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arms; yet more bulgy maman swerves over to tickle her youngest, while the next eldest clutches her mother's skirts in terror of the great ugly man with the camera,

In the background is the father of the family, looking over his wife's shoulder at the baby; while he places one hand on the shoulder of his eldest boy, who is rapidly outgrowing his knickerbockers, but is nevertheless determined to "come out well" in the group. The party is completed by the grown-up sister, who toys coyly with a straw flower lent her for that exact purpose.

A. couple of drawings record with equal force and truth the effect on the public of the cry "Stop Thief." First we sec the excited rabble in full chase; and then the victim {absolutely innocent) being hurried off to the police station by victorious gendarmes, followed by a gesticulating crowd of knowing ones, who declare the prisoner is a murderer who has killed a woman and six children. On another page are two street wrestlers, drawn to the life. One of them is shouting himself hoarse in his endeavours to collect a crowd to witness the marvellous accomplishments of his colleague, a mountain of flesh who is about to lift a stupendous pair of dumb-bells.

Yet another coloured drawing in Le Rire, called Le Coup de Main is very remarkable in its composition and handling, and like most of Vallotton's work shows an appreciation of Japanese


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methods, It depicts a team drawing a huge block of stone which has come to a standstill, while a group of labouring men are all lending a helping hand to get the huge white mass on the move.

Among the papers which Vallotton has helped to illustrate may be mentioned Le Cri de Paris, Le Sifflet, and Le Canard Sauvage.

The hoardings of Paris have been enlivened from time to time by vigorous posters by Vallotton, a class of work to which his art is eminently adaptable. A most notable example was the bold and telling

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one he cut on the wood, for the publisher Sagot. But itis Vallotton's portraits of contemporary celebrities that entitle him most to lasting fame. Some of these have appeared in the French journals, as a magnificent set of powerful woodcuts, done in a large style and on a large scale.

A fine example of this work was published in The Studio in 1899, in a portrait of Puvis de Chavannes, which Vallotton drew and cut on the wood specially for that journal.

A very subtle and delicately coloured reproduction of Vallotton's work in colour appeared also in The Studio a few years back; and an excellently rendered landscape woodcut by him appeared in the volume that so fully indicated the claims of modern wood engraving, namely, "L'image."


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VI

LOUIS MORIN

ORIN is the Watteau of the modern illustrated press. He is, so to speak, an eighteenth-century maître galant of the twentieth century. He inherits

Watteau’s gaiety and light-hearted joy in the fetes and intrigues of the butterfly life of a time now gone by—a life half imaginary and half real. His figures tip-toe airily through an atmosphere scented with roses, ever ready for ardent love-making, for a stately minuet on the sward, or for a reckless break-neck dance over the cobble stones. Anon his figures laze in swan-like gondolas, gliding along the moonlit canals of Venice to the throbbing music of the mandoline. Moreover, all his delightful personages are instinct with life; they flirt and romp, and their boisterous gaiety is infectious; we must laugh with them for sheer joy—aye, and weep with them, now and then, for sheer sorrow.

Morin wields magic pens and pencils. His lines


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are full of nerve and verve; they are impelled by the passionate excitement of the moment, and can be no mere outcome of patient plodding. If ever an artist's fingertips were the ready, unquestioning servants of a lively brain, those fingertips are Morin's; in its effervescent spirit and gaiety, the quality of his brain is essentially Gallic.

Morin was born in Paris in 1855, and was educated {education being much against his youthful will) first at Versailles, and then at one of the Paris Licées, He was trained as an architect, but left that profession in favour of sculpture, producing excellent portrait busts and such exquisite work as his "Moineau


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de Lesbie," &c. As an author Louis Morin has gained great distinction. His "Cabaret du Puits sans Vin," written in 1884, was crowned by the Académie Francaise, and further was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition.

In 1883 he had produced "Jeannik," a book resulting from a stay in his beloved Brittany, and illustrated with eighty-seven drawings of eighteenth century Brittany, Later he travelled in Italy, and found inspiration for his book, "Les Amours de Gilles," which he adorned with 178 spirited sketches of the beaux and belles of Old Venice, their manners and their customs. In 1886 he wrote and illustrated "Ia Légende de Robert le Diable," to charm the little ones, He has also illustrated for his juvenile admirers, "Pikebikecornegramme," and "Dansons la Capucine "; later he wrote and illustrated with ninety sketches his delightful "L'Enifant Prodigue." Then there are his works on "French Illustrators," and on "Quelques Artistes de ce Temps," as well as "Dimanches Parisiens," with twenty-five etchings by the greatest wood engraver of modern times — A. Lepére.

He has also illustrated the following books: "Vieille: Idylle" with twelve drypoints, "Le petit Chien de la Marquise," "Les Cerisettes," "Le dernier Chapître de mon Roman," "Vingt Masques," "Carnavals Parisiens" (with 178 drawings), and "Les Confidences d'une Aieule."


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In the early eighties Morin started drawing for La Caricature and Le Chat Noir, and later on for the Revue Illustrée, the Revue des Lettres et des Arts, Figaro Illustré, St. Nicolas, Le Canard Sauvage, La Vie en Rose, &c.

Morin was one of the leading spirits of the "Chat Noir" shadow pantomimes, and produced there in 18go his enchanting "Carnaval de Venise," in 1892 "Pierrot Pornographe," in 1894 "Le Roi débarque," and in 1896 "L'honnête Gendarme." In 1891 he produced his pantomime "Au Dahomey" at the Musée Grèvin.

A fair sized room having been acquired as an annexe to the artistic cabaret of the "Chat Noir," a white sheet was fixed at one end of it over a miniature stage, and surrounded by a quaint and elaborate gold frame. From the wings at the rear were thrown on to the sheet the shadows of marvellous little figures cut out by such artists as Morin, the great Henri Riviére, Caran-d'-Ache, Henri Somm and others, who thereby achieved great fame. All kinds of ingenious little pieces of machinery and clever combinations were invented and employed to build up the great success, which proved attractive enough to draw "all Paris" to Montmartre for some years, and to fill the pockets of proprietor Rudolph Salis, the "King of Montjoie-Montmartre," so full that towards 1897 he was enabled to purchase and retire to a noble estate in the country. From this estate, however, he was shortly


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to be recalled by the magnetic attraction of his beloved Montmartre.

A glance at the pages of the Revue des Quat' Saisons, which consists of four dainty parts written and illustrated by Morin, serves to give us a very good idea of his later work. Each of the quarterly parts is contained in a paper cover embellished with a different design in colour by the artist-author, which gives one a foretaste of the treat of spices contained within; for within, interspersed amongst the larger plates of a refined colouration, are numberless little masterpieces of pen draughtsmanship, incredibly gay and graceful and supple. Morin herein shows himself a superb draughtsman, his excited little figures career about the pages, their shapely forms palpitating and quivering with the "joie de vivre". The artist's quick eye has detected the slightest inflection in the body's outline, caused by some momentary and wayward impulse, and crystallises the beautiful thing for his own joy and for ours.

The intoxication of the carnival pervades the greater part of this book, whose literary contents consist of a series of chapters on such interesting


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matters as the "Courrier Francais Hall," "Phe Ball of the Medical Students," and the final two Quat'z'arts Balls — at which latter the Paris art students and their models used, until the heavy hand of the law fell upon them, to vie with one another in producing the most artistic and audacious groups of revellers in (and without) fancy dress ever seen. Another chapter is devoted to a "Night Fête at Venice" in the olden time, with its scenes of love and revelry, Yet another, illustrated with silhouettes such as helped to make the success of the Chat Noir Theatre, deals with the influence of that institution on latter-day Art and Poetry. "Then follows an article on "Spanish and Eastern dances," illustrated with gracefully whirling votaries of the terpsichorean art; next comes a chapter on "Modern Sculpture," decorated with irresistibly comic drawings of models posing in excruciating attitudes to satisfy the modern sculptor's supposed craving for originality.

The amount of ingenuity, facility, and anatomical sureness shown in this little set astounds one,

Most of the drawings have evidently been done with every flexible pen, capable alike of giving a line that with but slight pressure passes from great delicacy to corresponding strength.

The Vie en Rose contained many contributions from Morin; occasionally he essayed a drawing executed with the bold thick line then in vogue, but anything approaching brutality in method or subject


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could not but come amiss to him, and it is in such delightful fancies in this journal as the Façon de voir la vie en Rose—Le Dessinateur—that we see him at

his best. A draughtsman of elegant appearance, surrounded with bric-a-brac, is here seen in his censer-perfumed studio, reclining on an enormous rose-coloured cushion ; his cigarette is in one hand, and the crayon which is limning a female form in the other. Two adoring little models watch and guard him; while a procession of respectful art


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patrons stream in humbly to offer their thousand-franc notes for the sketches he is tossing off.

Other less discreet studio incidents, treated with even more delicacy of colour and draughtsmanship, are contained in the journal,

Morin stands alone in his particular style of workmanship: those who have come nearest him are the joyful and boisterous Robida, and the more reserved Henri Pille.

From all the above it is easy to gather that Louis Morin is little short of a genius; a charming and wonderful personality, endowed with one of the keenest and most versatile brains of our day.


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VII

CHARLES HUARD

UARD has done for the denizens of the godly, deadly dull French villages and provincial towns of France what Steinlen has done for Paris — and he has done it exceedingly well. It is difficult to conceive how these worthy people, so fully convinced of their own importance, so proud of their deviltries and or their little wickednesses, and so full of tittle-tattle about their neighbours could have been better introduced to us.

Huard's collection of one hundred sketches, published in book form, and entitled "Province," should prove a valuable document to future writers on the manners and customs of a section of French provincials at the commencement of the twentieth century. He interests himself mainly with the local official and petit commerçant (or tradesman) classes, deviating occasionally to draw within his net a few stray soldiers, or some dignified member of the old nobility of France.


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A man of healthy mien and fine physique, Huard is excessively reserved and retiring, seeking the companionship of very few, and entirely engrossed in his work. Moreover, he is most modest, and has in no wise been spoilt by the lasting success and renown his work has earned for him, at an age when others are but commencing to hammer at the door of Fame.

Huard was born in Paris, bt brought up in a provincial town, His schooldays, we are told, were marked by indomitable diligence in the successful finding of means of evading the tedium of one school after another. It is a ludicrous fact that although none of his humorous sketches are


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actual portraits, his own townspeople have taken such dire offence at what appeared to them as hits at themselves, that they have so far boycotted the satirist that he willingly banishes himself from the town in which he passed his youth, It is even reported that one old lady said, quite seriously, that if he ever dared to draw her she would disfigure him for life with vitriol, Possibly this is the marvellous person, in a good temper, whose physiognomy appears on the cover of the Huard number of "L' Album."

Of course it is not to be denied that Huard has "made game" of the provincials; and, knowing the inherent pettiness of the classes he has held up to ridicule, it is small wonder that they resent fun poked at their expense by one who to them can appear to be no less than a traitor, Huard, however, is never spiteful or malicious; he sees better and further than his neighbours, and he knows how to tell the truth about what he has seen, without being warped by local influences.

A perusal of "Province," and other works to be mentioned, will, I am sure, prove the truth of these remarks.

His figures are as a rule set in fitting urban landscapes, every whit as truthful as the personages they frame. Look at the drawing among those classed Les Officiels, entitled Midday Mass is far the most aristocratic — wherein a procession of regular church-goers debouches out of a picturesque, half-hearted,


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somnolent High Street into the blazing sunlight of the "Grande Place." The local member and his wife, the lawyer, and all the other pious scandalmongers of the town are going to make their daily penitence. We can see these good folk, we can feel the sunshine, and we can even hear the clangour of the bells in the church tower. Then look in another sketch at the two editors of The Revenge. Were ever such chauvinistes, such firebrands? Getting on in years — true; but as dangerous as not yet extinct volcanoes, they reek of pistols for two and coffee for one.

A drawing labelled The Express conveying the President will pass at five o'clock, is most amusing. There, on the little railway platform, is gathered all the official rank and society of Tilliere-Sur-Ruron. Inflated, yet nervous, they fidget about, awaiting impatiently the proudest moment of their lives. We know them all; the mayor with his address is there, surrounded by his satellites of the Municipal Council, all arrayed in heirloom dress suits, members of the Gymnastic Society are there — some lithe, some burly — then there are ces braves pompiers, and the stern gendarmes; and behind them, dressed in their best, but shut out from view and from seeing, are the townspeople in their thousands. No matter, they are about to receive a main topic of conversation for many a weary year to come.

Then there are the poor, dear, terrible old ladies, to whom Huard introduces us under the heading


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"Les Vieilles Dames," — thin-lipped, moustachioed, bigoted, deadly-dull personages are they, most of them; but they do not think so. They are contented, and are even conceited, as to the furs they cut, 'despite their shocking clothes; for is not each of them so much more Parisian in appearance and manners than "Madame Chose" — round the corner, and just out of hearing.

Here and there, however, we are presented to some real dignity, the dignity which pertains to old parchment. For example there are the portraits of ''the Mlles. Petanville de Grandeourt, in whom will 'expire the most purple blood of the country.''

Under Soirs de Province we ave shown with quaint humour the nocturnal dissipations of a provincial town, "Two troopers, one as drunk as the other, are zig-zagginge an erratic course home to barracks. One says to the other; "Vidalène — you hurt me to the quick you won't wait for me because you think 'm drunk you are ashamed of me!" Again, the musical genius of the place has brought his violin to an at-home, and says: "What I prefer in music is imitations. Listen, I'll give you first 'Mother-in-Law in hysterics,' and then 'The Nightingale.'"

Then amongst the group of drawings headed Rentiers et Retraités look at the two retired tradesmen, chatting in the middle of a deserted square. In bated breath one of these busybodies relates to the other — "You know the whole town ts agog


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with it. Mrs. Lepingon visited the new dentist three times in the same day!"

A splendid set of drawings is included in the group Au café. We can see that they are so many resumés of the hurried sketches, for ever being made in the sketch-books which are Huard's never-failing companions. The handling, whether in pen and ink or in chalk, is always frank and bold, and occasionally is like that of Raffaëlli. Among the Raisonneurs et Sentimentaux are two old gossips seated on their favourite bench on the me of the town; it is evident that neither of them, even in his palmiest days, could have set the local brook on fire, Yet one of them explains that "there have only been two men who have understood the proper course for France to pursue — M. Thiers and J. M. Thiers is dead, and they will not listen to me!" A joyful break in the monotony of life in the provincial town is most admirably rendered in Market day at Pavigny-le-Gras, Everyone and everything is fat, and hot, and smiling. Joy and plenty are the key notes of the harmony; éxuberant good nature exudes from every pore. Even the houses around the Place de la Cathédrale seem to beam and bulge in purring contentment.

A review of Huard's work leads one to regret that he does not render his survey of provincial types more complete, by occasionally including studies of that manly and womanly beauty which


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exists in even the most forsaken community, to leaven the predominant ugliness. However, it may be that such forms of rustic beauty do not attract Huard, and we must rest grateful for his view of such types as do interest him deeply.

M. Huard — equally with several others of the illustrators mentioned in this little volume — has been honoured by having an entire number of "L' Album" devoted to his work. Therein we learn that to the few Huard is known as a most able oil and pastel painter of seafaring folk; and the etchings and chalk drawings reproduced convince us that it is a well-earned reputation. The double-page centre drawing of the number consists of a masterly Return from Mass, in which we see the good souls repairing homewards in the moonlight, soothed and contented in mind and in spirit. A few pages further on we come to two piou-pious, or "tommies," enjoying their Plaisir du Dimanche: they are seated, and one of them smokes a cheap cigar. The comment runs, "You wanted to come here so as to show yourself off smoking a cigar; but we could have had much more fun at the station watching the trains go through,"

Le Rire has published a quantity of Huard's work, the strength and vigour of which never seems to fail. The subjects are frequently drawn from the quays of Paris, or from cafés and restaurants patronised by visitors from the provinces to the gay city. The humour of a drawing called Plages, in


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which a rather vulgar Paris tripper to the seaside, paddling with her friends, exclaims in astonished appreciation "By Jove, sand like at Charenton" (shall we translate Putney?), is apparent to all. In these, as in all his sketches, whether drawn from a low Paris "pub," or from an innocent village café, indoors or out, the entire truth to nature of the type chosen, the very cut and hang of every garment is absolutely convincing, and unerringly put in with a few bold touches of the pen.

A pathetic drawing is that of the poor workwoman, who has tramped out to the sordid wastes of the fortifs, or fortifications of Paris; and, in her enjoyment of the faint echo of the real country, there to be found, exclaims — "If I were rich I'd come here every day!"

Huard has drawn for L' Assiette au Beurre, L' Image, Le Rire, and Cocorico some remarkable military subjects, in which he has depicted the French soldier to the life. Here, we have him disclosing to a comrade on the quay his modest dreams of fortune — there, he is discussing rations with his colonel, and in another splendid double-page drawing we see him at night, shouting some rude refrain, and painting the town scarlet generally; but the finest of all is perhaps a vivid drawing in colour of a squad on a drill ground, — red caps, white suits, and a yellow background, — the whole making a most striking page. Huard is very successful with these coloured illustrations, many of which


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appear in "Le Rire", and charm us with their quaint breadth and simplicity. of treatment. Nothing in this way could be better than the old "concièrge" and his dumpy wife, who are painting a cast of the "Venus of Milo" with canary yellow, and decide that it is much prettier like that, and much less indecent.

For the exhibition of "La Demi Douzaine," the little group of artists among whom he exhibits his marine work, Huard has done an excellent poster.


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VIII

J. WÉLY

ÉLY is one of the more recent stars in the firmament of Parisian illustrators, nevertheless he shines with a peculiar brilliance of his own.

His drawing of the female form divine, more or less disclosed in dainty decollété, is well nigh unsurpassed. The excellence of the draughtsmanship, which is so generally attained in the Paris Schools of Art, is very frequently nat traceable in work produced later in the artist's career. This, however, is not the case with Wély; the sureness of drawing required in the schools remains, plus a large quantity of vim and esprit. The adjective which best labels his work is charming; and here it may be well to state that the more emancipated any one Is the greater the number of Wély's drawings he is able to admit to his collection, to charm again and again. For Wély is the artist of adventures — the adventures of the bedroom. He is a humorist, and not a


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caricaturist. He has too much love of human beauty to caricature the human face and figure, and it is possible that for the same reason he never produces a coarse drawing; however risky the situation he depicts, that which attracts and interests one is the beauty of his drawing, and the technical dexterity of his handling.

It is possible that admiration for the work of Jules Chéret, the master poster-maker, has had something to do with the formation of his style. His work, like that of most of the later illustrators, is done with chalk or charcoal, very little pen-work being produced, The perfection to which the photo-reproduction of drawings now attains has been chiefly responsible for this, together with the praiseworthy attempt of the modern men to vie with the magnificent series of drawings on stone, done half a century ago, by Gavarni, Daumier, De Beaumont, Cham, and other splendid draughtsmen: The revival of their method of treating drawings with a broad point seems for the time to have more than half submerged the exquisite pen-and-ink work, such as was contributed to the illustrated papers some twenty years ago by Lunel, Courboin, Jeanniot, Vogel, José Roy, Vierge, Luigi Loir, Moulignié, Gorguet, Robida, G. Stein, Galice, Myrbach, G. Scott, F. Fau and others, But the situation is saved by the fact that Guillaume, Caran-d'Ache, Job, Morin, and a few other leading illustrators are still faithful to pen and ink. In any case it is certain that of those who


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use crayon, charcoal, or lithographic chalk, none produce work which is so subtle and yet so facile and so sure as Wély. He is a light-hearted Steinlen of my lady's dressing-room; or an emboldened Helleu.

The relations between artist and artist's model frequently attract Wély's pencil, while other outside subjects seem to tempt him much less frequently. The hard-working, penniless, happy-go-lucky artist rapins he draws arc a delightful crew, most excellently put upon paper.

A specimen of his humour is indicated in the words accompanying onc of his rare pen and ink drawings, which appeared in Cocorico, A chic little lady is seated in a shop, while a female attendant unrolls pile after pile of material in the hope of supplying her wants. The lady says: "Why certainly, show me some more: I'm not a bit tired,"

A beautiful little drawing, of two dainty Parisiennes gossiping on a pier, discloses the method he has employed to produce a telling piece of work. The outline has been rapidly sketched in with a few bold, subtly curving lines from a pen, while modelling and colour have been given to the whole with deft crayon touches. We feel the joy the artist must have evinced in regulating the pressure he put on the crayon, so as to give each line its exact breadth, and depth of tone. The pleasure he takes in manipulating his medium is always manifest in his work, "The complete modelling of a dainty neck


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and shoulders, or of a shapely ankle, is frequently accomplished by the merest touch of the chalk — but a touch in exactly the right place, and of exactly the right size.

Wély has contributed te the pages of the Frou Frou, and very frequently to La Vie en Rose. His small illustrations to "Aristophane à Paris," and to "La Maitresse du Prince Jean," which first appeared in the latter journal, are full of ability, humour and vivacity, A drawing entitled Quelques Predictions pour 1902, shows us a delightful little coquette in déshabillé, who is consulting the cards with an old woman fortune-teller, the while a tiny kitten plays with a ball of worsted. "They are so life-like and so subtly depicted that we almost expect to see them move on the paper. Passe temps du jeune Age, is one of the most astoundingly able and beautiful studies of the nude that one can recall by any artist, and also appears in La Vie en Rose.

The type of man usually introduced into our artist's drawings is not conspicuous for its beauty; it generally depicts a bit of a scamp, a don viveur, who is used artistically as a foil to some fresh and dainty young person of the opposite sex.

Several pages in colour, which appeared in the Vie en Rose, evinced a charmingly refined sense in that direction; while some illustrated covers for Le Rabelais, each most successfully dealing with


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an entirely different and difficult colour problem were among the most striking examples of that branch of art yet produced.


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IX

LOUIS MALTESTE

MONG the workers on the French illustrated papers none produces a steadier flow of thoroughly conscientious, sound work than Louis Malteste.

His are no chance effects, no tours de force of mere eccentricity or charlatanism, but are the outcome of knowledge, hard work and assurance.

He is a splendid draughtsman, unerring and direct, a seeker and finder of individual character, who does not attempt to electrify the world with his audacity, or his at-any-cost originality; for he is content to delineate for us, in masterly fashion, specimens of humanity as they appear to the man of keen discernment.

At the time of the loathsome trials of Dreyfus, Malteste was one of several artists who specially distinguished themselves by splendid sketches of the actors concerned therein, In the writer's possession is a collection of these spirited and life-like drawings.


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They are doubly admirable when one considers under what disadvantages they were produced. The task of the artist, told off to a sweltering, ever-crowded court-house, surcharged with violent excitement, and commissioned to make portrait groups of interested persons, who are incessantly changing their positions, is none toe easy. Yet these drawings show no hesitation; in each case some fleeting gesture or attitude is caught in a vigorous drawing, and fixed for ever.

No wonder then that publishers such as Hachette, and the weekly illustrated papers Le Monde Illustré, L' Illustration, &c., should have availed themselves of his talent; or that when he turned his crayon to more fanciful subjects he should have found a ready outlet in the pages of such papers as La Vie en Rose, Le Rire, L' assiette au Beurre, and many others, wherein to let fly that gauloiserie which flows in the veins of even the most serious Frenchman.

Most of the drawings in La Vie en Rose are excellent works in chalk of actions governed by sudden impulse; and, in technique, strongly recall the admirable drawings of the English draughtsman, Gunning King, whose work Malteste has probably never seen, It is most likely, however, that the style of both artists has largely resulted from profound and well-placed admiration of the work of the veteran Renouard.

There is in La Vie en Rose an amusing series of drawings by Malteste of coachmen of all grades —


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each a strong piece of work, full of character, and well placed on the page. Another series in colour consists of fancy portraits of potentates; here again Malteste has distinguished himself, as witness the Léopold, Roi des Belges, a harmony in white, yellow, and brown. Malteste shows himself as a tender colourist in the excellent drawing of a milking scene, entitled La Traite des Blanches; another farm scene, Le Fléau, is as excellent an example of black and white work, and only surpassed by the chalk drawing Psychologue, a superb delineation of two ragged, storm-beaten rag pickers toiling homewards with their baskets.

His little studies of queer bits of gnarled humanity are splendid; witness his Femmes Fidèles, La Femme qui prise, his droll lady who declares There is nothing hike good swig, his Woman with a Dog, his Woman with the Cats, or the group called Types of Electors in the Ville Lumière. We recognise all those electors at first sight; there is the heavy, obstinate man, who gets his way by force of sheer dead-weight, there the suave complaisant "good-sort," there the pugnacious, quixotic fellow, who adores a riotous meeting, there the pensive philosopher, and so on. There is no mistaking the true character of any one of them; to a companion page of Femmes Infidèles the same remarks apply.

A noteworthy quality in Malteste's work is the invariably excellent drawing of the hands. To any but the surest draughtsmen hands are


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a veritable bête noire, to be avoided whenever possible,

Besides his reputation as an illustrator, Malteste has made his mark as a painter of note, and in collaboration with Gelis-Didot has executed a charming poster for L' Absinthe Parisienne; while his poster for the Thêatre Antoine is one of the finest things of its kind yet produced,


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X

J. L. FORAIN

HE collection of two hundred and fifty sketches, published in book form under the title "La Comédie Parisienne," at once established Forain as a firm favourite both with the public and with artists.

It could not well have been otherwise. For these tender, graceful, little sketches touching on the private life and foibles of dancers, bankers, lawyers and others, appealed to the risible faculties and the sympathies of all Parisians; while artists admired the delicacy of touch and apparent facility with which the little scenes were "flicked in," The expression "apparent facility" is purposely employed; for despite the appearance of careless ease of execution conveyed by the slightness of these sketches, those who have seen the artist at work know that for each sketch presented to the public three or four have been rejected by their author as unsatisfactory,


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A very large proportion of the drawings in "La Comédie Parisienne," treat of matters to which it is quite customary to refer in French publications, but which in England are discreetly relegated to the confidential whisper of intimates; so that it is rather difficult here to give specimens of the delicate wit displayed therein, — lest it should be classed as indelicate wit, The standard of delicacy topples over at such very different angles in England and on the Continent.

Whatever the subject treated, however, one is struck by the keen observation these drawings display, the requisite movement or attitude being perfectly rendered with the minimum number of lines. They are snap-shots of propitious moments; but taken by an artist's eye in place of a photographic lens, and an artist's science to display what is necessary and to discard what is unnecessary for the illustration of the point at issue,

The drawings here and there reflect the touch of melancholy in the author's nature, as well as his caustic wit.

A charming and sympathetic drawing is that at the working man playing with his crooning babe, while the mother, who is getting supper ready, says to her husband "Ah! wouldn't you be stunning, if you'd only give up drinking." In another drawing a poor woman says to her drunken husband "Aren't you ashamed to be in this state on a Tuesday?" How telling too the sketch of the rascally picture


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dealer who bursts in on the famishing artist and his starving wife and baby, and says — "I must have three Corots and a Diaz within six days — Madame, make him work!"

Then there is another delightful artist subject. The landlord breaks in on poor hard-working Pinceau. "Sir, you've made me call twenty times — you owe me seven quarters' rent, I tell you I've had enough of it!" "Gracious — is that all you've got to think about then," is the cool reply.

How beautiful in its simplicity and how exquisitely the curt legend " Rothschild," fits that drawing of the little ballet dancer who whispers the portentous name into the ear of her sister coryphée, the while the moneyed man behind the scenes passes them.

Once more, look at the husband stupefied at the bill which accompanies the host of packages in the midst of which he and his wife are standing. "What, what! two thousand seven hundred and fifty-three francs, forty five centimes! and all that 'so as to go away to the seaside for three weeks!" — "Well, yes, you are right, my dear, I will send back one of the umbrellas!"

These drawings are almost all executed with a thin, pin-point pen line, of even thickness throughout, and with flat tones of shading added by means of mechanically engraved dots. Forain, Vogel, and Willette, although their methods differ, are among the few


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who now illustrate with such faint lines and aim at such fragile effects.

A collection in book form of his political and topical illustrations, which had appeared in Le Figaro were republished under the title "Doux Pays."

The number of L' Album devoted to Forain contains able sketches, done in wash and chalk, which are stronger in effect, although incomplete looking; and bear the impress of having been dashed off at great speed while the inspiration lasted. A very subtle drawing of the nude, entitled, The Tub, however, is included in the number, as well as some strongly indicated work in colour.

Forain's work has been widely published; we have seen it in Nous, Vous, Eux, in Le Figaro, in Les Femmes, il n'y a qu' ça, Le Courrier Français, L' Indiscret, Le Rire, in L' Assiette au Beurre, in The Studio, and elsewhere.

He has done bold poster work, Le Salon du Cycle, La Parisienne du Siécle, &c.; and he did a series of splendid up-to-date designs for a mosaic frieze, which was inserted in the front of a boulevard restaurant some few years back.

To Le Rire he has been a pillar of strength; and this journal has called forth some of his best efforts, generally drawn in with crayon or brush, and completed with a wash of two or three such faint colours as grey-green and pale brick-colour, being


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treated frankly as sketches and nothing more. Yet how amply complete is such a drawing as that of the little powdered "cocotte" in the black hat receiving the last touches to her toilette from her maid, while her vicious, bony, mother waits impatiently to hurry her off to the evening's rendez-vous. Another fine drawing culled from the same source introduces us to a squat lady sculptor, modelling from a beautiful nude female model, The shapeless sculptor cries out, "There! you're posing so badly that I shall have to finish it from myself — before the glass."

An exhibition of Forain's work, which was held on the Eiffel Tower in 1890 or 1891, under the auspices of the Courrier Français, achieved for the artist a great success; although he had a terrible struggle at the outset of his career, even at one time appealing to Renouard to get him a job to draw anything, — "anything, fashion plates, or never mind whatsoever."

Forain is yet another past habitué of the Montmartre "Café des Hydropathes" (which later developed into the "Chat Noir") who has achieved fame and riches. He now lives in a splendid mansion in one of the most fashionable quarters of Paris, immersed as ever in his studies, and taking up sculpture as a relaxation, He works in a vast, untidy studio amidst an astounding litter of studies and papers, from which he but occasionally tears himself for a rapid spin in his beloved motor-car,


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XI

CHARLES LÉANDRE

EANDRE must be a terror to the members of the official classes in Paris, for they must live from day to day in mortal fear lest they shall have fallen a prey to his deft pencil. He must ever persuade them of their own irresistible comicality, and thereafter they must always feel more like Léandre's caricatures than like themselves, and must inevitably act likewise.

Léandre not only caricatures the faces and figures of his subjects, but he caricatures their mien and manners; their politeness, their self-satisfaction, their hauteur, their cringing, in his hands exudes from every pore,

Yet he is not cruel, he does not lead us to hate his originals; he makes us enjoy them, and laugh good naturedly at and with them. He shows us their unmistakable features, as though seen throuzh a distorting but discriminating mirror. We can


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well imagine one of his victims, impressed with the undeniable truth of Léandre's portrait of himself, shunning daylight altogether, after the publication thereof; and refusing to walk abroad carrying those weasel eyes and that terrible nose, which previously he had flaunted on the boulevards with such evident pride. Indeed, a dose of Léandre might well be prescribed as a cure for swollen head.

It must not be imagined from the foregoing that portrait caricature alone occupies the pencil of our artist, His book of subtle wash drawings entitled "Nocturnes," and the lively pages of Le Rire, L' Album, Lassiette au Beurre, and other journals are embellished with his cartoons and comic drawings, covering a fairly wide range of subjects, He is moreover a serious portrait-painter of great feeling and delicacy. We may look on him almost as an animalier, or natural history artist making a speciality of that droll, brainy, beast — man, recording all his different varieties, and watching his every gesture and movement.

In his cartoons he occasionally approaches the somewhat nervous style of Willette, whom we incline to think time may prove to have been an overrated artist. [he stronger method ot Léandre, however, is particularly noticed in such drawings as Le Ministère en Vacances and Le Retour du Genéral Duchesne in Le Rire; and here we may mention how much many of the most excellent of the younger artists — such as Steinlen, Léandre, Malteste, Redon,


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Sabattier, Tilly, and Huard in France, Lockhart-Bogle, Hartrick, Almond and Gunning King in England, evidently owe to that giant among draughtsmen — Paul Renouard.

Léandre was born at Champsecret, Orne. It is easy to trace the influence that a course of modelling in plaster under the decorator Bin, which he attended after leaving college and arriving in Paris, impressed on his work, for all his heads have a strong sculpturesque feeling about them. Later he became a pupil of Cabanel at the Beaux Arts School; and we, who know the ways of Paris art students, can well imagine the uproarious series of "charges" or caricatures, he must have painted of his fellow students, and possibly of his professor. For it is certain that later on he handled the gens sérieux, with whom he


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was brought into contact at the reunions given by his uncle — the Deputy Christofle, with but scant regard for their dignity.

Settling in Montmartre, he rapidly captured the quartier with his marvellous caricatures of the "types" of the neighbourhood, and of the Bohemians of the greater Paris who flocked to its cabarets artistiques. Thenceforward his fame has rapidly spread far and wide: of course he was a patron of the Chat Noir, and later of the Quat' z' Arts, to whose papers he contributed.

We have only to examine his drawings to realise that — given the opportunity to publish his work — success was inevitable. Before me is one of his drawings in Le Rire — "The effect of Latin and table salt on a youth of Normandy." It represents a christening scene tn the church of a Normandy village. The irreverent babe in granny's arms is howling the roof off its mouth, while the ancient cleric with port-wine nose, his service interrupted, essays to quiet the little darling; and we can see he is only debarred by professional etiquette from using language unfitting the Church. Grandpa beams good-naturedly at the wickedness of his latest descendant, while the fond mamma joyfully simpers her complete approval of the hopeful's lung power. A priggish chorister holds a long guttering church candle, which his hot hands are melting in the middle; outside in the porch the bell-ringer with a jug of cider and a glass is pulling his hardest at the


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joy bells, and a background of fidgeting, yawning children completes the picture.

Then look at the gaily-coloured page which transports us to the middle of a village fête. All among the garlands and Japanese lanterns the firemen are making merry with their lady admirers. The drummer of the squad, a lusty fellow, is stealing a kiss from a protesting, yet willing, kitchen-maid.

An astounding drawing of a bacchanalian orgy entitled Ribote de Noel appeared in No. 112 of Le Rire, and the whole reeling scene of drunken revelry is marvellously rendered. In the largeness of the forms and the rollicking abandon of the whole scene we are reminded of our own Rowlandson, an artist whose work is thoroughly appreciated across the Channel. The quintessence of quaintness is reached in another drawing, which again reminds us somewhat of Rowlandson, It ts a drawing contained in L' Album, entitled "La Folie des Grandeurs — Les Yeux plus grands que le Ventre"; and shows us a queer little Tom Thumb of a man smoking a cigar, and speaking in the language of the eye volumes of admiration for the mountainous woman against whose knee he lolls.

Other illustrations by Léandre appear in Le Grand Guignot, and in the comic paper La Vie en Rase. To a little collection of caricatures of (then) reigning sovereigns, entitled "Le Musée des Souverains," Léandre contributed some remarkably clever work. President Faure, Queen Victoria, the Emperor of


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Austria, the King of the Belgians and King Menelik, all come in for a more or less trying pictorial analysis by Léandre, The drawing of Menelik is a most wonderful piece of work, but unfortunately intended to be humiliating to Italy; and here we may mention that Léandre has always been attracted by general political cartooning, as well as his more frequent local cartoon work, but however much his estimate of the nations, as seen from the Gallic point of view, may tickle outsiders, we feel he is a good Frenchman, and the artistic quality of his work never fails. His double-page drawing in Le Rire of the "Senators going to War against the Chamber" is crowded with caricature portraits of politicians hurrying out to do vigorous battle, each showing by the introduction of some subtle little device his own marked peculiarity or fad.

Léandre has frequently introduced a self-portrait into his sketches, and he is evidently as critical of himself as of others. He always shows us a serio-comic little man with chubby cheeks, bulging, spectacled eyes, and a big inquisitive nose dominating a small turned-up moustache and starveling beard. Some of his own military service adventures he has depicted for us in mock heroic style in "Les Treize Jours de Léandre." Among notable caricature portraits is that of Drumont, the arch Jew-baiter. In a coloured drawing entitled "The Ogre's Repast," we see this noisome person with a chain of Semite "portions" round his neck poising a gory


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Jewish head on his fork previous to making a meal of it. In fine irony a cross hangs on his breast.

His drawings of concerts and musical conductors throb and thrill with sound, the very paper on which they are printed seems to vibrate with the volume of it.

The Comédie Française supplied him with subjects for a splendid set of caricatures; and the rustic inhabitants of his native village of Champsecret form the foundation of yet another delightful series entitled "Ma Normandie,"

That the tragic side of life touches Léandre deeply is evident, if only from a couple of drawings which appeared in "L'assiette au Beurre", The first is entitled "Saison des eaux — chacun va aux eaux suivant ses moyens"; and we see a starving, distracted mother, plunging to eternity in the foul depths of a canal, while her tiny children, all unconscious of their fate, clutch her skirts and are being hurled to death with her. The other drawing bears the legend, "What have they been doing, sir? Sleeping without paying for it!" — which is given as the conversation passing between a little milliner's girl and an old gentleman, who are watching a long procession of dejected outcasts being led to the lock-up by ferocious-looking policemen, while behind them is a wall inscribed with the mocking legend, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité." The poor prisoners are evidently not criminals, but merely the crowded-out failures of a great city,


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 who have perforce been obliged to sleep in the streets.

Léandre's posters, such as his "Les Cartomimes" and "Le Vieux Marcheur" display all his captivating characteristics, but look hardly robust enough in style to stand the attacks of weather on a street hoarding.

Léandre, however, is a great draughtsman, and there can be no mistaking this fact.


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XII

CONCLUSION

T may be held that some of the Illustrators whose work we have been considering are but slightly connected with Montmartre, and that there is no such thing as a Montmartre school, Such contentions are both right and wrong, according to the manner in which one cares to approach them.

It is incontestable that in the very informality and independence of their various styles these artists are echoing the spirit of that Montmartre in which they all have spent so many joyous hours. With the "Butte," one associates breeziness, irresponsibility, and a youthful impatience of restraint. From her lofty perch Montmartre can survey at leisure, and if it needs be point the pencil of derision at the world of Paris surging at her feet; but it must not be forgotten that if she be light-hearted she is also ever warm-hearted. Her interest in the follies of-life is even surpassed by her deep sympathy with those who are struggling against its miseries,


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It is possible that, as time goes on, some other quarter of Paris will take the place of Montmartre, as the nursery of young free-lances, and will inspire future Bohemians to other great deeds in the world of art. Mayhap the honoured quarter [sic]wlll be "Montparnasse," or the vicinity of the "Luxembourg;" or perhaps it will be the "Butte de Chaumont," — the other great cliff of Paris, surrounded in this instance with a romantic park, and peopled with a toiling, excitable, working population, — that will attract the next group of illustrators of modern city life. However that may be, Paris supplies a never-failing succession of highly talented artists who, as they leave the schools, different as their methods may be, group themselves around some chosen neighbourhood, some cabaret, some master of the art, or some illustrated periodical, Already there is a brilliant group of yet younger illustrators risen in Paris, since the advent of these with whom this volume deals.

The fact that most of the papers in which these illustrations appear are unknown to, or unpalatable to, the British public, renders it certain that, with but few exceptions, the accomplished work of these modern masters of black and white art will never be as widely appreciated in England as it deserves to be,

And this is one more justification of the writer's longe-urged plea that in London we are sadly in need of a National Water Colour and Black and


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White Gallery, for which the best obtainable examples of such work could be procured by gift or purchase, and thereafter exhibited. Stowed away in drawers and cupboards at the British Museum, at the National Gallery, and probably at South Kensington Museum and elsewhere—visible only in driblets, after regulated application, is untold wealth of beautiful drawings which should rightly be displayed on the walls of such a gallery as is suggested. Beautiful examples of work by living illustrators, both British and foreign, could be obtained for a comparatively nominal sum, and would exemplify a powerful and fascinating development of modern art; which meets the requirements of the day, in its own line, as fully as did the work of those early Italian masters in their time, which the nation’s art buyers collect so assiduously and at so much cost.

But such a gallery would be incomplete were it to pass by without example the strength of Steinlen, the dainty elegance of Wély or Morin, Huard’s types of provincialism, Forain’s delicacy of design, or the humorous observation of Caran d’Ache. To be complete and cosmopolitan it must chronicle within its walls something of that defiance of convention, that exuberance of youthful audacity, seeking ever fresh paths within the unexplored—above all, that single-minded devotion to art for its own sake which belongs to these Illustrators of Montmartre.


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. — "Another series of little art monographs which is as attractive in format as any."

. — "This nicely printed little volume contains reproductions of some of the more famous Bartolozzi prints, together with a list of most of the important ones."

. — "The Langham Series: The first volume, 'Bartolozzi and his Pupils in England,' by Mr. Selwyn Brinton, is an excellent summary of a subject most popular at the present time. It should prove a great boon to the collector."

. — "Mr. Brinton is himself a collector and knows his subject thoroughly, The volume is illustrated, and should make an appeal to all interested tn the art of engraving."

. — "Bartolozzi, by Selwyn Brinton (A, Siegle), is the first of what promises to prove a series of very dainty tittle monographs on artistic subjects.Mr. Selwyn Brinton, whose excellent volumes on the Italian Renaissance and Correggio will be known to many readers, writes of his subject with admirable knowledge and discrimination; and to all who would learn more of Bartolozzi and his work, his brightly written pages, which are embellished by many dainty illustrations, may be cordially commended."

. — "Bartolozzi and his Pupils in England." "In this delightful little book we have a most excellent collection of prints from the masterWe have in complete, cheap, convenient form, well indexed and nicely printed what may prove a guide."

. — "There ts undoubtedly a considerable body of collectors of Bartolozzi's works in this country, and this little book should serve as a handbook for such persons."

. — "The first volume of the series, 'Bartolozzi and his Pupils in England,' is full of information to the lovers af specimens of the engravers' art."

.—"Well produced and written by acknowledged authorities, these new little books will probably find a ready welcome."

. — "Mr. Brinton presents us with a wholly sympathetic and adequate study of Bartolozzi's work."

(Dublin). — ''Bartolozzi and his Pupils in England' is a charming little book dealing with the life of the famous engraver. Mr. Brinton writes with a thorough knowledge of his subject."''


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 EN VENTE CHEZ TOUS LES LIBRAIRES et a la Librairie

Illustree, J.

TALLANDIER,

rue Saint-Joseph,

8,

diteur

PARIS.

L'ALBUM SPLENDIDE PUBLICATION ARTISTIQUE

PAGES D'AQUARELLES ET DE DESSINS INEDITS

360

Un

magnifique

vol.

grand in-^.. avec fig. en nolr et en

couleurs

METIVET

Broche,"avec couverture illustree, composition de Reliure d'amateur, tete doree, avec fers speciaux dessines par

METIVET

20ff.

25fr.

Depuis vingt ans, nous assistons a un spectacle vratment curieux dans le domaine de la production humoristique : les caricaturistes et les fanMais tout n'est taisistes se sont multiplies comme les pains de l'Evan?ile.

pas excellent dans cette production a outrance. II y a des noms qui ne seront jamais que des noms d'occasion, des dessinateurs d'un jour, qu'un hasard d'actualite a mieux inspires que d'habitude, mais qui n'ont pas au bout des doigts le crayon qui fait que tel dessinateur est un artiste. Aussi saura-t-on gre a L'Albutn d'avoir su faire la moisson dans ce champ immense, en s'efforQant de] degager de la foule des dessinateurs d'aujourd'huiceux que leur maniere, leur verve, leur 6criture, designaient comme des maitres ; ceux dont les feuillets epars constitueront pour Tavenir une oeuvre d'eternit^ peut-etre, tout au moins une source de documents certains.

L'Albutn est, par excellence, une publication qui restera a lui seul il suffirait a faire apprecier ceux des artistes d'aujourd'hui qui marquent dans 1'humour, l'ironie, la satire. Trois cent soixante pages d'aquarelles et de des.sins absolument inedits composent cet admirable Album, et c'est un plaisir inlassable que de feuilleter successivement les vingt pages executees par chacun des artistes qui s'appellent :

WILLETTE STEINLEN Ch. L^ANDRE GUILLAUME Ferd. BAG Ch. HUARD H. GERBAULT CARAN D'ACHE

Albert

JOB

Benjamin

RABIER

HERMANN PAUL I.

J.

Abel

FAIVRE

ROBIDA

GRUN BALLURIAU

METIVET FORAIN,

etc.

etc.


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 ions and parties who barter away to the bourgeoise the interests of the workers and peasants whose confidence they still possess. The tactics of the united front is the revolutionary fight of the Communist Party to win the wide organized and unorganized working and peasant masses for a common struggle for common demands. The Communist Party there openly turns towards the leaders of the reformist, syndicalist, and so-called independent trade union their participation in a joint Committee of Action. The same thing applies to the laborites and the Agrarian Party. The object of the Committee of Action is organized centralization of the fight for definite demands. The Committee of Action does not bind any of the participating parties or trade unions to its political agitation and propaganda or to its activity in general. Above all, the right of criticism of every Party will be fully preserved. In our manifesto, which we, jointly with the Red Trade Union International, sent to your Party, we pointed out the significance of the Committee of Action. We are, of course, not overlooking any of the difficulties in your present situation. The leading group of Morones, C. R. O. M. and the Laborites, is on the same level with Gompers—future ministers and heads of departments of bourgeois governments; people who made no protest when the mounted police and Obregon's soldiers shot down the striking tenants in Vera Cruz, Mexico, Guadalajar, Gordoba and Orizaba, and imprisoned them for months; people who persecute the communists and oppress the revolutionary railwaymen in Yucatan; trade union bureaucrats who putt off the demands of the workers with liberal phrases; party cliques in whose midst the spies and provocateurs of the American Government and of the Pan-American Federation of Labor hold confidential posts; representatives of peasant communes who call themselves socialists, but who support the policy of a petty-bourgeois government for disarming the peasants. It is apparent that such "representatives" will never voluntarily sit at the same table with the communists; but it is equally apparent that behind these leaders are great organized masses, important worker and peasant trade unions, exercising political and economic power. But the time when these masses allowed themselves to be steadily deceived by their leaders is passing. The workers and peasants of Mexico are awakening. The last ten years of revolution were rich experience for the Mexican proletariat. Under the stress of circumstances, the workers will either force the leaders to the left, or they will, over the heads of the leaders, find the way to a united front. The same applies to the C. G. T. Created by the will and


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 enthusiasm of the revolutionary section of the Mexican working class, today it lies defeated, the result of the tactics of Quinteros and of the agents of the Government. But hundreds of the best and most loyal workers are still in the C. G. T., ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the proletarian revolution. The Communist International has never undervalued the strength and the revolutionary will of the anarchists and syndicalists, who are honestly fighting for the freedom of the working class. The fight of the Communist International is directed only against those anarchistic elements who, in their blind hatred of the communist movement and of Soviet Russia, slander communism and sabotage the common struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie. The communists have always been and always are ready to fight side by side with all revolutionary workers. But they will never look on in silence while the organizations of the working class are being crushed. Our tactics toward the sham anarchists of the type of Quinteros are the same as our tactics toward the sham socialists of the type of Morones. The Party must say to the honest elements among the anarchists and syndicalists: We demand nothing from you but a joint struggle with us for the demands and interests of the whole working class. We are opposed to the anarchistic tactics, because we are firmly convinced, and because the history of all class-struggles and especially of the Russian Revolution has demonstrated, that the oppressed workers and peasants can overthrow the mastery of the bourgeoisie only as a consciously organized class. But organization requires comprehension, centralization, leadership, discipline, and the possibility of manoeuvering swiftly with the striking strength of the proletariat. The federalism of the anarchists and of the anarcho-syndicalists is opposed to all these demands of the organized class struggle and, wittingly or unwittingly, makes it easier for the class enemies of the proletariat to oppress the working masses.

The liquidation of the social-reformist leader cliques and of the petty-bourgeois, anarcho-syndicalistic ideology, is the purpose of the fight for the united front. This fight is the political forge of the Communist Party; in it the interests of the proletariat, of the poor peasants and of the exploited petty-bourgeois are welded into a united class interests of all exploited masses; and here the weapons are forged for the struggle against the capitalistic social system and for the conquest of political and economic power by the workers and peasants. Closely connected with the question of the united front is the slogan of the Workers' and Peasants' Government.


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 This slogan must take root in the profound and often unconscious conviction of the wide masses that only by the closest union of the industrial working class with the working peasantry can the exploitation and oppression by the large estate owners and by the industrial magnates be brought to an end. The Communist Party knows that only the dictatorship of the proletariat can finally shatter the power of the capitalist social order. But the Workers' and Peasants' Government may be the final halting place on the road to the proletarian dictatorship. The Communist Party must therefore formulate the question of the Workers' and Peasants' Government in a concrete form. The Workers' and Peasants' Government is a coalition of workers, peasants and exploited employees and members of the petty-bourgeoisie, against the parties of reaction and of the big bourgeoisie. The Workers' and Peasants; Government is the declaration of war of the masses to the capitalist social system. The Communist Party must make the halting place of the Workers' and Peasants' Government a period of preparation and organization for the proletarian dictatorship. The Workers' and Peasants' Government means civil war. But only the proletarian dictatorship can guarantee the victory of the workers and peasants.

In conclusion, we want to say a few words about the significance of the nationalist and revolutionary struggle for freedom in the Central American countries. The capitalist development of North America and the backward economic and social development of the countries of Latin America, determine the political attitude of the United States towards the countries of the South. The drying up of the purchasing power of Europe is forcing American products into the South American markets. In the American capitalist press one notices a stronger imperialist tendency towards the South than ever before. What has been done in the West Indies and in Central America, can be tried in Mexico and South America as well. In Cuba, Haiti, San Domingo; m Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama, the American "system," the most ruthless exploitation of the proletariat, reigns supreme. Revolutionary workers are persecuted and thrown into prison. Such organizations as oppose Gompers are disrupted, betrayed and violently crushed by the agents of the local and American governments. The peasants, who are held under conditions of Medieval slavery, are stripped to


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 the bone and controlled by cudgel and whip. The workers' press is suppressed, the frontiers are controlled, the censorship is severe, for the world must not discover how American capitalism is murdering the Negroes and Indians of those countries. The America which advocated Wilson's Fourteen Points has been violating for years the national freedom of the West Indian and Central American Republic. The most primitive rights of existence of these people are being trampled underfoot. The United States hopes "in time" to parcel out Mexico into single "independent" territories. It is already openly advocating the annexation of fruitful Lower California to the United States as a territory. In Yucatan and in the State of Chiapas, the Americans are fanning the flames of the separatist movements. But times are changing. Even in these backward areas, the proletariat is awakening, is organizing, and is beginning to understand its class condition. In Cuba the revolutionary trade union movement is again raising its head after the defeat it suffered in 1921 at the hands of reaction. In Guatemala a Communist Party of Central America has been founded; in Mexico the revolutionary labor movement has such strong roots that neither the claws of American capital nor of any other capital can tear it to pieces. But the conception is still lacking of the fight for freedom for all the oppressed masses in the West Indies, in Central America and in South America, against the imperialism of the oil magnates and industrial barons of Wall Street. The workers and peasants of Mexico and Central America especially must stand close together. The aim of the common struggle must be to create a League of Central American Workers' and Peasants' Republics. It is the duty of the Communist Party of Mexico to announce this slogan with all revolutionary fervor to the oppressed masses of Central America. The Mexican Party must treat exhaustively the question which we have roughly sketched here. In conjunction with the Communist Party of Central America and the communist group in Cuba, a programme of work and action must be prepared. But the communists must be conscious of the fact that this is not only a most difficult and dangerous matter, but one of grave responsibility. The American capitalists will not look on in silence. They will mobilize all their bourgeois hangmen, their hirelings, spies and agents, to stifle your voices. The best of you will be thrown into prison or murdered treacherously. But your fight is the fight of the dawn against the night; it is the fight of the near future, which belongs to the proletariat.


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 In the most important industrial countries of Europe, the working class is being confronted with a decisive struggle. The European revolution may at any moment develop into a reality. The American bourgeoisie will not sit quietly by while the mastery of capitalism in Europe is smashed by the fist of the working class. Hundreds of transports will cross the Atlantic Ocean, loaded with the cannon fodder of counter-revolution, with thousands of tons of munition and weapons, with barrels of plague and cholera bombs; in order to put an end to the world revolution. The United States will swing the lash of starvation over the countries where the European revolution is victorious. But the European revolution shall triumph.

We expect the workers of all American countries to contribute to this victory. We expect you to fight against the efforts of the counter-revolution to recruit the white and colored fascisti and unemployed of America; to fight against the attempt to set the machinery in motion for the defeat of the European revolution; we expect you to control the railways and ships in order to prevent them from coming to the assistance of European reaction.

Agitation on these lines must be organized by you immediately. The workers of America must be prepared when the workers of Europe rush into battle.

The Russian Revolution is the heroic prelude to the World Revolution. The victory of the working class in the most important countries of Europe assures the victory of the proletariat in all countries. But the destruction of the last stronghold of capitalist imperialism, the overthrow of the North American bourgeoisie, is the task of the workers and peasants of all the American countries. The Communist International, the World Party of the revolutionary proletariat, is convinced that the workers and peasants of Mexico will fight shoulder to shoulder with the international working class until the victory of the world revolution is achieved.


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 say it is so far off.'. . . A hundred thousand kind remembrances to sister Anna and brother Eric."

In point of fact, Charles XII, never went to Stockholm after his departure in 1700, not choosing to show himself again in his capital unless as a victor. In the same month Polhem writes to his young friend as follows:—

"Noble and most respected friend,— With great pleasure I read through the fourth number of your Dædalus, which, as far as I could see, is worked up with great industry and understanding. With regard to the article on 'Resistance,' I may perhaps mention that it seems to depend rather on some additional deductions, which might follow hereafter, and which we might meanwhile discuss orally, than to need any changes or corrections that I can point out; but, if I may be allowed to express candidly my opinion, it seems to me that the last correction was somewhat unnecessary. With respect to flying by artificial means, there is perhaps the same difficulty contained in it as in making a perpetual motion, or gold by artificial means, although at first sight it seems as easy to be done as it is desirable; for whatever any one approves strongly, he has generally a proportionate desire to carry out. In examining it more closely, some difficulty arises; for nature, as in the present case, is opposed to all common machines' preserving their same relations when constructed on a large as on a small scale, though all parts be made exacily alike and after the same proportions. For instance, although some stick or pole may be capable of bearing itself and some weight besides, still this does not apply to all sizes, although the same proportion may be preserved between the length and thickness; for while the weight increases in a triple ratio, the strength increases only in a double ratio. The same rule applies to surfaces, so that at last large bodies are incapable of sustaining themselves; and accordingly nature itself provides birds with a much lighter and stronger substance for their feathers, and also quite different sinews and bones in the body itself, which are required for the sake of strength and lightness, and which do not exist in any other organisms. Wherefore it is so much more difficult to have any success in the air, the same qualities being required in this case, and all the materials being wanted, which are necessary when a human body is to be carried in a machine. . . . Your arrival in Stiernsund will be most agreeable to me; and if my


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 experience can be of any use to you, I will give it with so much the greater pleasure as the fruit of it will be of use to the public and will accrue to my own honor. After you enter upon physics, it might be useful to follow them up for some time more extensively, especially those which concern the causes of natural things; and also all other things necessary and curious, especially those of the household, etc. Immediately after I sent off my letter to you, I received yours. My wife and children desire to be remembered to you most kindly, and they also thank you for your compliments."."

The last sentence of this letter possesses a pathetic interest in view of later developments. In another letter, of the same month. Polhem writes,—

This eagerness to develop practical, useful results from their science, it is pleasant to find, was a marked characteristic of Polhem, as well as of Swedenborg himself. A gap of a few months in the correspondence of these friends indicates a time when they enjoyed each other's company, and when the elder presented young Swedberg and his Dædalus to Charles XII., at once the most sagacious, the most bold, and the most obstinate of men. The occasion was a brief lull in the warrior monarch's stormy career, when, after reducing his coun-


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 try to an extremity of wretchedness, he was, Napoleon-like, devising projects of improvement. Polhem became now his right-hand, and Swedenborg's talents were quickly appreciated. In a letter to his brother-in-law. Benzelius, December, 1716, he says,—

"I wrote you a letter from Lund, and should have written to you more frequently, had I not been prevented by my mechanical and other occupations; moreover, I had enough to attend to in order to accompHsh my design. Since his Majesty graciously looked at my Dædalus and its plan, he has advanced me to the post of an Assessor Extraordinary in the College of Mines, yet in such a way that I should for some time attend the Councillor of Commerce, Pollheimer [Polhem]. What pleases me most is that his Majesty pronounced so favorable and gracious a judgment respecting me, and himself defended me against those who thought the worst of me; and that he has since promised me his further favor and protection,—of this I have been assured both directly and indirectly. But let me tell you all, more in detail: After his Majesty had sufficiently inquired as to my character, studies, and the like, and as I was so fortunate as to have good references, he offered me three posts and offices to choose from, and afterwards gave me the warrant for the rank and post of an Assessor Extraordinary. But as my enemies played too many intrigues with the above-mentioned warrant, and couched it in ambiguous terms, I sent it back to his Majesty with some comments, well knowing whom I had to depend upon; when there was immediately granted me a new one, and likewise a gracious letter to the College of Mines. My opponent had to sit down at the King's own table and write this out in duplicate in two forms, of which the King selected the best; so that those who had sought to injure me were glad to escape with honor and reputation,—they had so nearly burned their fingers.

"Dædalus has enjoyed the favor of lying these three weeks upon his Majesty's table, and has furnished matter for many


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 discussions and questions; it has also been shown by his Majesty to many persons. Within a short time I intend to send you what is to follow for Dædalus, part v.; when perhaps Drs. Roberg and Bromell will not refuse to honor it with their contributions; they might possibly derive some profit from it.

"We arrived here at Carlscrona a few days ago, intending after three weeks to go to Gottenburg, and afterwards to Trollhätta. Lakes Wener and Hjelmar, and Gullspångelf, in order to examine sites for sluices and locks,—a plan which meets with his Majesty's entire approbation. . . . A thousand kind remembrances to sister Anna. The kid gloves have been purchased."

From these letters of what we may still call Swedenborg's youth, we learn, better than from any description, its exuberance, its energy, its assurance of mathematical power, its fertility of invention, and its strong desire to be employed in practical works for the good of mankind. Mingled with these traits it is pleasant to see the warm, confiding love that overflows to the brother and sister who had cared for and directed his budding manhood, and were still to him as father and mother. The traits are the natural ones of the time of life. What we specially observe with Swedenborg is their vigor and power, eminent by inheritance, and conserved in remarkable degree by a freedom from all ignoble passions and weak indulgence, which we can attribute only to the protection that came with a deep sense of duty to God and to man.


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Page:Everywoman's World, Volume 7, Number 6.djvu/52

 PAGE 50

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the pleasure we get out of it, for the sheer joy there is in it."

On the other hand, any experienced obstetrician will verify the statement that cases of extremely difficult childbirth (and not infrequently the fatalities resulting therefrom) usually are caused by injudicious over-development of the lower abdominal muscles to the point of an inflexible rigidity, due to an excess of strictly gymnasium work and other severe mechanical exercises which place an. unduly proportioned strain upon the muscles surrounding the pelvis. There are thousands of cases on record, the facts of which have been volunteered by mothers themselves, to show that the over-strenuous exercise of these muscles in youth, particularly in school and college work, in gymnasiums and on the athletic field, have rendered women liable to difficult delivery and fatal eventuality in childbirth, if not making them altogether incapable of normal child-bearing. And although these facts have been a matter of common knowledge to the medical fraternity for years, yet it is only recently that those in charge of the institutions of higher education for girls have taken cognizance of the need of a more modified form of physical exercise for the growing and developing girl. In this connection it is announced that one high school will, with the beginning of the next school year, adopt "natural" dancing as a regular course in the curriculum, to supplant very largely the work now done in the gymnasium.

Natural dancing gives a delightful and healthful exercise to every muscle in the entire body structure, as well as producing internal muscular activity which beneficially affects the collective system of vital organs. Also, it builds and strengthens the nerve cells and accelerates the circulation of the blood to and through the brain, thereby insuring greater efficiency of mental activity.

Aside from increasing the vigour and action of the vital organs, such natural exercise also stimulates the processes of elimination, which effectively acts as an insurance against auto-toxemia through toxic absorption, by freeing the system of all forms of waste matter. And there is no more potent factor in preventive practice than that of the effectual operation of the processes of elimination. And in scarcely any other way can these eliminative processes be so surely kept normally active as through the natural stimulation given to the vital organs and the muscular, nervous, and circulatory system, as promoted by the exhilarating exercise experienced in the practice of rhythmic dancing.

UT such dancing, in the opinion of Miss Allan, must be essentially spontaneous and entirely free from any element of "mechanics." On this point Miss Allan has this to say:

"The moment that dancing becomes bound by rules and conventions, it lose the very rationale of its existence, Who, then, shall say that true dancing can be taught? As well might we try to teach the birds to sing, the butterflies to soar, by rote and measure among the glades and flowers. It was not with taught precision of scholastic method, it was not in ambition to realize perfection in a given mode, that we danced in the shady groves and sunlit meads of Argolis, or by the murmuring seas of the Sicily of Theocritus.

"The further I advance in the study and practice of natural or rhythmic dancing, I find that I am more and more attracted to the subject of physical culture. Almost immediately upon taking up this work I felt that a healthy, sound, well-tuned instrument was the first great necessity for the carrying out of this great work. My body was my instrument, and my thought was to test and find what was lacking, then to remedy the neglected parts.

"It had always been my habit to do physical exercises every morning after my bath; not set, one-two-three-four, hands-above-your-head, out-in-front-of-you, down-by-your-side kind of exercises, but just as the spirit moved me. So soon as physical exercises me mechanical—a matter of one, two, three, and a stolid expression or one of physical pain—their virtue is gone, from my point of view. Body and mind should be en rapport. Even in such a seemingly prosaic thing as after-bath exercises, the body should give expression to a thought. The better, the more poetic, or more musical the inspiration, the more graceful the physical expression.

"A drill sergeant is all very well for soldiers; dumb-bells and elastic exercisers for raising lumps of muscles on the bodies of professional athletes; but a woman who seeks grace of movement is best served when she strives to harmonize motion with inspiration, be it that of music, the graceful figure of some picture or statue that imagination has endowed with moving life, or memory of some nature picture, a wind-rippled cornfield, or the dance of autumnal forest leaves.

"With such things as these for inspiration and stimulus, time does not count. There is a joy in them all. It is not a question of five minutes by the clock at one, two, three, four, heels together, hands above your head, out, down. One forgets one's self, yet effort and the desire for perfection are there, the desire to give truer, more perfect expression to the inspiration, and to attain the unattainable—perfection.

"All the drudgery of formal practising and training is lacking. At the same time, the body, by an almost unconscious process, grows more and more responsive to inspiration, a more ready instrument of expression. I have never in my life practised with one eye on a clock or to the tick of an imaginary metronome, any more than when my thoughts turned toward fitting draperies I contemplated pink tights and a stiff skirt like an inverted tea saucer.

"Francois Delsarte's theories teach us that every fibre, every vigorous impulse, every muscle, and every feeling should have its existence so well defined that at any moment it can actually assert itself. His teaching rests on the inseparability of body and spirit, which, united, results in an harmonious existence.

OR example, he compared the human being to a musical instrument, the back being the keyboard, the spinal column the keys, the various members and muscles the strings. The player of the instrument is the soul, which is designed to transpose the movements of the body into music.

"During the later period of my studies in Europe, I continued to give rhythmic physical expression to my fancies and the inspiration of silent music or the memories of pictures or nature. My joy in trying to give expression to my idea seemed to make the idea grow, and soon it would be dominating my thoughts. Perhaps of all the great painters whose works I have studied, Botticelli has influenced me the most. His lyrical imagination, his love of the wind and all things which the wind stirs—trees, draperies, floating hair—so wonderfully expressed in his paintings, and his pure love of the human form, never defiled by a descent to meretricious art, had deeply impressed themselves upon me. But if he inspired pose in those formative days, I was thinking more of the Greek dancing girls when I turned my thoughts to my draperies. And on those lines I fashioned my first dress, I used butter-cloth for the dresses that I designed and made myself, if 'made' the right word for what was really no more than an arrangement of draperies and clasps and girdles, with an eye to soft fold and undulating lines."

Authorities in the field of physical education for young girls seem to agree that less than ten per cent. of young women of twenty have normal bodies. Also, that if more girls practised nature dancing, there would be far less cases of "nerves," as well as far fewer instances of girls who "go wrong." Nature dancing teaches the girl to love a beautiful body and to regard it as the temple of her soul. It is declared that if all young girls had to dance regularly as a part of their education, most of them would be possessed of bodies of which to be proud, and in addition, rhythmic dancing teaches the natural expression of the tight to live rightly and of the joy of living, inculcating high ideals in the dancer.

One teacher of dancing believes that systematic instruction in rhythmic dancing—given preferably out-of-doors or in a breeze-swept room—will develop the highest degree of perfection in the figure of a girl, and that a girl who achieves a dancing figure need never wear corsets; further, that a girl who dances skips the awkward age, since rhythmic dancing gives mental and physical poise, as well as grace.

S for the middle-aged woman who does little or no housework and who devotes most of her time to social affairs, there is but one hope—and that is dancing—not the modern ballroom dance, but the nature dance, which gives real exercise by bringing into play every muscle of the body. Shortly after Greek dancing was introduced as a regular course of exercise in a large ladies' college, the director of physical training of the institution said: "Every one should cultivate the rhythmic motion of nature dancing, should train the body of wholesome self-expression of joy, happiness, and kindred feelings, to inculcate a true spirit of artistic ideals in the soul, aside from the great benefit to be derived from it as physical exercise. There are, of course, other forms of helpful exercise, but as nature dancing embodies the best in all of them, it is to be recommended as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, adjuncts to human happiness. In the rhythmic dancing exercises, air freely reaches the lungs, the spine is not humped, and the organs of the body are not forced into positions where they crowd each other. Isn't it reasonable to suppose that a woman could do any sort of household work better if she felt physically fit, and dancing had taught her the secret of taking positions, either while standing or sitting, which would not punish here by making her physically uncomfortable. However, while we fully appreciate the wonderful benefits due to the physical exercise secured in natural dancing, yet we also to develop a great deal more in a girl than form and muscle, vitally important as they are; for in all our rhythmic dances there must be an atmosphere of poetry and music, and all must follow one ideal to the end of exhibiting the highest and purest artistic sentiment, which will influence and direct their vision of artistic ideals through life."


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 and there was Harold Denver standing before her.

"You were lost in your thoughts,” said he, smiling. “I hope that they were pleasant ones.”

“Oh, I was planning," said she, rising. “It seems rather a waste of time as a rule, for things have a way of working themselves out just as you least expect.”

“What were you planning, then?”

”The future.”

“Whose?”

“Oh, my own and Ida's.”

“And was I included in your joint futures?

“I hope all our friends were included.”

“Don’t go in,” said he, as she began to move slowly towards the house. “I wanted to have a word. Let us stroll up and down the lawn. Perhaps you are cold. If you are, I could bring you out a shawl.”

"Oh, no, I am not cold.”

“I was speaking to your sister Ida last night.” She noticed that there was a slight quiver in his voice, and, glancing up at his dark, clearcut face, she saw that he was very grave. She felt that it was settled, that he had come to ask her for her sister’s hand.

“She is a charming girl,” said he, after a pause.

“Indeed she is,” cried Clara warmly. “And no one who has not lived with her and known


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 her intimately can tell how charming and good she is. She is like a sunbeam in the house.”

“No one who was not good could be so absolutely happy as she seems to be. Heaven’s last gift, I think, is a mind so pure and a spirit so high that it is unable even to see what is impure and evil in the world around us. For as long as we can see it, how can we be truly happy?”

“She has a deeper side also, She does not turn it to the world, and it is not natural that she should, for she is very young. But she thinks, and has aspirations of her own.”

“You cannot admire her more than I do. Indeed, Miss Walker, I only ask to be brought into nearer relationship with her, and to feel that there is a permanent bond between us."

It had come at last. For a moment her heart was numbed within her, and then a flood of sisterly love carried all before it. Down with that dark thought which would still try to raise its unhallowed head! She turned to Harold with sparkling eyes and words of pleasure upon her lips.

"I should wish to be near and dear to both of you,” said he, as he took her hand. “I should wish Ida to be my sister, and you my wife.”

She said nothing. She only stood looking at him with parted lips and great, dark,


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volume treats of that part of the Gangetic delta which lies within the Districts of Nadiyá and Jessor. Nadiyá and the northern portions of Jessor form examples of  deltaic tracts,—of tracts, however, still partially subject to fluvial action and to annual inundations, which in ordinary years fertilize the soil, but occasionally devastate the crops. The southern parts of Jessor District exhibit the delta in a less advanced stage of formation, covered with swamps, and ending towards the coast in a network of sluggish channels and backwaters, through which the Gangetic distributaries merge into the sea.

The total area dealt with in this volume amounts to 7327 square miles, containing a population of 3,887,816 souls. The District statistics were collected in the years and as regards their accuracy are subject to the remarks in my Preface to Volume I.


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his way down from the villa to the gate, Don Clemente asked himself with secret anxiety: "Did he recognise her, or not? And if he did, what impression did she make?" On reaching the gate he turned to him he had called Benedetto, and scrutinised his face closely a fleshless, pallid, intellectual face, in which he read no sign of agitation. The eyes met his wonderingly, almost as if questioning: "Why do you look at me thus?" The monk said to himself: "Probably he did not recognise her, or he supposes me to be unaware of her arrival." He passed his arm through his companion's, holding him close, and in silence turned to the left towards the dark and noisy gorge of the Anio. When they had walked on a few paces under the trees which border the road, he said: "Do you not wish to question me about the meeting?" There was more tenderness in his tone than the commonplace words demanded. His companion answered:

"Yes, tell me about it."

The voice was husky and devoid of interest. Don Clemente said to himself: "He certainly


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86 recognised her!" Then he talked of the meeting, but as one preoccupied with other thoughts, without warmth, without details; nor did his companion once interrupt him with questions or comments.

"We separated," he said, "without having come to any conclusion; this was partly owing to the arrival of some foreigners. So I was not able to arrange with Signor Giovanni about you. But I think some of us, at least, will meet again tomorrow. And you yourself, " he added hesitatingly, "do you, or do you not feel inclined to return?"

Benedetto, walking steadily on, answered in the same submissive tone as before: "Are the foreign ladies I saw going to remain?"

Don Clemente pressed his arm very hard.

"I do not know," he said, adding, much moved, and with another pressure of the arm: "If I had only known!"

Benedetto opened his lips to speak, but checked himself. They proceeded thus in silence towards the two black cliffs in the noisy ravine, and leaving the main road, which turns to cross the Anio by the Ponte di San Mauro, took the mule-path leading to the convents, which winds up to the cliff on the left. The enormous, slanting mass of rock before them seemed to Don Clemente at that moment the symbol of a demoniacal power standing in Benedetto's way; so, too, the gathering darkness seemed to him symbolically threatening,


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