statesman who guides the ship of state, the pulpit orator who points our pathway to the stars, the merchant whose argosies of wealth float on every sea, or perhaps "Some mute inglorious Milton here may sleep." Who knows? Then again the thief, the drunkard, and the midnight assassin may all be facing you here.

Before you begin your first number this waving forest of tousled heads suggests a pent up volcano ready to burst into a roar, and, at the first spark of fun, it breaks forth

kempt heads, bright eyes, and dirty faces, all assembled en masse, they present a mosaic of color not unlike a patch-work quilt. Your sympathies are deeply affected, and at once you are en rapport with these children of nature. The surging mass of miniature men impresses you with the possibilities of their future lives, for in their little heads repose a silent power for good or for evil that will shape their destinies. This audience may contain in embryo the kind hearted father, the loving brother, the

rough diamonds of the world are capable of giving you the most wrapt attention when pleased and entertained, and can also bestow the most intelligent applause. There are no shrewder critics as to the ability of the performer; they pick and choose with that wonderful cunning born of struggle and want and when a bright bit of fun is given them they snatch it from you before you know it.

You will also observe that, beneath these ragged jackets, repose all the best and most

generous impulses of our human nature and when the proper note is struck, they ring true. Be it sentiment, pathos or humor you present to them, their discernment of its value is nearly always correct. I have seen these rough and uneducated boys of the street follow me through James Whitcomb Riley's "Old Fashioned Roses," when their faces would express the tender sympathy of a young girl, and in bits of pathos I have seen the dirty little fists brush away the glistening tear.

One of the most pathetic scenes I ever witnessed from the stage occurred on this occasion, when I had reached the third verse of Riley's beautiful poem:

"And then I think o' mother,

And how she used to love 'em,
When they wuzn't any other,

'Less she found 'em up above 'em,
And her eyes afore she shut 'em,
Whispered with a smile, and said,

'We must pluck a bunch and put 'em, In her hand when she wuz dead.'"

At the closing lines a little pale and ragged newsboy, with a most pathetic face, pulled out from his cap the remnant of a dirty bandana handkerchief and, burying his face in his hands, sobbed as if his heart would break. The little fellow being only three rows from the stage, it appealed to my heart with such thrilling pathos that I broke down completely and forgot my lines. Here was a mere child broken in health and with a sad heart just at a period when his life should have been full of sunshine and joy. "Ah!" I thought "how poorly equipped some of us are when we pass under the starter's flag to enter that greatest of handicaps the race of life."

To receive applause from such an audience is a compliment indeed, for these are the children of mother nature brought up in her homely apron, unbiased, uneducated, unrefined, uncared for and unloved.

Bundles of emotion and fierce passions, they sit in the audience like little hungry wolves and, with a keen unerring instinct, snatch the choicest bits to be devoured. To please such an audience ought to be more gratifying to an artistic nature than to play before the king in his "box of state" because their hisses are honest and sincere, and their applause comes from the heart.

Such an audience takes one back on the wings of memory to boyhood's happy days, and, in my memory, the curtain rolls up on a pastoral scene, and shows a little white cottage surrounded by shady elms, a bunch of sweetbriar blooming at the door. I can smell the sweet breath of the clover, hear the hum of bees, the songs of birds, feel again the health and quiet of country ways, and see the little school-house on the hill.

THE

HE winner of the second cash prize in the WERNER'S MAGAZINE recitation contest was Mrs. Elizabeth Van Deursen. This lady showed dramatic talent very early. Even as a child she was fond of reciting and singing in public. She always loved elocutionary work. She graduated with first honors in her class from the New Eng nd Conservatory College of Oratory, at Boston, Even previous to this, however, she had been a teacher in a private school and had had quite a class of private pupils. After graduating she went to Illinois to take charge of the elocution department in a conservatory at a summer school. This department was so successful that she remained a year in charge, and was offered the position for the following year, but, for family reasons, she returned East and resumed her teaching there. After her marriage, which took place about this time, she went to her new home in Texas, but soon returned to Pennsylvania and began teaching in a conservatory in that State. Her programs included all the higher elocutionary work: drills, posings, tableaux. illuminated poems, all arranged to suit individual and class needs. She has been very successful in developing the best in her pupils. It was once asked of her: "What have you done to Miss -? She has a pretty face, but it used to be so lifelesss. Now she looks so waked up-as if she had just found her soul."

J. Q. A. WARD ON SCULPTURE IN AMERICA.

A

FAIR idea of the value of art, a natural aptitude for artistic work, vigorous thought, wholesome sentiment and good imaginative and inventive qualities, these, in the opinion of J. Q. A. Ward, are the conditions requisite for the flowering of sculpture. And these conditions, he declares, are present in the America of to-day. Mr. Ward, who is himself one of the foremost American sculptors and president of the American Sculpture Society, contributes an article on the prospects for his art in America to the October number of Ainslee's Magazine. Of what has already been done in sculpture, he says:

"The actual progress of sculpture in this country has been most remarkable.

For the first time in our history we have completed a public building decorated in a worthy and comprehensive style. I refer to the National Library in Washington. We have an art committee in New York City which does much toward preventing the erection of statuary unworthy the dignity of our intellectual standard. Best of all, we have art societies powerful enough to arouse public interest, and to give any meritorious work of art good standing by a mere word of approval; and, lastly, there is much encouragement in noting the funds for the maintenance of art scholarships that are springing up throughout the country. The Reinhardt Fund, of Baltimore, now amounts to $110,000, and out of the income two or three art students are maintained abroad. Then we have here the Lazarus Fund, which amounts to $25,000 or $30,000, for painters. Also the Carnegie Art Gallery at Pittsburg has added new dignity to the cause in this country."

The fact that American sculptors now reside at home instead of in Italy or France, as they did formerly, is evidence to Mr. Ward that we are unconsciously establishing a school of American sculpture. He says on this point:

"We have as yet no distinctive American school of art in either sculpture or painting. It takes centuries to form a distinct school. We are beginners. Our young American sculptors learn more quickly than those of any other nationality, but they do not accomplish so much in the end. I think they often become slaves to technique, and that naturally militates against originality. Technique should be mastered in the apprentice

ship. It is absolutely necessary; but when the apprenticeship is finished it should become a matter of second nature. Then again, our young men who come home fresh from the French masters feel trammeled, and deplore the limited field in which they are placed by the want of broadened art tastes and sympathies. But they are doing good work educating and lifting the people to a higher atmosphere and forming a school unconsciously."

We are creating a distinct art atmosphere, he thinks.

"Schools for drawing and modeling are already established in evey principal city in the United States. Hundreds of students from every section of the land flock to these schools to learn the first principles of sculpture. Those who hope for a future for American sculptors are engaged in considering the process of refining this crude talent. The thoughtful sculptors of to-day are striving to do this by personal supervision of the modeling schools, by the organization of art societies, by advising with promoters of art work, with national and municipal authorities, and every one who has it in his power to advance the cause of sculpture."

The necessity for discrimination in the erection of public statues in our cities is pointed out in strong words.

Yet

"In most cities the multiplication of public statues has reached the stage when the necessity for wholesome discrimination is most apparent, and yet nothing is doing. We have now art organizations fully able to give the best expert judgment on questions of art. And their judgment is not open to the same objection which might be brought against that of any individual artist. knowing this, much crude work in all our cities is permitted to be placed because of official indifference. As a consequence of this state of affairs, the canons of art and of good taste are repeatedly violated. Our parks and public squares contain statues which are not in keeping with their surroundings. The critical eye is offended by a lack of proportion and harmony.

So the work of erecting public statues in our American cities is notably marked by the absence of any system. It is spasmodic and irregular. It is inspired not so much by a sense of the cities' art needs as by the desire of some person or society to commemorate a particular event or honor the memory of some individual. There is no recognized authority consulted, no professional tribunal, barring the Sculpture Society which seems to influence New York

City alone, which is referred to for suggestion or direction. Nor are there any traditions here, such as we find in European capitals, wisely to guide it."

The growth of public taste, however, of which Mr. Ward sees strong evidence, is encouraging, and promises to rectify in time even the indiscriminate public statue craze.

EDGAR POE, AFTER FIFTY YEARS.

History has perhaps been too ready to accept the verdict on Edgar Poe's private life pronounced by Rufus W. Griswold in his defamatory memoir of the poet. It is true that Griswold's biography has been discredited, but admirers of the poet have always felt reluctantly compelled to admit that Poe was, at any rate, too much given to the flowing bowl. This charge, originally made by William E. Burton, was replied to by Poe himself, in a long letter to the late Dr. J. E. Snodgrass. The poet's position in the literary world makes this reply of great interest. He says in part (we quote from an article in the October Arena):

"In fine, I pledge you before God the solemn word of a gentleman that I am temperate even to rigor. From the hour in which I first saw this basest of calumniators to the hour in which I retired from his office in incontrollable disgust at his chicanery, arrogance, ignorance, and brutality, nothing stronger than water ever passed my lips. It is, however, due to candor that I inform you upon what foundation he has erected his slanders. At no period of life was I ever what men call intemperate; I never was in the habit of intoxication [the italics are Poe's]; I never drank drams, et cetera; but for a brief period, while I resided in Richmond and edited the Messenger, I certainly did give way, at long intervals, to the temptation held out on all sides to the spirit of Southern conviviality. My sensitive temperament could not stand an excitement which was an every day matter to my companions. For some days after each excess I was invariably confined to my bed. But it is now quite four years since I have abandoned every kind of alcoholic drinkfour years, with the exception of a single deviation that occurred shortly after my leaving Burton, and when I was induced to resort to the occasional use of cider with the hope of relieving a nervous attack. You will thus see, frankly stated, the whole amount of my sin.

"The accusation [Burton's] can be disproved by each and every man with whom I am in the habit of daily intercourse. I have now only to repeat to you, in general, my solemn assurance that my habits are as far removed from intemperance as the day from the night."

The Arena article closes by refering to the poet's "abnormal sensitiveness to drink,

even in the smallest quantities" but says that the letter quoted agrees with the "concensus of opinion of all who knew Poe intimately up to the time of his death."

At the recent unveiling of Zolnay's bust of Poe at the University of Virginia, the audience present were requested to examine the record books. It was seen that the poet's career as a student was without a blemish, although on the same page with his name appear many other names with notes concerning suspensions, dismissals and expulsions. In delivering the address on this occasion, Hamilton W. Mabie said:

"He was primarily and distinctively the artist of his time; the man who cared for his art and not for what he could say through it, but for what it had to say through him. Em. erson, Lowell, Holmes, Whittier, Bryant, Irving, and, in certain aspects of his genius, Hawthorne might have been predicted; reading our early history in the light of our later development their coming seems to have been forordained by the conditions of life on the new continent; and later, Whitman and Lanier stand for and are bound up in the fortunes of the new world and its new order of political and social life. Poe alone among men of his eminence could not have been foreseen. This fact suggests his limitations, but it also brings into clear view the unique individuality of his genius and the complete originality of his work.

"His contemporaries are explicable; Poe is inexplicable. He remains the most sharply defined personality in our literary history. His verse and his imaginative prose stand out in bold relief against a background which neither suggests nor interprets him. One may go further and affirm that both verse and prose have a place by themselves in the literature of the world. the City of the Sea,' 'Israfel' and the verses To Helen '-to recall three of Poe's earliest and most representative poemsthere is complete detachment from the earlier interests and occupations and complete escape into the world of ideality.

In

"It is part of the charm of these perfect creations that they are free from all trace of time and toil. Out of the new world of work and strife suddenly magical doors were flung wide into the fairy land of pure songs out of the soil, tilled with heroic labor and courage, a fountain suddenly gushed from unexpected springs."

THE DRAWING-ROOM ARTISTICALLY LIGHTED.

The artistic lighting of a drawing room with electric lights is discussed editorially by the London Electrical Engineer. Says the Engineer:

"It is desirable to avoid as far as possible any heavy shadows and to obtain a welldiffused light. As to the apartment generally, no doubt a main central light would be the most successful, but many of the objects in the room, though looking extremely

well by daylight, by the changing of the illuminating center, at night lose their artistic value. A great deal may be done by judiciously contrasting the different articles and also by carefully arranging the lights. A very effective method is the placing of electric incandescent lamps behind moldings, etc., or sinking them into the mantel shelf or elsewhere, so that the light may be diffused while the lamps are invisble. Very striking effects can be obtained in this way, and pictures and other art objects can be lighted in just the way they require."

A MONTH'S DISCUSSION OF wagner.

The Wagner question, pro and con, still claims the attention of art and music lovers. The relation of the composer to German esthetics is discussed at length by Edouard Rod in one of the French reviews. It was Wagner's professed aim to give his country a national art which should be for Germany what tragedy was for Greece. Says M. Rod (we quote the translation given by Music):

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Believing that such an object could not be attained with the mediocre resources which existing theatres offered him, he built the theatre model at Beyreuth, and all the greatness and the true nature of his ambition are revealed in the words that escaped him in the intoxication of triumph which followed after the first performance of the tetralogy: Jetzt, meine Herren, habt ihr eine Kunst. ('Now, gentlemen, you have an art!")"

Wagner considered religion the principal source of artistic inspiration, hence his choice of the great religious myths for his themes.

"As manifested in the tetralogy and, above all in Parsifal, Wagner's religion has nothing in common with established creeds. It certainly is not faith in such or such a revelation, such or such a system of morals; it is the profound sentiment of the mysterious relationship existing between the human soul and the unknown in all beings, it is the effort of a restless and doubting mind to rise to the understanding of supreme mystery and universal compassion. . . . He rises above the intermediate conceptions of the apostles and theosophists to the very soul of religion; he alone can express its essence, and as he never thinks of drawing lessons or promises from it, he succeeds in mak ng us feel the tragedy of the unknown, and in expressing all our aspirations toward that mystery eternally great with horror and charm."

The French composer, Camille SaintSaens, has an article in the October Revue de Paris, on "The Wagnerian Illusion," in the course of which he says:

"As long as writers confine themselves to describing the beauties of the Wagnerian

works there is no fault to find with them; but when they attempt to explain in what respects the musical drama differs from the lyric drama, and the latter from the opera; why the musical drama must necessarily belong to the field of symbol and fiction, how it must be thought musically, how it must exist in the orchestra and not in the voices, how opera music can not be applied to a musical drama, which is the essential nature of the Leitmotiv, etc.; as soon as they attempt, in a word, to initiate us into all these beautiful mysteries, a thick mist falls upon them; briefly, to express our opinion charitably, one can understand absolutely nothing."

M. Saint-Saens thinks that the Wagner exegesis starts from the wrong principle, i. e., that of claiming too much for Wagner to start with. He says on this point:

"According to its exponents, Richard Wagner is not only a genius, he is a Mes siah; until his advent drama and music were in their infancy-preparing for his coming-and the great musicians, Sebastian Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, were only his forerunners. From that time on there could be no question of critic, but of proselytism and apostlesuip, and it is thus easy to explain this perpetual preaching which nothing seems to tire. If, however, the principle, as we believe, lacks justness, and if Richard Wagner was only a great genius like Dante or Shakespeare, these writers in their efforts to sustain their position can but advance arguments beyond comprehension from which spring delirious deduction.

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Every great artist,' says Hugo, 'restamps art with his own image.' And that is all. It does not strike out the past nor close the future. The grand old operas have lost none of their value since the birth of Tristan und Isolde.

"Richard Wagner has restamped art with his own image.' Formerly, the drama of an opera was willingly lost sight of in listening to the voices. Now, the public seeks to follow the orchestra, and to do this, the words of the actors on the stage are forgotten and the action lost sight of.

"The new system annihilates almost completely the art of singing. Thus, the instrument par excellence, the only living instrument, is no longer entrusted with the rendering of the melodies, but instead other instruments made in imitations of the human voice are assigned the vocal parts. It is contrary to good sense to lay the drama in the orchestra when its place is on the stage. But I do not mind this at all. Genius has reasons which Reason does not know.

"There are clearly sufficient defects, however, to show that this art of Wagner's is not perfect art. One can recognize the genius of a writer without being carried to the extreme of many critics who fail to recognize any music other than that of Richard Wagner, completely ignoring every

other."

The latest critic, however, to break a lance with Wagner and his followers is Mrs.