimson and gold furniture, are trying to the eye. They are stiff and uncomfortable, but to change them would be considered sacrilege. In this country better taste is displayed in the orna- mentation of the home, whether it be that of the millionaire or of a clerk in his employ. The test of decorative art taste is not a house on Fifth Avenue, but that of the average resident. Wher- ever you go in America you will see evidences of good art taste. In a street-car your eye will fall upon a silver-handled umbrella, or a Japanese leather pocketbook that harmonizes with the owner's costume. " The show-windows and ceilings of our barber- shops, cigar stores, and drinking-saloons even display excellent taste. The entrance to some of our office buildings and apartment houses are finer than those of many of the palaces of the Old World. Yet, while we have made great progress, there is still much to learn." " Is there not much poor taste used in furnish- ing houses ? " " Yes. Many people's rooms are a collection of unrelated objects. They see an article of furni- ture, a beautiful vase or a picture that looks w T ell in a shop-window, and they order it sent home without any regard for the place it is to occupy or the effect it will produce. The main thing in THE PEACOCK DINING-ROOM. 173 the decoration and arrangement of a room is harmony. There should be harmony of design as well as harmony of color. As an example of what may be done I will instance a room that Whistler did in Leyland House, at Queen's Gate, South Kensington, for which he received $20,000. It is known as the ' peacock dining-room/ and you sometimes hear it spoken of as the room in which two peacocks have had a fight. It is one of the most wonderful pieces of decoration I have ever seen, and is a strong illustration of Whist- ler's versatility and power. The room is remark- able for the manner in which it shows the magnifi- cent collection of ceramics belonging to the master of the house. It is exceedingly difficult to arrange a collection so that the general effect is good. Either the owner is an enthusiast on one kind of art, and keeps on collecting until he turns his house into a museum, or the different pieces have no relation to each other, and the effect of the whole is inharmonious. " Whistler covered one whole side of the pea- cock dining-room with cabinet work, forming niches and recesses for the beautiful specimens of blue and white Nankin china. The woodwork was ornamented with Japanese carving and col- ored a greenish-bronze. Each niche is archi- tecturally designed to suit the shape of the piece of china intended for it. The lines of the carving harmonize with the general design of the room, 174 A DELSARTEAjS" SCRAP-BOOK. and the collection of china, softened by "being half in shadow, becomes subordinate and does not obtrude itself as a series of blue and white spots. " The walls of the room were originally covered with magnificent antique Cordova leather, pre- cious and rare ; but Whistler dared to subordinate even this to the general scheme of color. While many London artists wrung their hands with horror, Whistler painted the Cordova hangings a dull greenish-blue, with here and there a scale- like conventionalization in greenish-bronze of overlapping peacock feathers. The general har- mony of the room is of a greenish-bronze and peacock blue. "All the woodwork is in greenish-bronze, the panels occasionally marked with a conventional- ization of peacock feathers. The entire w T all space of one side of the room has a Japanesque decora- tion of two peacocks in outline. The whole is done with that masterly stroke of Whistler's, suggesting so much force, boldness, and enthusi- asm, and yet calculated with so much study and patience. " It is a mistaken idea that Whistler is a quick painter. He thinks and studies a great deal before every brush-mark, but the stroke itself is made with great dexterity. The ceiling of the room is a marvel. It was shaped like a water- spout and carved in whorls of peacock's feathers, terminating in Oriental lamps of iridescent glass." THE PEACOCK DIJSTIKGr-ROOM. 175 " What is the most important thing- in house decoration ? " "A room should be conceived as a piece of music is — in a certain key. There should be sym- phony and harmony. Pictures should be consid- ered with as much regard to their surroundings as to their individual merits. In selecting the prevailing color of a room the complexion of the lady of the house should be taken into account. So important is the effect of color upon a person's appearance that every change of color changes not only the color of the skin, but that of the hair and the eye as well. I have seen a red back- ground of a dining-room which made host and hostess look the hue of a boiled lobster, while delicate grays, greens, and blues will give a fragile person almost a corpse-like expression. " To show how a room may be studied in rela- tion to the persons who inhabit it, I will speak of a drawing-room which I once decorated for a lady. I studied the general tone of complexions, then mixed my wall color to a similar tone, bat made it dirtier and grayer, so that when one stood near the skin looked clear and fresh beside it. I made the tone a little greener and colder than flesh, so that one looked lighter and warmer and was enriched by the contrast. Any one who stood in front of that wall looked five or ten years younger than they were. At a reception which was given after the room was 17o A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. opened, every one remarked what a beautiful complexion the hostess had. "In a room for a reception the walls should be considered merely as a background for the guests, who themselves are the ornaments of the room. The beautiful blonde leaning against a golden wall, or the brunette standing in the shadow be- fore it, are the pictures. The walls should not be broken by collections of placques, bric-a-brac, or mirrors to distract the attention. "The floors of rooms should carry out the gen- eral harmony. Conventional designs only can be tolerated in carpets. In decorating a room it is usual to begin with a dark floor and to make the walls lighter as we approach the ceiling. The arrangement of the door, the mantel, and the sofa are the dramatic effects of the room. The man- telpiece, with the fire as its central object, the door where we welcome our guests, and the sofa where we entertain them, should have the richest effects concentrated." " How about lighting the room ? " "Our strongest fight is against the central chandelier. It fills so much space, detracts from the height and dignity of the room, and casts downward shadows which make people look hol- low-eyed and wrinkled, and add years to a per- son's age. Lighting should be from the sides of the room, but the lights should not be in spots or at variance in color. The millinery effect of THE PEACOCK DI^I^G-ROOM. 177 laces, flowers, and ribbons on the lamps should be avoided. Soft low lights on the dining-table should be used to counteract the downward shadows. Rose and pink shades give pretty ef- fects, and are ornamental as well." J. F. Clark. "All his theories are eminently practical, and are not intended for women who can squander thousands in the gratification of whims, artis- tic or otherwise. The underlying principle of his philosophy is appropriateness. He does not think that taste and beauty can be evolved from money alone. With a judicious exercise of brains and taste satisfactory results may be had where the means are very limited. He believes that a small and inexpensive house may be the house beautiful ; and that inexpensive material may be combined in costumes beautiful, fit, and becoming. He is the avowed enemy of the advocate of style ; of conventional upholster- ers and decorators; of men who insist upon selling you the 'latest' de- signs in hangings, wall paper, and carpets. His counsel every time, and all the time, is, exercise your own judgment; think for yourself and do not be influenced by people who assume to know, while in reality they are ignorant of the simplest rules of art. He has a profound contempt for things that simply proclaim their cost— big diamonds, thick silks that are only costly, and for all the articles of personal wear or household belongings that are constantly ticketing themselves, when you step into a drawing-room, like the bric-a-brac on a ' bargain ' counter in a shop. 11 — Chicago Inter-Ocean. Byron's Coronet.— Not very long ago a party of distinguished English visitors were being entertained at a dinner party by Mr. George W. Childs, the millionaire proprietor of the Philadelphia Ledger. Noticing that one of the guests was looking somewhat intently at a peculiarly shaped dish-holder at one end of the table, the host genially remarked : " Isn't that a curious bit of plate ? Do you know what it is ? Well, it is the baron's silver coronet which the poet Lord Byron wore at the cor- onation of George IV. I have had the velvet cap removed, and, by turn- ing it upside down, have converted it into a dish -holder ! " The feelings of the English guests present may be easily imagined at seeing mashed potatoes steaming in the silver head-gear of England's renowned poet. 12 178 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. " This simple law of relation, applied to decora- tion, illuminates criticism, and will help much toward the proper making of a home." — Decora- tor and Furnisher, New York. CHAPTER XXIV. HINTS ON ARTISTIC DINNER-TABLES. Color in table decoration — An effective scheme — How to plan an arrangement of color — A red luncheon — Sevres and Dresden— A bachelor and his brocades — A new sandwich — Some noted dining-rooms. "All I have said of color in dress and house decoration applies to the table. Any scheme of color may be employed, but it must be well car- ried out. A table is too often only a confusion of spots. It is extremely difficult to arrange, espe- cially for a dinner, on account of changing- courses that make it hard to find appropriate colors for the dishes served. A luncheon is much easier to manage, because the menu is more restricted. A simple color scheme such as white, yellow, or pale gTeen is easiest to carry out, but whatever color is taken as a keynote should be carried out in every detail. " Suppose we start with amber and white or with green and white, something that will readily HINTS ON ARTISTIC DINNER-TABLES. 179 harmonize with celery, salads, ices, and such other articles of food as are needed at lunches. This will be a safe beginning-, for while we can arrange a side table with a profusion of colors, a Rubens-like richness of tint, it is much easier to carry a simpler scheme through a whole meal. Starting with amber and white, I would choose a white with a yellowish or a greenish cast, not a chalky white that is dull and dead, and will not melt into any harmony. Remember that a study in white is quite a different thing from mere ab- sence of color. White is the combination of all colors and is therefore the most spiritual. But our highest conception of white is not a mere mathematical mixture of red, yellow, and blue; matter, soul, and mind. That seems like a nega- tion. But let the spiritual yellow slightly pre- dominate and we have a luminous white, a white full of life and light such as we think the angels wear. This white is full of sunshine, harmonizes with our amber tints, and can be followed up even into the darkest bronze. This is the white that I would choose. Then I would have amber glasses, linen of creamy brown, while all the tints from white to bronze would offer ample scope for choice of other dishes and viands. Apricots could be heaped in an amber dish, ices could be tinted in harmony, and in the centre could be placed a great mass of white roses. Green and white could be worked up in the same fashion. Indeed, 180 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. there is no color that cannot he taken as a key- note for our scheme, hut I would avoid crude, aggressive tints, for they are harder to manage and produce less pleasing effects." Mr. Russell, who, "by the way, is most fertile in illustration, finding examples of art principles in 'everything 1 ahout him, frequently called atten- tion to places and things by way of enforcing his theories. "Apropos of my remarks on white," said he in one of these interesting digressions, " I may refer to the dining-room of Oscar Wilde — that is a study in white. It is a beautiful room, in the most delicate possible tones — pale yellow, pale green, opal, and amber, the general effect being of white, with only a suggestion of the colors that have united to make it. "A charming effect may be obtained by doing* away with the cloth and allowing- the table to become the keynote of our color study. An oak table with its rich yellows and browns, in which there lurks a suggestion of green, would afford an easy and charming color scheme with which our amber, bronze, and yellow would be in per- fect harmony. I remember a delightful red lunch- eon given by Mrs. De F , of London, in honor of Karl Formes during his last London visit. The dining-room was in dark red and carved black oak, its red walls strewn over with a suggestion of lotus leaves and flowers in dull bronze. There was no cover on the red mahogany table that HINTS ON AETISTIC DINNER-TABLES. 181 was adorned in the centre by a great bank of English wall-flowers, so arranged that their stems and leaves were entirely concealed, while their copper and orange tones touched and blended into the dull red of the table. The menu consisted of tomato soup served in Kaga plates, red mullets, and pates in great red Japanese dishes representing fish and animals. All the dishes were a study of harmony in color, from the red-brown ducks served on earthen platters to piles of red jelly and crystallized fruits. Strange bronze spoons and curious objects of red enamel from different lands aided the general color har- mony while adding interest by their curious work- manship. The hostess and her beautiful daugh- ter were attired in red, the mother wearing garnet ornaments and the daughter strange Ori- ental beads that exactly harmonized with the color scheme of the room. "A point to be remembered," insisted Mr. Rus- sell, "is that matching a color is not a study in color. Nothing but a monotony can result from the continued use of one tone. It is all a ques- tion of harmony. Much as I dislike Sevres and Dresden china, which I characterize as 'Venus rising from a soup-plate/ I was recently at a din- ner where it was used with charming effect. There were great Dresden candelabra garlanded with roses and supported by Cupids. The cloth was sprinkled over with roses embroidered in 182 A DELSARTEA1ST SCEAP-BOOK. exactly the tones of the garlands above, while in the centre stood a great cut-glass bowl contain- ing a mass of hyacinths that fell in profusion over its sides, almost touching and mingling with the flesh of the Cupids that showed exactly the same tone. The effect was beautiful because it was a harmon}'." Speaking of brocades in table decoration the artist said : "All must depend upon the way they are subordinated to the general color scheme. They often help to unite flowers or other orna- mental objects with neighboring articles, and are equally useful as a means of separating coarser dishes, such as meats, from those delicate ornaments of the table that would seem incon- gruous in close proximity. The prettiest use I have ever seen made of brocade was at a recep- tion given by a bachelor lawyer in the Temple, on Fleet Street. He is a great connoisseur and col- lector of rare and antique objects. The table w T as set back against the wall and covered with long, parallel strips of brocade of different kinds, each tone, however, harmonizing with its neigh- bor and with the kind of china laid upon it. Be- neath his pale Sevres china with Watteau figures and jewelled medallions lay a strip of delicate blue brocaded with dainty Renaissance garlands and ribbons. His massive gold Dresden covered a piece of rich church embroidery heavy with gold and splendid in texture; while his old Chi- HINTS ON ARTISTIC DINNER-TABLES. 183 nese blue, Satsuma, his capo de monte and Gubbio majolica each reposed upon a bit of texture ex- actly harmonizing with their scheme of color. This is the only instance I have ever seen of many different colors and kinds of china being" well ar- ranged upon a table. The refreshments there were mostly of the order of small cakes and sand- wiches, relieved by many different kinds of punch in antique jars and flagons. " By the way, the English have a great many different kinds of sandwiches at their numerous afternoon teas and receptions, where they have the good taste to serve simple refreshments. No- bod}^ need avoid giving receptions there because of their cost, for it would be quite proper to re- ceive the best people in London with only but- tered bread and tea for a collation. Their sand- wiches are so numerous in kind that they are often labelled with a card that tells what they are. A very simple kind that I think is almost un- known here is the cress sandwich, which is made of wafer-like slices of brown bread spread with unsalted butter and the most delicate water-cress laid between. " Mrs. Felix Moscheles, of London, has a remark- able table-cloth that is well worth description. It is composed of bits of old German embroidery on white linen, the pieces being of irregular size, fastened together by old lace insertion. Some of them are many centuries old. The Moscheles 184 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP BOOK. dining-room opens from the studio, and when not in use the table is usually covered with sev- eral large jars of blossoming plants — azaleas in bloom, rhododendrons, or jars of lilies — while the light comes from the side through a large win- dow of opalescent glass and Mexican onyx. " Holman Hunt's table is at the end of a long dining-room, and is set on an elevation of one step, making it almost mediaeval in its expression. At parties and receptions Mrs. Hunt is noted for strange old English dishes, the recipes of which she searches for in old manuscripts at the British Museum. " Mme. Blavatsky has the most hospitable house in London. Although the Countess Wachtmeis- ter, with whom she lives, has a small family, the table, which can accommodate twenty, is always spread for that number, and nothing is more pleasant than to have a standing invitation to the vegetarian suppers of that occult household. The dishes are so varied, so quaint in their com- bination, and so delicious in flavor that one rises without realizing that he has partaken of a veg- etarian meal." Maya. Dr. Densmobe 1 s Diet. — We maintain that the food of primeval man consisted of fruit and nuts of sub-tropical climes, spontaneously pro- duced ; that on these foods man was (and may again become) at least as free from disease as the animals are in a state of nature. Physiologists unite in teaching that these foods are adapted to digestion in the main stomach, where, surely, the great bulk of our food should be digested ; HIXTS OX ARTISTIC DIXNER-TABLES. 185 whereas cereals, pulses, bread, and, in fact, all starch foods, are chiefly digested in the intestines, and hence, it is maintained, are unnatural and disease-inducing foods, being the cause of the nervous prostration and broken-down health that abound on all sides. Since nuts and fruits — especially the former— are not usually obtaina- ble in right varieties and conditions, and as most people have weak powers of digestion and assimilation and are obliged to perform more work than is natural or heathful, it is recommended that milk, cheese, and eggs— and, to those not vegetarians, fish, flesh, and fowl— be liber- ally used as supplemental to the fruit diet. These animal products are " natural " only in the sense that they are suitable for digestion in the first stomach, and are free from the objections urged against bread and other cereal and starch foods. We urge that all the fruits in their season— and including dried dates, figs, prunes, raisins, and apples, each of many varieties— be substituted for bread and other grain foods and starchy vegetables. This course will be found by experiment highly beneficial alike to the meat-eater and to the vegetarian. Aside from the question of health, there are other considerations that urge the substitution of fruit for bread and starchy vegetables. Usually fruit is reserved until the last course ; by that time most people have always eaten to repletion, and fruit is disregarded and neglected. To such an extent is this true that Professor Huxley, in his " Lessons in Ele- mentary Physiology,' 7 one of the most popular science test-books, makes no mention of fruit in enumerating the food-stuffs of the race. "When this food comes to be regarded as an indispensable and one of the principal factors of alimentation, our dining-rooms will, in e very-day life, bear some resemblance to the pictures artists so universally delight iu providing for their decoration ; and an abundance of fruit— with its fine form and beautiful colors— furnish the artist with boundless re- sources for ornamentation ; the aesthetic and higher nature is stimulated ; and we are better able to appreciate that " a thing of beauty is a joy for- ever."— Emmet Densmore, M.D., in " Natural Food." An eccentric New Yorker, much given to hospitality, has concealed among the flowers on his dinner-table an artificial mocking-bird, which, at the pressure of an electric wire by his foot, flutters and gives a musi- •cal chirp. Strangers are amused by the ingenious toy, but his family and friends understand that the bird only flies and sings when a subject is broached which is likely to prove offensive or painful to one of the guests. A Russian boyar, in the days of Catherine, carried out a similar conceit by a rougher method. "When Demetri Paulovski," says tradi- tion, " sat down to dine a trumpeter stood beside him with his eyes fixed upon him. If any one at the table made a remark disagreeable to the prince the trumpeter, at a signal from him, sounded a warning note and the guest remained silent during the meal. If the offence was repeated the trumpet sounded twice and the guest was led from the table and his tongue cut out." 186 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. " Delsarte's theory was the production of perfect animal grace by education, the equal develop- ment of all the muscles, and the rhythmic action of different parts as in a symphony where the final meeting of the whole is one grand har- mony. 11 — New York Theatre Magazine. CHAPTER XXV. ARTISTIC LOVE-MAKING. Man's three languages — Gesture speaks louder than words — "Words are the least part of language as far as utterance is concerned " — The child, the cat, and the lover. There are no books written about it — tradi- tion is all. Yet are not the voice and the tone more powerful than the volume ? There are many books filled with facts about art, but the truths concerning- it are yet to be written. The date of such a work or the birth of such a master are facts that we may learn or not, but the rela- tion of the work to us and to the ag-es are truths which more nearly concern us. In this encampment in the pine grove, within sound of the sea, Mrs. Russell is teaching her pupils the art of expression, that the soul may properly represent itself by the movements of ARTISTIC LOVE-MAKING. 187 the body. Man speaks with three tongues — the word, the tone, and the gesture. The word is least expressive and last to be trusted in this trinity. Every movement a man makes is a betrayal of his character, an unconscious escape of the condi- tion of his inner life. There is a revelation in the curl of the lip, the toss of the head, and move- ments jerky, impatient, passionate, or deliberate have a language that he who runs may read. The gymnastics taught in our schools are in the direction of lines and angles — quick, fragmen- tary movements — by which certain muscles are developed and certain feelings aroused, the result of which is to teach men, not harmony and rela- tion, but how to punch each other's heads. Mrs. Russell says : " The principles of gymnas- tics taught by Delsarte obey not only the laws of rhythm of the body itself, but other important physical and physiological laws." I quote from her " Notes on the New Educa- tion " to show you more of this system : " No words ever tell, perhaps, how a straight- line motion or a simple curve, thab is, one having but one radius, expresses force, fact, antagonism, or hate, while the beautiful curves, or high har- mony of straight lines, talk of love, beauty, sym- pathy, and goodness. In any parlor, or school, or street, observe the class of motions habitually used, and see how the worst betray and the best 188 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. misrepresent themselves. Then see how Del- sarte's laws of motion are illustrated by the great actor or orator, by the healthy, playful, well- born child, by the kitten on the lawn, by a lover when he has for one supreme hour of his life for- gotten self and all unmannerly and selfish repres- sions, when once at least the best and purest emo- tions of the soul have command of him — see how winning" he has become, see how all his being*, fused for this one moment into unity, has forgot- ten its angles and its angularity, as we say — for straight lines can only join at angles. It is curves that soar and wed each other, through new and even more beautiful curves, created by them- selves. Admire him, as each of us has done for once, at least, in our lives, and then wish, as we all have wished, that life were all love and beauty and sympathy and harmony. Wish that this conqueror, so grand at his best, might always be at his best. " What have we said ? Why, we have wished that a man might be always eloquently and sin- cerely expressive of the best of himself, instead of his worst and commonest. Why not? Why not, indeed ? Simply because he cannot. Because he is not the godlike man who in future may in- herit the earth. Because he is not educated in the use of his bodily powers. Because, save when moved by 'the miracle/ he is nearly dumb. True, that wonderful muscle, the tongue, does ARTISTIC LOVE-MAKING. 189 talk a little, but where is the symphony that once did and always should issue from his throat? Where the intoxicating- grace of motion ? It is not his; he is motionally mute. He feels, but he cannot express his feeling. Soon we shall find it hard to believe he can feel so much of what is holy. Soon, looking* into our unbelieving 1 , unan- swering eyes, he will almost disbelieve in himself. The new education seeks to develop the outer talk, the gesture, and tone-language into some- thing like correspondence with the moods of the man." Never have I found a more beautiful embodi- ment of the system she represents than the writer of these graceful lines. I hereby publicly announce myself an advocate of that system which teaches men to make love to us all our days in the most graceful manner imaginable. Alas! dear lady, you are teaching the science of expression, while all circumstances, all creatures, are teaching the art of repression, forcing the soul back upon itself and limiting its powers. If there be a way to change the cur- rent, give it to us by all means, and God speed you. Lizzie York Case. Body ajtd Spirit.— That the condition of the body has much to do with the possibilities of the free expression of the spirit— as the musical instalment has to do with the power of the perf ormer to express the har- mony that is within him— is very true. Beethoven could not have made 190 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. harmony on an untuned and unstrung instrument. Just so the spirit struggles when out of correspondence with its environment. When the nervous system, with its finely-strung ganglionic centres radiating strength and vitality, unable to meet the demands made upon it through lethargy, pain, and weakness, is broken down through disobedience of Nature's laws, the spirit is only crippled in its power to express itself, but it is in no way affected in its nature or power. Sojt seems to me plain that the more physiologically we live, the more perfectly we build this material temple, the more easily the spirit can shine through, revealing its nature, which is always the same.— Dr. Helen Densmore. Schiller upon the ^Esthetic Education op Man.— I do not overlook the advantages to which the present race, regarded as a unity and in the balance of the understanding, may lay claim over what is best in the ancient world ; but it is obliged to engage in the contest as a compact mass, and measure itself as a whole against a whole. Who among the moderns could step forth, man against man, and strive with an Athenian for the prize of higher humanity ? Whence comes this disadvantageous relation of individuals coupled with great advantages of the race ? Why could the individual Greek be qualified as the type of his time, and why can no modern dare to offer himself as such ? Man is all symmetric- Full of proportions, one limb to another, And all to all the world besides. Each part may call the farthest brother. — George Herbert. 'the cause for divorce." 191 "Without the great arts which speak to the sense of beauty, man seems to me a poor, naked, shivering creature.'"— Emerson. CHAPTER XXVI. "THE CAUSE FOR DIVORCE." A new theory — An Indian poem — The effect of a starch diet — A transformation scene. A prince of Delhi told me the secret. One morning- when he had finished his lesson he said : "You have often asked to see my Indian gar- ments and jewels. To-morrow I receive a jar of sweetmeats from India. Come and eat preserved mangoes with me." He was dressed in black modern clothes, "tailor-made/' patent leather boots squeezed his little feet, the highest of high collars scratched his sensitive jaw and bound his supple neck. He seemed awkward, uncomforta- ble, and inexpressive in spite of his general roman- tic type. Putting on a black overcoat and a stovepipe hat he bade me £-ood-morning. He reminded me of a poem by Edwin Arnold in a crape-hung laundry. The next day at three I lifted the heavy knocker 192 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. of a house in one of the fashionable London squares. " My master," said the little Oriental boy in semi-demi of English clothes and turbaned head, " will soon be with you." A Benares brass vase with the usual handles of curling- serpents, and a marked copy of Mat- thius' Mull's " Notes on Hamlet " lay on a table. As I turned the leaves of the latter, through the open door I saw a figure glide down the stairs like a poem — " The Light of Asia " bound in gold, and this time without starch. He was not human as I had known human beings. He was certainly not divine. He had simply the natural animal grace which should belong to all men, was clothed in beauty and no starch. He wore a choja of black satin, a garment sim- ilar to that worn by Salvini in " Othello " (choja being the word from which toga was derived). It was heavily bordered with gold embroidery and studded all over with a conventionalization like the Napoleon bee. The work increased in richness toward the top till the neck and sleeves were simply incrusted with gold, the design on the shoulder being a conventionalized betel-leaf. The under vest was of gold brocade, and while the inner garments decreased in richness of exe- cution, they increased in richness of color. The pointed shoes were embroidered with gold and gleaming with jewels. The turban was wrapped "the cause for divorce." 193 around a stiffly-embroidered gold-pointed cap. These turbans are of the finest muslin and many of them more than ten yards in length. But it was not the clothes. It was the com- plete transformation of the man that amazed me. The little, uncomfortable, constrained imitation of an Englishman was gone. This lithe body was eloquent and elegant in its freedom of motion. His skin was like the finest bronze — like the leaf of the withered forest magnolia; his eyes gleamed like a tiger in the jungle; his nose was of the sensitive, secretive Egyptian type; his lips had that peculiar bruised look which is more fascinat- ing than the most sculpturesque chisel. " Yes/' he said, " Delhi sets the fashion for all India." Speaking later of our social customs, he told me, " I do not like the English ladies." "And why ? " I asked. " Because they do not obey their husbands. In India we have no divorce. We have not the cause for divorce." " What is the cause for divorce ? " I inquired with interest. He cast his black eyes upward and smiled a little; then, after a pause, said, "Shopping." . . . Edmund Russell. Flower Worship.— " A true Persian inflowing robes of blue, and on his head a sheepskin hat— black, glossy, curly, the fleece of Kar-Kal— would saunter in and stand and meditate over every flower he saw and 13 194 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. always as if half in vision. And when the vision was fulfilled and the ideal flower he was seeking found, he would spread his mat and sit before it until the setting of the sun, and then pray before it, and then fold up his mat again and go home. And the next night, and night after night until that particular flower faded away, he would return to it and bring his friends in ever-increasing troops to it, and sit and play the guitar or lute before it, and they would all together pray there, and after prayer still sit before it sipping sherbet and talking the most hilarious and shocking scandal late into the moonlight, and so again and again every evening until the flower died. Sometimes, by way of a grand final, the whole company would suddenly arise before the flower aud serenade it together with an ode from Hafiz and depart. " Notes from Thoreau.— I see indistinctly oxen asleep in the fields, silent in majestic slumber, reclining, statuesque, Egyptian, like the sphinx. What solid rest ! How their heads are supported ! Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment and childlike mirthfulness. If you would know aught be gay before it. The best poetry has never been written, for when it might have been the poet forgot it, and when it was too late, remembered it. Visited my night-hawk on her nest. Could hardly believe my eyes when I stood within seven feet and beheld her sitting on her eggs, her head toward me ; she looked so Saturnian, so one with the earth, so sphinx-like. It was enough to fill one with awe. The sight of this crea- ture impressed me with the venerableness of the globe. All the while this seemingly sleeping bronze sphinx, as motionless as the earth, was watching me with intense anxiety through those narrow slits in its eye- lids. When to-day I saw the ''Great Ball 1 ' rolled majestically along.it seemed a shame that man could not move like it. All dignity and grand- eur has something of the undulatoriness of the sphere. It is the secret of majesty in the rolling gait of the elephant and of all grace in action and in art. The line of beauty is a curve. in London town. 195 " Mrs. Russell cannot bear the idea of a cold shoulder, but she is never likely to get it."— London Punch. CHAPTER XXVII. IN LONDON TOWN. Pen sketch of Mrs. Edmund Russell and her recep- tions — A dream of a midsummer night in London — A Bayswater shrine — The countess and the Egyptol- ogist — The violin-girl — A cosmopolitan gathering. Now that Milwaukee is talking itself blue about Mr. Edmund Russell and the Delsartean lectures he will deliver next week, it might interest a lot of people to know a little about Mrs. Russell, who is as talented as her husband, and is at this mo- ment fulfilling engagements to lecture on Delsar- tean matters before society circles in New York. She resided in London last summer, during the absence of her husband, at the residence of a friend, where all the decorations are effected on the correct Delsartean plan, and pictures find no place on the pinkish terra-cotta walls of the re- ception-rooms, and everybody knows that corsets ought never to be worn, no matter v/hether they do wear them or not. At this establishment, Grove House, Mrs. Russell, with Mrs. and Miss Q., 196 A DELSAKTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. was at home every Monday evening; and at these Monday evening" receptions people used to meet all the persons who were anybodies in the great metropolis. It would be difficult to describe ex- actly what these informal at-homes really were; they were more like condensed conversaziones than anything else one can imagine; and though the queen's English was the language which most generally obtained there, it was just as well for the visitor to know a smattering of French, Ital- ian, Chinese, Hindustani, and Spanish, not to men- tion half a dozen less important tongues, if he really wished to keep au fait with all that was being spoken around him. For people used to gather there from all sorts of out-of-the-way places, and in the easy free- dom of cosmopolitanism, used to come in the garbs which obtained in their respective native countries. The pale, pinkish terra-cotta recep- tion-room on this account resembled a kaleido- scope on these occasions. Grave, sentimental- looking students from India moved noiselessly to and fro in the brilliant, clinging cerements of the East; intelligent but yellow Celestials from the Chinese embassy sat around in silks and satins and chunlpy shoes and talked diplomacy or tea- raising to dames of the barbarian world, in mo- notonous accents suggestive of the pigeon tongue of laundrymen in this further Western continent. Then there was lad v so-and-so and the comtesse IN LONDON TOWN. 197 de somewhere or another — the name was a corker and does not matter anyhow. She was a woman — a big- woman rather past middle age — and aw- fully wise and clever, and a charming- conversa- tionalist who had reduced the art of flattery, through listening well, to a science. A French prince, too, used to frequently drop in, a Bonaparte with literary tendencies and black eyes, and then there was any amount more of lite erary people, semi-literary people, peculiar people, and people of the Bohemian set of the world of fashion, which comprises ninety per cent of all the better known authors, artists, poets, singers, painters, and actors of London. It was ever so easy to feel at home there, for in mixed assemblies one finds kindred spirits with- out difficulty, and Mrs. Russell had a knack of bringing a couple together and chatting with the pair for a couple of minutes and then disappear- ing without letting one feel it, and the couple would be left together with an impression that they had known each other from infancy up. Miss G. was a bit of an invalid, and could not get up and move around like other people with- out over-exerting herself, yet she managed to do a good deal of entertaining. A slight, delicate girl with acres of blonde hair and blue eyes to match, she just sat around in her loose-flowing attire and talked and chatted and always man- aged to keep a crowd at her side. But Mrs. Rus- iy» A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. sell seemed to be everywhere. She was generally dressed in a sort of an old-gold-colored plush gown, of which bodice and skirt showed no divid- ing line. Low in stature, her figure was perfect, though perhaps not so squeezed at the waist as that of some pretty women one sees. No one would have dreamt that she wore no corsets, but she did not; a woman or an expert would have detected that fact when, later on in the evening, she commenced her little impromptu chat about Delsartean matters, which she always delivered in a charming informal way that held the atten- tion of everybody. One remembers as if it were yesterday how she used to stand there in the centre of the room and explain matters with an easy flexibility, as it were, which twisted itself around the compre- hension of even the most obtuse; the light would sparkle on the gold embroidery of her gown now and then, and all the time it would sparkle in her eyes; for she had more or less the gift of speak- ing with her eyes, though whether it was a nat- ural one or donated by Delsarte one may not say. Anyhow it was all attentiveness when she spoke. The big, black eyes of the Indian pupils, sons of princes and rajahs of the East, followed her every gesture, the oblique eyes of the China- men did likewise, and so did the black orbs of the prince and the expressive eyes of Mine, la Comtesse. Of course there were some who al- IN LONDON TOWN. 199 lowed their attention to divert to other things — some who saw something more attractive than Delsartean philosophy in other parts of the room. If one is near a person he or she thinks the love- liest and the best on earth, you cannot make him watch the sinuous gestures of Delsartean elocu- tion, be they never so beautiful. Count how many pairs of eyes are looking at the dark red frock over this side of the room every now and then. It is a very pretty red frock — velvet, one would say — of easy assthetical cut. She is very young and wears her masses of dark brown hair down over her shoulders, and her eyes are big and dark, and her face more like the face of a woman in expression than that of a girl in the middle of her teens. You have seen that face and those eyes before, and those long, dark tresses; but where the dickens was it? Oh, yes, to be sure — Skip worth's pastel at the Grosvenor Gallery. It must be the same; she must be the original. Was she ? one whispers as the applause at the close of Mrs. Russell's address dies away. "Yes," she answers, and then one begins to remember the name which no one ever dreams of catching during the ceremony of an introduction. She is Miss De F., one of the cleverest as well as one of the prettiest girls in town. A charming elocutionist, a divine player, one who can make the violin talk like her eyes. The address being over, one chats along about 200 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. matters of the day and other matters affecting' none save the speaker and his vis-a-vis. One jumps from that insufferable shah to Schubert's Ave Maria and so on to other thing's, and the people about one do just the same in different chords to suit their own sympathies. That soft- voiced young man over there with the handsome woman in non-Delsartean black is probably a poet retailing some of his rejected rhymes, one presumes, but is wrong. He is not a poet; he is a writer of fast novels and stories. " Tant mieux," sagely reflects the tenor to whom this piece of information is imparted by a thin-faced, blue-eyed Irish woman, who writes books and stories, too, " Tant mieux, their conversation shall be all the more interesting." As he speaks he smiles divinely. All tenors wear divine smiles; and the old Chinese diplomat beside him almost relaxes into a smile, but con- trols himself like a statue and merely blinks his eyes. See, here is a late arrival one has not hith- erto noticed, a strange-looking, dark man of mid- dle age or past it, who is talking with Mine, la Comtesse. His black beard is streaked with gray and his face lined with stud3 T . What is he say- ing to her, one wonders half unconsciously, and who and what can he be that she listens to him so attentively ? It might be a romance they are talking now, it may be that he is whispering love thoughts by inference. Maybe he is, maybe he IN LONDON TOWN. 201 is not. Madame seems happy, and he seems near the gates of this world's heaven. Then she smiles so prettily, and laughs so low at times and sighs occasionally. And there is fire in his eye, too; the fire of passion or exultant enthusiasm. But it is scarcely love they speak, save their id3^1s are those of long-forgotten ages. For his heart is buried somewhere in the vicinity of the pyramid of Cheops, whereas hers — well, Madame la Comtesse has grown beyond being susceptible. Those smiles that once belonged to pretty alcoves, where lovers told her how sweet she was, now come in sympathy for the Pharaohs; that glitter in the dark man's eye is one of triumph over the secrets of the buried world. He is an Egyptol- ogist, a delver in the hidden secrets of the hiero- glyphs of Northern Africa. That pleasant win- ning smile and those quick descriptive gestures are to help out his word pictures of the temples and towns of the king architect, Thothmes. Now in graver tones he tells of the wise Bocchoris, again he speaks of the shepherd kings, and later of the great Rameses. All dead and gone and mummified and forgotten ere David came to the throne. And he speaks of their lives and ro- mances as one who has lived among them, and his heart throbs over those prehistoric romances whose actors lie buried in the Biban-el-Meluk. And somehow between the soft words from her who wears the long dark hair, and the non-conse- 202 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. quentiai sentences of the Celestial diplomats, and the measured phrases of the princes of Hindos- tan, one cannot help listening- now and then to this discussion upon the fabled Sesostris, and the Egyptologist's argument to the comtesse that that hero could not have lived before Cheops, as is stated by Herodotus; nor yet in the thirty- seventh century before Christ; as is alleged by the sage Aristotle and other followers of the learned Dicasarchus. On the other hand, the dark man, who takes his knowledge not so much from the study of ancient tome or modern volume as from the records he himself has deciphered on sculptured rock or painted tomb by the dead cities of the Nile, is more inclined to regard Sesostris rather as Lep- sius did — the embodiment of many Pharaohs, probably Lethos I. and Rameses the Great, who was " born of the sun." And so they talk on matters recondite. While others mix in the chatter of the modern world, he tells strange, weird narratives about the loves of the shepherd kings. She smiles attentively and listens. Both are happy — why should they not be so ? At these Delsartean receptions the conversation generally runs chacun a son gout If those two prefer to talk of the Hittite, why should they chat about the shah's recent visit in common with those who know of naught more interesting- than the current twaddle of London ? IN LONDON TOWN. 203 If the Chinese diplomat loves to chin-chin with the Indian student on the opium question, is it any reason why one who cares not whether all China dies of opiate insanity should speak there- on to a girl in a dark red frock who brings from the violin strains as soft as the voice of Israfel, and had eyes whose depths, if not so abstruse, are at any rate far more fascinating than the buried secrets of Egypt ? And so the time goes on, and no one seems to note how the summer evening is fitting by until people begin to make a general exodus in search of the dining-room. There, they instinctively seem to know, there may at this hour be found attractions to supersede even the conquest of the Mashuash, or the propriety of India's sending opium to China, or the literary reminiscences of the Bonaparte, or the — well, no; not quite super- sede her opinions on nothing at all. And the sugar seems to melt in her coffee so soon, and the other people get through so quickly, and they all seem in such a hurry to get home, and — and it is all over, only the calm serenity of the Bayswater night, the certainty that a hun- dred hansoms will dog one's footsteps home, an idea that Milwaukee ought to purchase a certain Grosvenor Gallery pastel for its own gallery, and a whole heap of vague notions about a clever wo- man who talked about Delsarte, and a queer couple that were cousins or something of the pyr- 204 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. amids, and a half a dozen other things in the shape of dark eyes and long tresses are all that remain as memories of a by-gone Monday even- ing. E. A. Morphy. Modern Life.— Society is something too formal for an institution, too irregular for an organization, too vital for a machine, too heartless for a fraternity, too lawless for a school, too decent for a masquerade, with too much lying for a bureau and too many passions for a pageant.— Bishop Huntington. Shallow Critics.— But the wretcheder are the obstinate~contemners of all helps and arts ; such as presuming on their own naturals (which perhaps are excellent) dare deride all diligence, and seem to mock at the terms, when they understand not the things ; thinking that way to get off wittily with their ignorance. These are imitated often by such as are their peers in negligence, though they cannot be in nature ; and they utter all they can think with a kind of violence and indisposition unex- amined, without relation either to person, place, or any fitness else ; and the more wilful and stubborn they are in it, the more learned they are esteemed of the multitude, through their excellent vice of judgment ; who think those things the stronger that have no art ; as if to break were better than to open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose.— Ben Jonson. A TALK ABOUT PICTUKES. 205 " A leading trait of the American is adaptation to environment. In this country we only recognize possession. "—Win. Hosea Ballou. "Art is not nature, it is a suggestion impreg- nated with the artist's personality.' 1 — Charles Dudley Warner. CHAPTER XXVIII. A TALK ABOUT PICTURES. English gardens— " Stone walls do not a prison make" — The home of Holman Hunt — The pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their purpose — A protest against academic composition — The "Triumph of the Inno- cents 1 ' — Domestic subjects and gilded frames — The peasant pictures of Jean Frangois Millet. Not many days ago, when wandering through the galleries of the Art Institute, I chanced to meet Mr. Edmund Russell, the apostle of Del- sartism, who not only can tell people how to dress, how to decorate their homes, and how to coax from nature every grace and beauty that she has hidden from the heedless, but can also fill an hour with a mixture of delightful gossip and acu tecriticism that is as exceptional as it is entertaining. . . . Mr. Russell continued: "Holman Hunt lives in a southwestern suburb of London called Putney, 206 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. also the abode of Swinburne and other artists. His home, Draycott Lodge, is surrounded by high stone walls, the tall gate-post being surmounted by two eagles carved in gray stone. Nearly all of the houses in London are made pleasant by these inclosed gardens, the high stone wall giving such a picturesque appearance to the street, cov- ered with ivy, as they often are, or sometimes ruined and frowning with great gate-posts or carved doorways. These walls, eight or ten feet high, give a charming seclusion. The five-o'clock tea may be held in the garden, or a novel or a tete-a-tete enjoyed, and the children may be al- lowed to romp there without fear of any contact from the street. I remember telling an English artist how, in America, we have no such walls, most of the gardens being open to the street, without fences, and that much surprised comment would be aroused there as to the reason for such seclusion were it sought. ( O you dreadful Amer- icans/ he said, 'you love publicity so! ' "Really, on returning from Europe to America many towns have the appearance of toy villages or seaside resorts, such elaborately decorated houses being crowded together without any se- clusion or lines of separation. . . . " But we have digressed. We were stopping in fancy at the eagle-crested doorway of Holman Hunt's studio. If we had really been there we would not have paused so long, for the interior is A TALK ABOUT PICTURES. 207 a veritable treasure-house, at the same time keep- ing- all the feeling- of a home. A great many rooms are on one floor, opening- from each other, but separated by heavy draperies, some designed by William Morris, others brought rom the Orient. I was present once at a party where in this long, low-studded drawing-room was given a series of tableaux, some of them from Holman Hunt's pictures, the original costumes and acces- sories being used. They were wonderfully beau- tiful, especially that of ' Isabella and the Pot of Basil/ representing her caressing the jar that contains her murdered lover's head, her unbound hair falling over it. After this tableau the chil- dren gave a little ' miracle play/ written by Mrs. Ewing, the author of ' Jackanapes/ the costumes of St. George, St. Michael, and the Dragon being wonderfully represented. I have never seen a house more strewn with beautiful objects, curious carved chests, Venetian caskets, Madonnas by Bellini, reliefs b}^ Delia Robbia, sketches by Ros- setti, and a thousand objects of art which would be wonderful in any museum, but which here sim- ply go to make up a most homelike artist's home. "Holman Hunt is one of the most poetic, most thoughtful and earnest of all the English artists. He is an artist who includes his art in his own personality, and all the deep meaning in his pic- tures means more after talking of them with him. " I spent a Sunday with him just before I came 208 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. away, when he talked of the purpose of the pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood. It is generally sup- posed that pre-Raphaelism meant an affected im- itation of the manner of the painters who preceded Raphael; but this band of enthusiastic youth felt that they wished an art to express their own thought, their own poetic feeling, their own con- ception of beauty in the relations of men, untram- melled by the mass of academical tradition which usually burdens the genius of a student, often crushes his youthful originality with its weight, and yet is supposed to constitute a proper art education, a sort of dark passageway through which it is thought necessary for artistic youth to grope; but its shape is like a funnel and the opening at the other end so small that he must stoop very low, and reduce his originality to very small compass in order to even get out. The pre-Raphaelites decided to bolt at the entrance. Looking back into history they found that artists at the birth of art made their own art, studied nature in the seclusion of their walled cities brooding over beautiful things, living the life of artists and poets, so developing originality of style and poetry of feeling. " Raphael was a pupil of Perugino and repeated in his youth effects that it had taken his master a lifetime to learn. Compare the drapery of Raphael and Perugino, and we find the composi- tion of arrangement almost the same, but the A TALK ABOUT PICTURES. 209 lines of Perugino more subtle, more delicate, his faces more tender and poetic. Then pupils began to repeat the traditions of Raphael, which became in turn traditional to another series of pupils, until at last they are the much-diluted traditions of Jones and Smith. Heads must be always ar- ranged in a triangle, and the ground-plan of all groups of figures must be an CO. An art education consists of two years' working from plaster casts with little knowledge of their spirit and meaning — we might almost say two years of trying to make charcoal look like plas- ter, to be followed by several years trying to make paint look like flesh, including, of course, some knowledge of the proper use of the W. and the triangle. " So they called themselves pre-Raphaelites, im- itators not of the style but the methods of those painters who preceded Raphael. They were young, for some years worked in seclusion, desir- ing to avoid public notice, and signed their work only "with the mystic initials P. R. B. Modern journalism would not consent to allow this to re- main long a mystery, and much harm was done by public criticism of their uncompleted aims. But their influence on art has been great. Es- pecially did they bring back the elements of awe and mystery and poetic purpose in art, which it sometimes seems has come down to the clean painting of a coal-scuttle in its misapplied efforts 14 210 A DELSAKTEAjN- scrap-book. at realism. Ouida tells us that a passion flower is just as realistic as a potato, while Carlyle gives us that superb sentence, 'The ideal is the real well seen/ "Mr. Ruskin says that 'The Triumph of the Innocents ' is the greatest religious picture of modern times. It is the result of years of labor and thought and must be studied in its concep- tion, as all great thing's must be studied. We do not thoroughly understand or appreciate the works of Wagner at first hearing. Wagner him- self insisted on a thorough knowledge of both words and subject. A lady once said to me: ' Well, I want to understand a picture the first time I look at it.' I replied: 'What are you going to do the second time?' The subjects of our pictures nowadays are so meaningless, the purpose so small — triumphs not in art, but in art- ists' materials. If one is ■ Woman and Copper Pot' the next will be 'Copper Pot and Woman/ while 'Beauty and the Beast' has come down simply to ' Girl and Pig/ " We had already left our seats, strolling- into an adjoining room, where Mr. Russell's attention was attracted by a small picture called "The Forced Choice." "Here we have," said he, "a man in an attic with one ragged shirt, deciding whether he will put it on or not, in a gold frame six inches wide and a plush case behind it. It must be very valuable, of course, else why such A TALK ABOUT PICTURES. 211 distinction ? A frame of rough wood would be equally effective and more appropriate." Commenting on various pictures as we passed along Mr. Russell said : " There is a large paint- ing by Jacquet, e The Queen of the Camp/ It is trivial, Frenchy, a descendant of the demoraliz- ing prettiness of Watteau and Boucher. That ' Dead Tiger ' near by is an example of the hard- ness, the correctness, and the bad color of Ge- rome, although in detail the color of this rug is wonderfully beautiful. In contrast to the affected commonplace of the ' Camp Queen* we have this capricious revelry of \ Springtime and Love* by Michetti, an etude fantastique, a riot in color and eccentric daring, a Japanesque revel on a painter's palette. It should have been framed in plain sacking or rough boards. The decorative panel, by Hans Makart, entitled ' The Treasures of the Sea/ has great richness of color, not poetic but opulent, the relation of reds being a splendid stud} T in harmony of color, well ansAvering the question that has often been asked me whether related colors are not more monotonous than con- trast. There is a great difference between match- ing and relating colors. "The studies of French peasants so much in vogue at the present day are mostly chosen be- cause a few have painted them so well; but the feeling of Millet for French peasant life and his painting of French peasants are altogether differ- 212 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. ent from this mere rendering* of starched linen and green grass of which we see so much. The motion of Millet's figures is perfect, their atti- tudes always correct and therefore natural. They seem as if they breathe and move. You find them so much alive that you become interested in their life. Millet was a great expressionist, although on a simple plane of expression. He was true, natural, and unaffected. If anybody would paint great characters and great deeds as well as he simple ones, ancient art would be forgotten. "We have in this ' Flower Girl* before us, for instance, simply the self-conscious pose of a model, the painting of black shoes and red stock- ings. Nearly all these pictures are posed wrong, expression not being taught in art schools. Most of the head positions are as false to nature as those of the ordinary photographer, who poses the figure, then turns the head, then says, e Now look at this little card/ In the expression of nat- ural feeling the eye always moves first, then the head, and then the body. " I believe that the principles of harmony and good taste should be taught in the public schools, a higher development of the kindergarten sys- tem, the objective method of study being carried into all that relates to daily life. And I think a class in wall-paper or carpets quite as important as one for the study of the names of fossils, minerals, or the i use of the globes/ We should A TALK ABOUT PICTURES. 213 study harmony, so that our rooms may be quiet, dignified, serving* as backgrounds for their in- mates, and not simply filled with a mass of unre- lated objects. " That is my whole theory of it — art subordi- nated to the individual — the decoration not as- serting itself, but making more beautiful the thing decorated. Art is a matter of common- sense, the right thing in the right place, always in perfect relation to the individual, the expres- sion of his growth and the needs of his every-day life." The Ideal.— The process of idealization consists in imagining an ob- ject as transcending its limitations, existing in a perfection not actually attainable by it, and filling infinity with, its expanded characteristics. All that is necessary to truthfulness of idealization is the preservation of character and proportion.- -Keys of the Creeds. Art.— Is Art a mere imitative impulse, a record of the superficial facts and phases of nature in a particular medium ? Or is it the most subtle and expressive of languages, taking all manner of rich and varied forms in all sorts of materials under the paramount impulse of the selective search for beauty ?— Walter Crane. Oratory and Conversation.— It is a great mistake to think that speak- ing requires no special training and exercise. Even in ordinary con- versation speaking is an art and a difficult one, the supreme develop- ment of which is oratory. A man who knows how to speak in public and to spare his voice makes himself heard with little or no effort, while an untrained orator wears himself out quite rapidly.— Sir Morell Mac- kenzie. Art rN Clothes.— Art in clothes went out with the invention of the scissors and needle.— Henrietta Russell. BEConrNGNESS op Jewels.— In the present state of the market the becomingness of jewels varies inversely with their price.— Henrietta Russell. 214 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. "Like all mothers, I am fond of seeing chil- dren prettily dressed, but I do not believe in pun- ishing them for the sake of effect. I will not let my children wear any clothes that are too nice to tumble about in. Whatever the style or tex- ture, it must have comfort and service as well as beauty. I want them also to fit loosely, and I in- sist on having plenty of room in the shoes. 11 — Mrs. McKee. CHAPTER XXIX. CELEBRATED LONDON WOMEN. One must have fine personal character to be beautiful in old age — Mrs. Gladstone and the Baroness Burdette- Coutts — Lady Wilde and Mona Caird — Lady Shelley — John Strange Winter — The noted women novelists. Delsartism is again in vogue. Mrs. Edmund Russell returned from Europe recently, and I had the pleasure the other day of attending- an " even- ing " given in her honor in New York. She was looking radiantly well, her eyes shone brilliantly under that wreath of short curls, about her broad brow, which is the special individuality of her face. She wore a regal-looking robe of leaf- brown cloth. The robe proper was a furrean, or sheath-like princesse gown, fitting easily, but not loosely. Over this in the back falls a drapery of rich bronze-colored plush, coming from the neck and rippling down, in some carelessly graceful CELEBEATED LONDON WOMEN. 215 fashion, caught up here and there with antique gold clasps to form a long train. In front the plush, encrusted with glistening discs of gold, was caught up on each shoulder in Grecian style by clasps of gold, thence falling full to the feet, except where it was looped with three gold pins, representing laurel leaves. She wore no jewelry, except an antique gold necklace of exquisite work- manship — which encircled her throat just at that point where it curves to form the neck. The effect of this superb robe, with its rich, darkly shining folds — worn by a woman whose trained body obeyed every impulse of her mobile emo- tional being — can better be imagined than de- scribed. This is but one of the number of classic costumes Mrs. Russell brought with her from London. They were all designed and modelled by Mr. Russell. They combine Persian richness of effect with Greek simplicity. It was in the brown and gold gown just described that Mrs. Russell was painted for the Royal Academy, by Mr. Charles Sainton, the artist son of the late . Madam Sainton-Dolby — a full-length portrait — her figure in a pose that finely illustrated its wil- lowy grace. During the evening Mrs. Russell gave one of her easy spontaneous talks upon " Natural Ex- pression," illustrating the laws of expression, and exposing the lack of truth in so many of the con- ventional movements of every-day social life. 216 A DELSAKTEAN SCEAP-BOOK. She was at her best in her talk, and in the after conversation with her friends mentioned many interesting" incidents of her life in London, and spoke of the celebrated personalities of the pres- ent day, and the number of literary personages met while there. " I am glad to come home and see my friends/' she said, " but ah ! there is a great charm in London social life. Nowhere are artists, scientists, journalists, and literary people received with such open-handed hospital- ity. There, as in no other part of the world, do they receive the recognition and distinction due them. People in London do not think only of a fine house and long bank account." I>3 T no means is the " palm " for beauty, talent, and refinement awarded entirely to the younger women of London, but sharing equally with them are the beautiful old women who have lived most of their noble lives there. Mrs. Gladstone and Baroness Burdette-Coutts, who has a " strange, sweet, weak face," come first on the list of beau- tiful old women. Mrs. Gladstone's greatest beauty lies in her expression, so well interpreted by Hubert Herkomer at the Eoyal Academy. Another charming* old woman is Mrs. Sterling, recently retired from Irving's Theatre. Mrs. Proctor, the mother of Adelaide Anne Proctor and widow of Barry Cornwall. At eighty-six Mrs. Proctor was still a brilliant so- ciety woman. Mrs. Tom Taylor still holds her CELEBRATED LONDON WOMEN. 217 place among" the best amateur pianists of Lon- don. Mrs. Pfeifer, of artistic dress reform fame, is said to have written sonnets, " the finest since Shakespeare." She wears some of the best adap- tations of Grecian drapery to modern costumes that Mrs. Russell has ever seen. Mona Caird, the original agitator in that in- teresting discussion, "Is Marriage a Failure?" looked, when Mrs. Russell saw her last at Lady Wilde's, a living proof that " Marriage is a Suc- cess." Mona Caird is little and pretty, and dresses in the fashion, without the slightest appearance of a neglected wife or strong-minded woman, and looks as though she could have made a success of many marriages. Lad} 7 Shelley is the wife of Sir Percy Shelley, the poet's only son, "and is," says Mrs. Russell, "the loveliest, sweetest woman in the world." Mr. and Mrs. Russell spent a week at the Shelleys' country-seat and spoke of the pleasant after-din- ner and evening talks with Lady Shelley, and her charming renderings of the Shelley traditions. " Sir Percy," said Mrs. Russell, " died a few months ago. He has been perhaps the strongest link between society and the stage. The finest equipped private theatre in London belonged to Sir Perc} 7 . It is in his London house at Chelsea. He has an- other in Boscombe Manor at Bournemouth, i that city in the midst of a pine forest.' " One of Mrs. Russell's first courses of drawing- 218 A DELSAETEAN SCRAP-BOOK. room lectures took place at the house of Mrs. Arthur Stannard (John Strange Winter), the brilliant author of ' Booties' Baby/ Her identity was not known until recently. She is as interest- ing as her stories of ' Garrison Life/ ' Booties' Baby \ was written before either Mrs. Stannard's little girl or the twins w r ere born. She lives on the banks of the river Thames, in a pleasant home with a lawn in front, sloping to the river. Mrs. Stannard occasionally gives readings from her own works, and has much enthusiasm about visit- ing America. She is society's favorite and enter- tains with much hospitality. Her garden parties are a special feature of the London season." Mrs. Russell told how she had grown up with her ideas of Tennyson's heroines, taken from paintings and illustrations by the pre-Raphaelite school, and had found them embodied in the tragic beauty and costumes of Mrs. Holman Hunt, the wife of the painter of the greatest modern "Madonna." Among the noted novelists of the day whom Mrs. Russell met while in London were Mrs. Campbell Praed, Ouida, Mrs. Lynn Lynton, Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mrs. Cashel Hoey, and Vernon Lee. Mrs. Lynn Lynton's writings are philosophical as well as sentimental, while it is said of Vernon Lee, " the mantle of George Eliot has fallen upon her." CELEBEATED LONDON WOMEN. 219 Vernon Lee, the author of the ass the tic life of "Miss Brown," created a sensation by taking- her heroine from real life, and while portraying", as she does, with great power the humble origin of the heroine, was yet a resented liberty in certain high aesthetic circles. At present she lives in Florence in great retirement, a s she is devoted to the care of an invalid brother and "to the studies of early Italian art, which she has used with such masterly power in her essays. " Meeting these people in a pleasant, informal way," said Mrs. Russell, " helps to make me feel that it is delight- ful to live in London in spite of the dismal fog." Among those who particularly interested Mrs. Russell while abroad were: Madame Delsarte, Lady Shelley, Duchess of Mantua, Madame Bla- vatsky, "that smartest woman in the world," Lady Wilde, and Lad} 7 Dorothy Nevill, who rank among those who know best how to make a drawing-room a u salon." Laura C. Boylan. American Voices.— Quality, force, and pitch are the attributes of voice. Cultivate quality, make the voice sweet and musical ; strength will come naturally from use. Americans excel in singing, not in speaking ; they do not cultivate a speaking voice. The voice of American ladies is harsh, of English ladies is rich and deep, of French ladies is higher pitched, but musical.— Henrietta Russell. 220 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. ' ' In Art all effects are regulated. The original suggestion may be and generally is sudden and unprepared— 'inspired, 1 as we say ; but the alert intellect recognizes its truth, seizes on, regulates it. Without nice calculation no proportion could be preserved ; one should have a work of fitful im- pulse, not a work of enduring Art."— Lewes. CHAPTER XXX. A LONDON STUDIO. An interview on the studio of Felix Moscheles— The cot- tage in Cadogan Gardens— Spoons and bric-a-brac from America — An interesting portrait-gallery— The artist's personality — A studio bedroom. I will commence with the studio of Felix Mo- scheles, for there it was that we gave our first lecture upon the Art of Expression. Among" those present w r ere Robert Browning, Whistler, Henry M. Stanley, Canon Harford, Oscar Wilde, and the Alma Tademas. Those who remember Moscheles' studio here in the top story of the Chel- sea, and have since enjoyed the drive to Cadogan Gardens in London, were no doubt surprised to find the little, low, one-story rambling cottage in the midst of rhododendron bushes, covered with vines and shadowed by stately trees. Many 3'ears ago the Earl of Cadogan gave the elder Moscheles A LONDON STUDIO. 221 permission to build his house in the centre of these gardens. Fancy, if you will, a space of loveliness, say like Stuyvesant Square, only very much larger and more beautiful, with a little cottage in the centre, and then you will have an idea of its charming situation and the envy it must arouse from the dwellers in the brown-stone houses which sur- round it. Permission was given for the house to remain here only for a certain term of years, but the lease has been extended by the present lord, to endure during the life-time of Felix Moscheles' brother-in-law, Professor Roche; so that within a few years, to say the least, this most interest- ing of studios will be swept away, and will only remain as a historic tradition.* " Nearly every well-known man in art, science, and letters has been received within the walls of this quaint studio, while the highest of the nobil- ity are pleased to attend its receptions. In this description let me say that the original building has been extended by many additions since the time Felix Moscheles' father lived here. These include a grand studio on one side, with its adja- cent lumber-rooms, a dining-room, and an odd little hall that crooks and turns and elbows its wa3 r through the various additions to the struc- ture — which, by-the-by, in all its years has never * The cottage has been torn down since this interview was taken. 222 A DELSARTEAJN" SCRAP-BOOK. taken on the dignity of a second story in height. The interior we find filled with everything that is beautiful in the way of decorative art, lovely rugs and drapery, strange bits of silver and bric- a-brac, much of which has been collected during Mr. Moscheles' American tour. I want to tell you that when first I went over there, I would pick up some lotos-twined spoon or object in opalescent glass and think how delightful it was to have art thus enter into every detail of ordi- nary life and how I wished we had such things in the States. Then I would turn to Mr. Moscheles and say: 'Where did you get this beautiful ob- ject ? ' l Oh/ he would reply, ' I bought that in America/ And I have since happily learned to know that no country has made such wonderful advancement in decorative art, the art of living, the art of being, as our own. " On the walls of the Moscheles studio hang many portraits of celebrated friends of the art- ist — works of his own hand, I will add — Rubin- stein, Sarasate, Browning, Stanley, Guiseppe, Mazzini, and our own ex-President Cleveland. To me his finest, and at the same time most interesting, portrait is that of his mother, which is hung in the Royal Academy. A wonderful woman, the widow of the great pianist and com- poser, Ignatz Moscheles. It is a face of great dignity and beautiful character. We dined with her one evening," continued Mr. Russell, as he A LONDON STUDIO. 223 showed me a photograph from the picture, " and were fascinated by her wonderful reminiscences, ohe had known every important personage of the present century — Mendelssohn, Rachel, Bee- thoven, and even the great Siddons. The lovely Scott-Siddons was present on the evening that I mentioned, and was much astonished when Mme. Moscheles turned to her and in her sweetly win- ning voice remarked, 'Why, I knew your re- nowned kinswoman, Sarah Siddons/" "And now, as to the personality of Felix Mo- scheles ? " I further inquired. "A man of great social tact, kindness of heart, and elegance of manner," he answered. "And Mrs. Moscheles is a most beautiful woman, espe- cially remarkable for her hair, which is like threads of spun gold and keeps the sunlight in it, even on the darkest day. Her dress is the happiest mean between art and conventionality that I have ever seen. It ever manages to delight the artist, while it does not, by its eccentricity, offend the taste of the most conservative society person. And now let us extend the license a bit and take a momentary look at the bedroom which does service as a dressing-room for the tableaux and music-plays sometimes given on the little stage at the back of the cottage, which you will see by the photograph has a jewelled glass window be- hind it and is covered with white bearskin. It is furnished in a delicate tint of robin J s-egg blue; 224 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. the toilet-table is strewn with every imaginable article of luxury, in old ivory and silver, and the panels of the wardrobe and doors are filled with paintings of Burne-Jones-like classic figures. " On one side of the studio opens a little sitting- room belonging to Mrs. Moscheles — her personal room, you know — and filled with photographs of her artistic friends and many gifts and treasures, and containing some of her own flower paintings — very beautiful and tender in sentiment. Upon another side of the studio opens the dining-room, always filled with lovely flowers, every object on the table being some charming work of decora- tive art, and, as I said before, many of them com- ing from America. The table-cloth is particularly interesting, being made of pieces of old German embroidery collected at various times, some of them dating three or four centuries back. " There are no rocking-chairs in London, but Mr. and Mrs. Moscheles have travelled in America, consequently they own one. Going early to a reception I found Mary Anderson sitting by the quaint fire-place telling of her visit to Lord Ten- nyson, rocking backward and forward all the time, while the English ladies looked on in perfect horror and said ' How bold ! ' " Ardennes Jones -Foster. The Moscheles Guests.— Gounod would stroll in of an evening and light his pipe, and talk eloquently on art and music. Arthur Sullivan winner of the first Mendelscohn scholarship, was A LONDON STUDIO. 225 often a guest here, and Patti, and Jenny Lind, and Viardot, Garcia, and Wieniawski. Another constant visitor in those days was " Mr. Ernesti," from the Brompton Road. That was the name his landlady called him. But at Moscheles' studio he was known as Mazzini. Indeed, the great exile made but little concealment either of his name or his metier. " Je conspire, toujour sje conspire,' 1 '' was his favorite answer when asked how the world was faring with him in the country of his adoption. It is doubtful whether Moscheles ever painted anything finer than that portrait of his friend, in which he caught to perfection the ruse look of the diplomatist and the sorrow-charged, almost prophetic, eyes of the exile. The gatherings at Moscheles 1 studio were unlike anything of the kind in London, though not unlike the prized reunions in Paris and Berlin. The guests were always sympathetic ; the right people were asked ; the commonplace were almost unrepresented. Foremost among the guests in those old days was sure to be George Eliot. You would see her sitting, sphinx-like, with Dantesque profile, in that chair of honor always assigned to her. Of all the great names associated with the studio— and those names in- clude Joachim, Rubinstein, Stanley, Mme. Schumann, Santley, Tadema, Leighton, Irving, Sarasate, the Terrys, Bulow, Whistler, Louis Blanc— the greatest, as among all the friends the most intimate and the most constant, was Browning. For twenty-five years, in the little studio and the large, he was welcomed as something more than a friend. The great stars who visited London came and went and came again, but Browning one met always. He loved a painting-room and the society of painters. He delighted to sit and talk with that host and hostess who were never more happy than when he was their guest. He watched the intention of the artist's brush with the interest, with the sympathy, of a master in a kindred art. "I will look in to-morrow,'" he writes, dating his letter May 9th, 1889, " always enjoying, as I do, the right of creation by another process than that of the head, with only pen and paper to help. How expeditiously the brush works ! ,-1 So he spent his last birthday in that studio with the old friends. Only a month before he had written for Moscheles, on his picture of "The Isle's Enchantress, 11 the beautiful lines that so graphically described it : " Wind- wafted from the sunset, o'er the swell Of summer's slumberous sea, herself asleep, Came shoreward, in her iridescent shell Cradled, the Isle's Enchantress. You who keep A drowsy watch beside her, watch her well. 11 When talk was at full flow you heard as many languages as at the waiting-room of the railway station at Cologne. One evening Modjeska started up and gave an impassioned recitation in Polish. People were delighted— they were scarcely surprised.— From the New York Herald, London. 15 226 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. " ' Law, Love, and Grace ' are divine attributes ; ' Truth, Goodness, and Beauty ' their correlative principles ; 'Science, Religion, and Art 1 their re- spective Cultures; ' Good judgment, 1 'Goodwill, 1 and 'Good taste 1 their derivative and related Virtues. 11 — J, W, Stimson. CHAPTER XXXI. SOME FAMOUS ART HOUSES. Gladstone as a conversationalist — Americans in London — The "Narcissus " hall of Sir Frederick Leighton — Alma Tadema and his Greek studio — The private theatre of Hubert Herkomer and Sir Percy Shelley — William Morris at home. Mr. Gladstone was much interested in Del- sartism. When we first went to London we met and dined with him. He talked long- and ear- nestly on the subject, and after hearing" an expo- sition of it from Mrs. Russell said that he hoped it would be used in every college and school in England. Mr. Gladstone is a man of the widest knowledge on all subjects, and entirely drops the worker and the politician. He converses with the greatest ease and enthusiasm on probably a wider range of subjects than any living man. The lines of his face are hard, but his smile is SOME FAMOUS ART HOUSES. 227 very sweet and he has the most perfect articula- tion of any one I met in England. He is entirely free from the so-called English mannerisms. At present there is the greatest rage in London over Americans. It is enough to be only an Amer- ican, but American artists are especially well received. At a farewell reception given to me in London my reply to many speeches was that while Sarah Bernhardt said had she her choice in life she would be an English duke and live in Paris, my choice would say " an American artist and live in London." American singers are much sought after now. When I went to say good-by to our contralto, Belle Cole, she was dining with the Duchess of Wellington. In general domestic architecture and interior decoration I have seen more beautiful examples in the few days that I have been in New York than I have seen in all London. The morning I spent at the Associated Artists yesterday was a treat and wonder, even after seeing everything that is to be seen in the way of art decorations in Europe. We have so much money, so much en- thusiasm, and such intelligence to change and de- sire to have the best in everything' that the prog- ress even in one year is ver} T great. The average English homes are dull and cheerless, and the art in them is commonplace. Of course the excep- tions to this are the homes of the great English 228 A DELSARTEAN SCKAP-BOOK. artists. Sir Frederick Leighton's house and studio are marvels as color studies. His hall of Oriental tiles in every shade of tur- quoise and peacock blue, with jewelled glass win- dows and a softly-splashing- fountain, is one of the most beautiful effects in color I have ever seen. Alma Tadema's studio is reached by a flight of golden stairs; the steps being entirely covered with plates of polished brass. He is busy painting' his picture for the next Academy, which will be a companion to the " Vintage Festival," which he considers his masterpiece. The present picture represents the ceremony of bringing the first wine sack into the temple and is crowded with figures and brilliant in color. An object of great interest in the studio is the celebrated piano, with its case inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, its lid lined with parchment on which are written the names of the great musicians who have played upon it or sung to its accompaniment. It is a great contrast to go from this room, so entirely Greek in its character, to the studio of Mrs. Alma Taclema, which is a Dutch interior, with quaintly-carved oak walls and little diamond- paned windows brought from Holland. The house that Hubert Herkomer is building promises to be one of the wonders of modern times. Mr. Herkomer is of a family of wood carvers who are spending the entire labor of their lives upon its details. The great pieces of furniture are all SOME FAMOUS ART HOUSES. 229 built into the house. The fire-places, the screens, and the columns all represent years of labor and are very beautiful. The house contains a theatre, in which a performance of an opera, the music written and the scenery painted by Mr. Her- komer, was one of the sensations of London last season, being especially visited by London man- agers to study the novel effects in lighting. Foot- lights were dispensed with, and the gradual pro- gression from daylight to twilight, night and morning, was effected by various novel mechani- cal contrivances of the artist. There are many private theatres in London. Among the most interesting is that of Sir Percy Shelley, son of the poet, who has one in his town- house in London and another in his country -place at Bournemouth. Sir Percy is the third baronet and inherited the title long after his father's death. He was born soon after his father wrote the fa- mous tragedy, " The Cenci." The theatre is the passion of his life. We spent a week at his country- house, a manor facing the sea and containing a room entirely devoted to the relics of Shelley. Sir Percy writes plays, paints the scenery, composes the incidental music, and produces them at great pains and expense in his private theatre. He is a lo vely old man,and Lady Shelley is one of the finest women in England. Another interesting private theatre of London is that of William Morris, artist, poet, and socialist. A low, long, barren, white- 230 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. washed room, where nearly every night socialistic and anarchistic doctrines are thundered forth from a little platform which sometimes is transformed with beautiful draperies, and there the celebrated socialistic drama written by William Morris is acted. Mr. Morris receives his guests in a com- mon-looking- blue flannel shirt, has a pleasant smile and a hearty grasp for every one. The interior of his house is very attractive, especially because of the many portraits by Rossetti of Mrs. Morris, whom artists have said is the most beautiful wo- man in the world. She goes out but little and is rarely seen. A poet was speaking in hushed voice of her beauty. I asked him if he had ever seen her. He replied, no — yes, once in his life he had seen her through a vista of rooms. He saw her pass behind a glass door. Another artist said he had seen her, but he was so abashed by her glo- rious beauty that he cast down his eyes and could say nothing, and she passed on. — Interview with Mr. Russell. An Art Iconoclast. — "Now, may I ask you one personal question as to the truth of a certain paragraph I read, I believe, in the Pall Mall Gazette, about your smashing up, with a hammer, works of art which you consider unworthy of the name? I never knew if it were a skit or not." Mr. Russell appeared very much amused at this question, which cer- tainly savored rather of curiosity than an earnest inquiry after knowl- edge, which I had informed him was my object. "Well, there was just so much truth in that hammer business that I cannot altogether contradict it. At the end of a certain course of lec- tures I was giving in New York on decorative art, good, bad, and in- different, I invited the audience to bring any and every object they owned, producing either in form or color a demoralizing effect on the mind ; proposing a general holocaust." SOME FAMOUS AET HOUSES. 231 " After the fashion of a modern Savonarola, 1 '' I suggested. "Well, the result was that I found on my arrival at the lecture hall a table on the platform literally crowded with abominations of all kinds in china and earthenware, and then and there proceeded to demolish them with that historical hammer, after their defects had been demon- strated clearly to every one's satisfaction. A garbled account of this got into one of the American Sunday newspapers, from thence was copied into the Pall Mall Gazette— this was quoted back again into half a dozen Western journals, and so on ad lib. Nor was this the worst of it. The American Sunday newspaper is nothing if not sensational, and had em- bellished its paragraph with a block purporting to be a speaking likeness of the daring iconoclast. This also got copied in its turn, and the last time I saw it it was illustrating an account of a ' thrilling murder per- petrated by a dangerous lunatic.' I suppose the portrait of the homici- dal maniac was bound to go in, and they took the first old block that came to hand.' 1 '' — Texas Si/ tings. Edmund Russell's Orange Room.— It was an excellent'room in its way, but it's being multiplied and caricatured on every hand. This was the story of the original room : The aesthetic Mr. Russell had a friend in Massachusetts who, " like most Massachusetts women, was a very nice sort of person, but lived in a house that was distressing." (Observe, please, that the last sentence is quoted.) This good but unaesthetic indi- vidual wished to refurnish her parlor, but could spend only ten dollars. " Give me," said the amiable Edmund, "your X and I will see what I can make out of you." Like all tales of furnishing, this story starts with wall-paper at eighteen cents a roll. It was a north room and so the paper was orange, warm but toned down by the shadows. From wall-paper it goes to paint, olive-green paint with a touch of turquoise on the low old-fashioned ceiling beams. These items cost less than five dollars, and Edmund began to see his way to living on nothing and laying up money. He pulled down ' ' Washington at Mount Vernon" and "Lincoln and his Family" and the rest of the pictures, and put up photographs of classical subjects in the old frames, first taking the precaution to paint them orange. Then he bought a plaster cast for seventy-five cents and varnished it to look like old ivory. In fact, he: did all the things that you usually hear fairy stories about, even to bringing in a tall clock which the old lady happened fortunately to have, and to covering the haircloth sofa with olive-green canton flannel. He spent somewhere in the vicinity of §9.87 and had thirteen cents for his pains. That orange room has been productive of more mischief in New York than a mild small-pox epidemic. Every day you hear of a new woman who has gone and done likewise, to her own discomfiture, and the setting on edge of the teeth of her visitors. You see cheap orange paper hob- nobbing with silk hangings and brocades. You see orange in south rooms and east rooms, where the sun shines on it, making it crudely glaring. You see canton flannel contrasting with Wilton velvet carpets. You see cheapness and dearness mixed up in a blind follow-my -leader fashion that makes the judicious grieve. You see hand-painted frames put about costly oil paintings. O tempora ! O mores 1 O Mr. Russell!— Elizabeth Dustin in Brooklyn Times. 232 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. "On this world's poison tree, there are two honey-sweet fruits : the enjoyment of the divine essence of poetry and the friendship of the noble. ''''—Indian Proverb. CHAPTER XXXII. A HINDOO SOIREE IN LONDON. An evening at Mr. Matthius Mull's— The oriental friends of the Shakespearean scholar — Some beautiful dresses — The Indian law students — Indian music and dancing — Indian taste deteriorating under Eng- lish influence. One felt upon entering- the drawing-room that some breath of Indian air had found its way into f oggy London, warming- and softening- the murky atmosphere, such is the mystical mellowing- influ- ence with which these Orientals are surrounded. The room was brilliantly lighted, and when we entered the guests were standing about in groups quietly conversing. The motley garbs were strange enough; here, an English gentleman clad from head to foot in the unbecoming straight-cut but inevitable black; there, a Hindoo, with, his rich, flowing robes, adding to his every gesture a grace which is foreign to us. Some of the Hin- doos were dressed half in English, half in their A HINDOO SOIREE IN LONDON. 233 national costume* the English mathematically- cut trousers contrasting- strangely, and I ma}^ say painfully, to the massive turbans which covered their noble figures. The dignified manners of these Orientals are indeed striking; they made no awkward blunders; we all remarked that their manners were those of perfect gentlemen. Now I must speak of the marvellous costumes. The first which we noticed was a rich plum-col- ored silk embroidered in gold thread. I think I never before have seen work to equal this; the finest gold thread must have been used, and the sleeves, shoulders, back, and front were most elab- orate in execution and design. This gentleman was from Delhi, and wore no turban, but a cap embroidered to match his dress; he wore also gray stockings, orange-colored trousers wrapped around the leg, and richly-embroidered slippers. During the evening he entertained us with a dance in imitation of the Nautch girls, which he executed with great ease and skill, dancing with the body rather than with the legs, holding his arms horizontally the whole time and keeping step to the strange, weird music which was played by two other Hindoo gentlemen, one playing a zither and the other keeping up an incessant thud, thud, thud, on a book which he held in his lap, but the whole effect was most charming. One gentleman wore a magnificent yellow dress richly embroidered; another a costume worked 234 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. all over in a Paisley pattern; another costume was trimmed with narrow bands of several dif- ferent-colored furs; with these turbans were worn. The one we admired the most was of simple white muslin, and a lady present told us that there were ten yards in it, that the youth always wore it to cover his hair, which was long — I believe she said below his waist. When some one suggested that he cut it off, she informed us that he belonged to a certain class in India, the Sikhs, and if he did so he could never again be received by them. After we had admired all these rich and beau- tiful costumes, an English friend suggested that they play to us some of their national music; at first they seemed very shy, in fact they were so all the evening, and it was with some difficulty that they were prevailed upon to begin. The first we had was an air played on a very long zither by a handsome young Hindoo who was dressed in the English costume. The music re- minded me at once of our Gregorian tones; in fact they are identical, only the Indian music has throughout a sustaining note, which gives it a weird, sleepy effect, and before you are aware you are quite fascinated by it. Their music shows a finer division of sound than ours, having quarter tones in their scale; for instance, there is another note between C and C-sharp. They do not use wide intervals, but compose their melody with a few tones, keeping those close to the sustained A HINDOO SOIREE IN LONDON. 235 notes. Our music sounds to them like sudden screams and shrieks. Another Hindoo, a remarkably large, fine-built gentleman, played for us on a sort of flutina, very prettily, with exactly the same lulling effect, the sustaining note still marking it throughout. One gentleman was asked to sing, but he was very shy, and our friends had great trouble to get him to do so. He had a well-modulated sweet voice, and sang a love song, in a sitting posture and swaying gently to and fro, and before he had finished we remarked that the others were sway- ing also. I suppose the air touched sympathetic chords in their hearts. Then Mr. Russell recited to us that grandly dramatic poem, "Mother Egypt," by Joaquin Miller. It was as new to me as it was to our Hindoo friends, who seemed to be highly enter- tained by it. Before our pleasant evening drew to a close we prevailed upon Mr. Russell to give us another of his charming recitations, the " Lilith " of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which they seemed equally to enjoy, and then, after a little general conversation, Mr. Russell gave a very eloquent and witty address on their national art in dress versus our conventional English fash- ions. He spoke of dress in its relation to the hu- man body, dwelling on the deplorable fact that our English styles literally murder expression. He also begged of them not to discontinue their 236 A DELSAKTEAN SCEAP-BOOK. national costumes and use our ugly and unpoet- ical ones for substitutes; he knew, he said, how they were perhaps open to ridicule upon our streets, but that was only on the part of the ignorant few, and they did not in any way ex- press the opinion of the English as a nation, who he was sure fully appreciated the poetry and beauty of their dress as being the expression of the Eastern mind; and if modified for the street it could at least be retained for the house. Mr. Russell concluded his admirable talk by again urging them not to discontinue the use of their beautiful fabrics and jewels, telling them that if they did so it only made it harder for the next set of students who came over, causing them to adopt English dress, and so on ad infinitum. Our very pleasant evening terminated by a charming speech from a handsome Hindoo gen- tleman who, in the most perfect English, thanked us gracefully for our company, also touching the main topics of Mr. Russell's address with intelli- gence and eloquence. Earlier in the evening a dinner had been given in Mr. RusselPs honor, where all the dishes were Oriental; as Mr. Russell describes their fiery mixtures — " heat of all kinds, from sunshine to hell-fire." We left our Hindoo friends quite regretfully. We shook hands all around, and some of them accompanied us to the door. We returned to our very English homes feeling A HINDOO SOIKEE IN LONDON. 237 thai some magic curtain of the Eastern world had been drawn aside and been dropped down again, leaving us but the memory of grand, dusky faces lit by mysterious eyes, the rustle of silken gar- ments, and a lulling mystical music that haunted us even in our dreams. Helen Fagg. "Monday Evening."— I suppose it is the right thing first to speak of how Mr. Russell received me in an apartment made gracious by various touches of Oriental and modern art — a panel of "Virgil and the Muse," embroidered from a design by Burne-Jones, being a prominent attrac tion ; how he lighted an Indian incense-burner before we began our talk — possibly to give an Oriental color to the proceeding, for let it be un- derstood that our Delsartean, though hailing from the West, appears irresistibly to gravitate in all his ideas and tastes toward the East ; and those who have the entree to Mr. and Mrs. Russell's "Monday even- ing," will probably find a larger contingent of the dusky children of Hindostan there than in any other drawing-room in London. I have seen them myself, looking like bees round a lily, or bulbuls round a rose (or any other Eastern metaphor you prefer), as they cluster about the path of Mrs. Russell, who moves like a Greek goddess, in her white and saf- fron draperies ; or initiating Mr. Russell into the intricate mysteries of Indian etiquette. I have even heard of a choice dinner or supper, with Indian costumes and Indian dishes, given in honor of this fair-skinned lover of Aryavata, whose affection and admiration seems fully apprecia- ted and reciprocated.— London Letter. No Use.— All was excitement on board the ship. A beautiful maiden had fallen overboard ! "Throw her a rope! " shouted a hundred voices. Willing hands seized a rope and threw it over the side of the vessel It dangled jnst above her head. She made a brave effort to reach it, but was unable to get her arms above her head, and with a wild, despairing shriek she— but the pen shrinks from its sorrowful task. . . . She wore a tailor-made suit.— Chicago Tribune. 238 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. "Delsartism is a method of observing nature and teaching art. "The science of expression — the science of beauty. "Until the discoveries of Delsarte the laws of expression were unknown— the laws of beauty only partially known, so that with the world full of artists by instinct a teacher of art was an im- possibility. " In all future time all honest teachers of the arts of oratory, acting, painting, sculpture, decora- tion, and music must speak the name of Delsarte.' 1 —Henrietta Russell. CHAPTER XXXIII. NOTES. A sculpture is a study of form with line for its domi- nant beauty. Painting represents form, substance, and surface — the three-fold properties of matter — by means of line, chia- roscuro, and color. A decoration is an expression or suggestion in line and color; and applied to an object is subordinate to its re- lation to that object. No matter how rough the workmanship, how vague the suggestion, a work which is in harmony with its en- vironment in color and true to its principle in line is beautiful. Realism is the lowest form of art and in a decoration should never exist ; as superimposed on the mass of an- other object, it should only suggest form and not have or seem to have depth or bulk of its own. It is to be regretted that the splendid and vigorous modelling of the modern Limoges wares should have notes. 239 made this bad form of art so popular — fundamentally wrong artificial flowers in china, however well done they may be, are no less distasteful than artificial floAvers in wax or cloth. One should use the term " unprincipled " in Art with as much care as in character, as Art is rather more sub- tle in its methods than most people, and a bad thing well done is infinitely more dangerous than a good thing badly done. A decoration is only the part of a whole to which it must be subordinate, and it is weakness, not strength, to overstep its limitations. As room furnishing, a picture becomes a decoration and must be in harmony with the general effect — especially in color. There is nothing more beautiful in decorative quality than the flowering trees of spring — the apple, cherry, and dogwood. Splendid lines of trunk and stem, dark, some- times even grotesque, against masses of bloom which melt into the tender sky, almost the same tone ; so deli- cate, the shadow is not shade, but only richer depth of color. The beauty of stems is scarcely ever appreciated, ex- cept by the Japanese — the only artistic flower lovers. Their national flowers are the cherry and the chrysanthe- mum ; they make festivals for their blooming time, and almost every kakemono, bronze or lacquer bears wit- ness to their intense love and perfect knowledge. Much interesting work has been lately done in the Japanesque school. One might almost term it the romantic decora- tion as distinct from the classic and conventional, based solely on geometrical arrangement. Some of the old mansions about Washington Square, New York City, have been refitted with fine modern work. One of the best examples of good taste in carry- ing out a simple scheme of color has walls of dull green- 240 A DELSAETEA1S- SCEAP-BOOK. gold, painted with bold arrangements of the apple and almond — whole trees with their twisted trunks and masses of blossom. The furniture is tawny plush like lion's skin, a few kakemonos hang on the walls, as there can be no pictures, and some fine rugs cover the floor. It is a study in green-gold. A golden room where it is always spring, The color gold, singing in minor chords Inlaid like some Wagnerian leit motif. Around — soft draperies where a thread of gold Outlines a thought, and line sweeps down to form The gorgeous full-fed Orient color passion. In glowing jars concentric in the shade — In Chinese glazes blazing 'gainst the dark Of teakwood forests . . . The Japanese design is realistic, becoming conven- tional only as it shapes itself into the limits of decora- tion. The art of the Persian is symbolic, now the sym- bol of a symbol. We cannot read, but only sense and feel the gorgeous color they have told their story in. We catch the tone, but not the articulations, yielding ourselves to a passionate dream of color without being held back by any story it may tell ; without looking in the corner for the name of the man who made it and basing our love for him on the fact that he is — not an Academician. The Persian has been most generous, has given us his work and not asked us to think of him. A life that has a rug for its expression : Content to weave its best emotions there — Knowing them never understood by those Who tread them down with modern insolence — Born innate with a sense we never learn — Glowing with passion silent and content, To weave in some dark cellar and to die That we may live attuned to higher harmony. NOTES. « 241 There are other ways of copying than merely imitat- ing the lines of some work already done — that is the most direct, the simplest, and the least harmful, if the work copied be good. Many paint from Nature with only the spirit of the copyist— so many green leaves, so much green paint — a few facts, some minor details imitated first because they come last, without knowledge of principle or feel- ing of relation. One never feels that they have ex- pressed anything. The work they call finished gives a feeling of labor, their broader style— of ignorance or carelessness. ' But the most subtle, the most common among students of a higher class, is the ignorant imitation of the methods of a master without knowledge of the reasons that have caused him to adopt them as his means of expression — without study of the laws and details he may have con- sidered non-essential to truth — or thought, if the lan- guage which a great man has found best for his range of feeling is best suited for their needs and capacities. A great artist never disregarded a detail except through perfect knowledge and conscious pow r er ; and such is his strength of expression that we often feel most what he did not say. He sees all the tones of nature and selects the har- mony that may best simplify his sweep of vision. The pupil who has not studied the laws of growth and expression, who does not know there are such laws, but comes to the studio "to paint," seeing him disre- gard detail thinks it because it is "bold," or "stylish" — slashes in, leaves out details here and there without knowing the reasons why, or the complex suggestion of the master's style ; and thinks it a compliment when her friends cannot tell what her flowers are ; talks of " feel- ing," "values," etc., and says she paints in the "broad French school." Most of the pupils of the modern schools of technique belong to the latter class. Because a master does not draw in his pictures, but 16 242 A DELSARTEAN SCRAP-BOOK. covers with the flat of the charcoal and then rubs out the lights with a rag, or paints at once with a brush loaded with color, it is not because he despises drawing, but because he perfectly understands it, and is so sure of his power gained by years of patient study that he need not assert it ; his facility has become automatic and his draw- ing would be perfect if he never thought of it. He does not draw to show how well he can draw or paint to show how well he can paint, but because he has something to say and has perfect command over the means of express- ing it. Rossetti or Burne-Jones could paint flesh as superbly and roundly as the most brilliant salon-paralyzer ; they would have thought it supremely vulgar to have painted a Christ from a model strung up in a studio to call forth the remark — " splendid bit of flesh-painting.'" I think that it is an open question whether the real- istic flesh-painting now so much admired is either good, or high, or necessary ; if much soul has not gone out of our work by this devotion to skin, whether this painting of dog-skin and man-skin and Christ-skin is not rather blasphemous to the soul it covers and does not savor more of the studio receipt-book than the kneeling lover or student. It is not in catalogues, in description of Vatican or South Kensington treasures that we find thoughts on art. The lectures at schools and colleges are but the History of Art, what artists have done ; the studio work — how to do it. Never on the evolution of art-principles from the principles of nature. The artist is sure to get right in time. If he loves deeply and kneels reverently enough to mother Nature, she will kiss his eyelids into new vision. But the peo- ple ; those who need not do, they must be educated at least to know, at most to love — they can be critics and lovers. And how does a modern education fit them for it? An old professor with a stereopticon or a lot of pho- tographs, gives them lecture upon lecture on Greek and Roman art, Egyptian and Assyrian art, Christian and notes. 243 " Pagan " art. Feeds them as they feed geese, by cram- ming facts down their throats with a stick ; so when the school-girl sees a modern painting, knowing it is neither Greek nor Assyrian, Egyptian nor Roman, and never having been told anything bnt the historical, chronolog- ical, anecdotal facts concerning art, can only say " how pretty," and pass on, wanting to paint on plush or satin. Box up magic-lantern slides and art-dictionaries, and take down your Bible ; to learn a lesson in methods of teaching from One who walked by the blue shores of Galilee and talked to the fishers of nature, until He made their lives beautiful — who spoke truth, not fact, parable, not precept. Take your Shakespeare, "the poet who has never once drawn a character to be met with in actual life — who has never once descended to a passion that is false, or a personage who is real ; " Goethe, who after writing one of the greatest psychological poems of any age gave us the "Metamorphoses of Plants," and devoted himself to the study of the anatomy of plants and animals. Take the essays of Emerson, of Thoreau, even Carlyle, who with all his grumbling does tell us that "the real well seen is the ideal." Study these dwellers near Nature, the greatest Art-teachers because the greatest Life-teachers, who knew of all that is good, and true, and beautiful to express. Study the patient and pathetic life of Francoise Delsarte, who chose poverty and obscurity that we might know how to ex- press our better and higher selves instead of the mere accidents of daily life. Then go to an art -school or studio : the first where students are trying to stipple or stump the Venus de Milo for a prize, the next, where they are learning flesh -receipts and texture-receipts, and method-receipts, think if all things to be expressed have been used up by the Assyrian, Greek or Roman ; and if we are rightly studying the means of expressing what is left, and pray for an art of the future that may include all science and embrace all nature, until we find " God's measures and man's measures identical in absolute truth." 244 A DELSARTEAIn SCRAP-BOOK. • Tannhaiiser to Venus in the Venusberg— " O queen, O Goddess ! Let me go ! " — and now You've seen the world, the heavens, and the seas ! With stormy heart that leapt with fiercer joy To feel the storm-wind cut across your breast That once the spicy musk breeze lulled to sleep. Have known the land where life's intensest range Is circled with electric speed — and time Is measured by pedometers, not heart-beats, Where commerce is the art, and merchandise Is valued for intrinsic cost, not beauty, And dreams are waste of time, when time is money. Where all are peasants, freemen — all are kings, And every one may hope to touch a star If concentrated thought can bring it down, Or patient labor can climb up to it. Adieu ! — now back to dreamland ; with those eyes, Where all the drowsy East's traditions sleep. Back to the world of color, where e'en Death Joins hands with Beauty and sinks Lethe-ward, Red crowned with poppies, palms, and lotus-buds, The spoils of centuries treasured for their sleep. Art weeps them in her own lachrymatals, And Romance sculptures then sarcophagus — Ugliness bears the same relation to the material world as disease does to a perfect body. It is man's great crime against Nature. She has made all space beautiful. He defaces and mutilates her and offers an increase of speed, a race with time, for an apology. He can only flee, he dare not rest or look behind. In studying the change from the splendid art of past time to the extensive manufacture of the present, the most important thing to be noticed is the change in the social position of the people. Art-condition has its deepest root in race-condition. The almost universal ugliness of modern life ; the enor- mous demand must always make of art an industry, and NOTES. 245 of industry a manufacture — a sort of " watered stock " principle which is death to Art. Ugly things are so extravagant — deformed, unrelated, they stand on people's mantel-pieces waiting for some one with courage enough to kick them out of doors, al- though they have " cost money." A pious lady who had never been to a theatre, de- nounced Sarah Bernhardt as the " modern Delilah, who was coming here to destroy the American youth, 11 and said, it was " the duty of every woman in the land to rise up and drive her from our coasts.' 1 When the modern Delilah came, undismayed by the angry aprons shaken at her, a young foreigner to whom the lady had shown some kindness invited her daughter to attend the thea- tre. The agonized mother hurried to a friend — " What shall I do ? — Monsieur Legno has invited Mary to go to see Sarah Bernhardt! and he has bought the tickets 11 '" All the evening she paced the floor, weeping — " I don^ know if I have done right — I don't know if I have done right — but he had bought the tickets. 11 We keep many things in our houses that we know are bad, simply because Ave have bought the tickets. Take down your vase with the artificial china flowers stuck over it and give it to the boys for a target ; tell them why you do it ; it cost twenty dollars perhaps, but you are a hero and a reformer cheap. Let us hope the time will soon come when you cannot be both so easily. London is a great aggregate of buildings ; a city be- cause so many thousand houses are huddled together without plan, without order, a huge monster crouching beside the Thames, sending up smoke to meet fog, which descends cold and gray to cover a city equally chill and colorless. We all hate London, and yet we must all love London. No people in the world know how to live as well as its people. While many fading splendors of the Old World survive to make us despair at their perfect beauty, it is from England that we have had the first impulse to 246 A DELSARTEA3T SCRAP-BOOK. make ugly things, necessary things, which seemed a part of modern life we could not throw away (and had no fog to cover) — beautiful. Modern life is like London, an aggregate related by necessity, not beauty. Yet it is London that has given us hope. The English Renaissance, although it needed the ad- vertisement of ridicule to suit it to modern times, has done more to develop a sense of a higher beauty in the expression of life than has any social reform the world has ever known. In olden time a city, a state, a kingdom, was an entity. A king or a duke, surrounded by his court, from which spread circle upon circle of dependents. The position, the duties, the growth of each marked by immutable law. If a noble was warlike his followers were warlike. If in times of peace he loved the arts, they loved the arts, worked in them, and, as any special production was intended for him alone no time, no labor need be spared to make it worthy the favor of the liege lord. He in return honored the workman and artist, gave them gifts, ennobled them. Indeed, in Art they found their only hope of ennoblement, of true equality, of lib- eration from the barriers of their condition. In this London, this palace of drift-wood, we find a band of art lovers and art workers who hold that the individual home must be an expression of the individual life. That when each sits on a throne so grand — ruled by " His Majesty Myself " — he must study to beautify and not to debase his dominion ; that if he indeed be master, the only thing that will save him from seeming the more the servant will be to invite Art to his court. Conventionality has almost reduced us to rigid black and white. Ancient life was a blaze of color. The peo- ple lived in it, of course they loved it. The street scenes were moving pictures. Every station had its appropri- ate costume, and no one thought of the servile imitation notes. 247 of special fashion which makes our dress to-day almost a dead level of mediocrity. Such close relation to Art made her oon camarade with the poorest. They loved and knew her, and she dwelt with them. Good taste became an inherited in- stinct — not a hot-house production. The Italians all love music. Once in crossing the ocean, I talked with a party of them, decoyed from their homes for the sake of their steerage passage money, wild with hopes of a future El Dorado. They had left Naples, beautiful, laughing Naples, who embraces the most wretched, lets him dance on her sun- kissed shore and bathe in her blue waters, feeds him for nothing with chestnuts and ripe figs and gives him a seat in her theatre for half a franc. They were going to work in a coal mine, underground, in a town I had never heard of, in Illinois. They asked me if there would be an opera house there ? Why, they would never hear a bird sing. They sat there in the ocean wind, perhaps the last pure air that would lift the black curls from their handsome faces. Sat there in the summer sun that kissed them good-by, and talked of Naples, of life, of the opera. They could not read or write, they had heard more operas than I ever had and knew them by heart. They were dark and passionate, had flashed out their dirk knives one day when they quarrelled with each other. They were beautiful. One could not but feel the beauty they had loved and lived in, dirty perhaps, but outside, not in, had given them a quality we do not learn from our books. Something that, although we think them vile and low, do not envy and would not change with them, our life lacks and if added to all Ave have would make us happier and better. A better expression to die with on one's face perhaps. " Vedi Napoli, epoi morir! ' r Alas ! a modern contractor had found them. They were going to see Illinois " and then to die.*" Very few people ever really see the works of the old masters. Art only shows herself to a lover, and her great- 248 A DELSAETEAN SCEAP-BOOK. est power of concealment is when people put on specta- cles. She is shamelessly exposed in galleries to the crowd, but she need not blush, the crowd is blind; and while they are studying to see if her nails are well trimmed, and telling what " Buskin says " about her, she is having most lovely interviews with one who stands apart and silent. Without any knowledge of the laws of expression, or more fundamentally, of the principles of nature — for all spiritual truths are founded on physical laws — the ordi- nary sight-seer (a dreadful and expressive word ! ) clogs his feelings with a mass of mental facts and details about the work or the maker — something he has read or heard, of historical relation, or personal anecdote ; looks up all the authorities and perhaps finishes off with a little rhapsody of his own; more from duty than feeling — suggestive of feeling, perhaps, but with an embarrass- ment which expresses his self-consciousness of artistic awkwardness. His eyes " are made the fools o' the other senses," when they might be " worth all the rest." "It has been said — " "it is considered to be — " "he painted four years on Mona Lisa and then thought it unfinished — " " Charles V. picked up his paint-brush," etc., etc. Our stranger buys a mass of photographs, takes them home, and repeats the same interesting guide-book in- formation; thinks himself an art-critic and connoisseur; and will be thought so, no doubt, by his less fortunate friends who do not possess photographs and guide-books — and all because when he was a little boy they made him draw straight lines, and never told him anything about Art. A picture we may pass by and seldom study or feel. It tells a story and we go to it when we want to be inter- ested. The color of our walls we dwell in, it surrounds us as sunlight and atmosphere ; it does not speak, but envelop us, it forms our material environment and is as subtle in its effects as our spiritual environment. Color is the moral element of the material world. NOTES. 249 Unrelated things are always ugly — a load of furniture for example. All effects in decorative art are studies of the relation of things. We may buy ten different masterpieces and unrelated they are ridiculous. Art is not fooled or bought. Place her in false relation to one and she flies from all. Even poverty is beautiful when harmonious. If we cannot receive something from a picture and give something to it, it does not belong to us, has not to do with us — we are two separate things and had best pass on. The savage, environed by nature, is in a better state for art-work than the average boy here, with his sur- roundings either stupid or ridiculous. Artistically speak- ing, modern life is a failure; with immense resources of all kinds, we have grown so far from our mother Nature, that, while a Zulu looks like a bronze statue and we may find in an Indian, chest and poise like an Apollo — our own beautiful race neither stand, move nor speak cor- rectly, that is, with a correct knowledge of the proper uses of their physical development, nor proper remedy for the physical deformity we have gained by thinking of mental culture only. Civilization has been also a failure with the Indian, but it was because it did not know what to give him or what to do with him as undeveloped material. It failed solely in trying to make a white man out of a red one. The early aboriginal art has almost always fine quali- ties, as man in his first attempts to picture endeavored to symbolize his surroundings, and however rude the workmanship the work is crudely grand. The ornamental borders — conventions of natural lines — of wave motions and radiations — their nearness to nature makes them great, and the art immediately after a nation has emerged from a savage state is always sub- lime. The temples hewn from the solid rock; the gigantic gods symbolizing nature's forces ; magnificent mytholo- gies with ruggedness of workmanship and splendor of 250 A DELSAKTEAI* SCKAP-BOOK. idea, which will survive all annihilations, even of the races to which they belonged. We can never return to nature, but we can at least attain to a perfect understanding of that which we have inherited. Truth is a spiral which ascends from earth to heaven, and the facts that hang like withered leaves on the ends of dead branches are not Art. Edmund Russell. K IPLING'S POEMS CONTAINING m ©THEH