the cable road, in the open cars, drawn up and down the endless series of hills by unseen power. After a hard day's work with dictionaries and old histories, it was a luxury to take the front seat on one of the neat, well-managed cars-a seat that just holds two persons-and start off in the smoothest, easiest motion, sweeping up the long ascents with the sunshine full on one, the pure, delightful rush of Pacific air in one's face, and the great, glowing views, to right, to left, before one, changing at every slope-here the millionaire mansions and terraces of velvet turf, like hanging gardens; next the sight of the Golden Gate, the blue water, the forts, and Alcatraz; the other side the deep, bright valley surging against the Coast Hills, alive with the wreathing sorcery of the Pacific mists, a Niebelungen lay of sun and shadow-till the quiet heights of the cemeteries were reached, kept by white tombs and Monterey cypresses. Beyond Lone Mountain lies Golden Gate Park, the city pleasure ground, fit pride of a wealthy and luxurious city as it was interded to be, where tropic palms and agaves and Australian acacias look on rugged fells and tors, and you pass in an hour from most luxurious and perfect gardening to lonely, lovely recesses of Scottish pine and bloom and heather, wild as a ducal game preserve. The park was my study many a day in the long summer, when dictionary and translations were transplanted there early in the morning, and the work done on the dry turf in the mild sunshine, beguiled with blissful wafts of cypress, bay, and the wild aromatics of the coast. Did one ever work in such elysium before? Coming home at nightfall, the ride was a reverse of morning scenes, descending one high terrace after another swiftly; with views down the great valley, blushing and moon-silvered; the eastern hills purple to blackness, filleted with mist white as wool; the harbor at one's feet full of strange gleams and shadows. Why do artists complain of the lack of color in Californian views, which are full of the most subtle and captivating atmospheric changes, that challenge the most susceptible art to reflect them?" MR. Harry Sandham's pictures of southern California-and indeed most illustrations of the Californian articles in the magazines this year-are open to the criticism of looking like anything else as much as the scenery they are intended to represent. The picture of Santa Barbara Mission, in the exhibition just spoken of, would have passed as well for a cloister in Catalonia or Judea. There was no verity which would recall Santa Barbara, and nothing else, though you saw a hazy likeness when the name was found in the catalogue. The Colorado Cactus Desert is not much better, with its caked golden sand, harsh green pillars of the pitahaya, and lilacpurple mountains in the background. I speak not from any wish to disparage the artist, but from desire to see the intense, strange beauty of the desert and the south fitly portrayed. The soil dun-gold, not golden, tawny without gleams; the herbage, dull to the common eye, interwoven of olive, metallic, and teagreen, flecked with light emerald as you look close; the fluted columns of the giant cactus relieving the low tones about it with fine, soft turquoise green; the subtle changes of air, which is ether on mountains which vary in color as if they were amethysts in more than color;-this is what artists have to paint in the bare desert; what Gerome would find, or Regnault, or Fortuny. The mountains glow as if translucent; the air is a luster; the vegetation dull in effect, woven of vivid, delicate hues. Could an artist have seen the cactus desert as we saw it in Arizona, the pale green pillars tipped with flowers of flame, the blood-red sunset dyeing all the wastes, he would have gone no farther after a subject for a great picture. But to paint Californian or south-west scenery, one must know how to paint atmospherethe transparent folds of indigo, amethyst, hyacinth, mauve, which change upon the hills; to give the sharp clearness of the desert morning, the wavering afternoon light, the palpable air of summer, whose haze actually takes shape between the eye and the roadside, and softens the view of the nearest object; Sicilian hazes, or Mediterranean ones, such as Hamon paints in his villa at Capri, which ordinary spectators pronounce unreal, but which hang over the Pacific coast like the air of dreams. WITH fewer great pictures in the exhibitions yearly, we may console ourselves that there are fewer bad ones, which shows that the artistic sense is being educated to a better standard. Impressionist pictures are conspicuous chiefly by their absence; the school of smudge, after long contemplation of their own work, fleeing to form and finish as a relief from the distraction of their pigmentary creed. Paintings yet appear which can be comprehended only from one point of view, in cases of which kind it would be thoughtful for picture committees to blacken the exact spot on the floor in front of each, from which it should be seen. But there is nothing quite as bad as the exhibitions of a New York society three or four winters ago, which imagined itself at the root of art, whose members only attempted to paint things as they saw them, and give the value of Nature's tones in a style of animated thumb-marks-from which, or its like, may the future deliver us. the taste for black and white oils is satisfied with the indulgence of a few seasons, and decides that an exhibition in black and white is the better for the admission of some color. The artistic world is divided by as many caprices as English floral amateurs, with their picotee growers, and bouvardia growers, pelargonium societies, primrose societies, lily, aster, zonale, and hydrangea societies, each devoted to its favorite cult, as if it were the only flower in nature. So with a little more art culture we will have our monochrome and pastel clubs, as well as the black Even and white clubs and etching clubs, Kate Greenaway Walter Crane, Angelica Kaufmann, and Reynolds sketching clubs; possibly, also, classes for that interesting branch of art etched by our grandmothers with a cambric needle on smoked glass, or imprinted on spiders' webs. A Hot Poker Club might be expected to produce work of a certain force and warmth. Yet every way is something learned of art, even through failure and disgust. A healthy eye corrects its own misreading in time, and there is no better test of a bad idea than giving it its run, and letting people find out how tiresome it becomes. The public is tired of impression pictures, of black and white exhibitions, and it soon will be of wooly wood-engravings that look like lithographs, and the general smeary illustration favored in magazines of the day. splendor of "The Comet," in an odd, forcible, and very successful way, on a panel highly polished as a glazed tile; the view taken above the horizon of sky, shaded from depth to depth of midnight blue, pow. dered with moon and stars, and the flaming aigrette of the comet throwing the heavens into gloom behind it. This is the work of a true impressionist, who can not only make memoranda of the likeness of things on canvas, but will make others see it, too, even at cost of such study and finish as are found on this fine canvas. Now comes our quarrel with the artists, in the little scenes from Winchester, a picturesque village ten miles out of Boston, which caught the eye of no less an artist than Mr. Foxcroft Cole. Now I know Winchester, and have wished over and again some artist would sketch the lovely reaches of its rivers flowing through the town, here under garden trellises, and there under festoons of wild grapevine, in the soft, bright tints of June. But Mr. Cole has seen in it a bit of English scenery, and has so composed and toned it to suit his ideal from Birket Foster, that it is no longer Winchester, or true to nature at all. Those grays and cold greens might be Holland or Normandy or Warwickshire, but not the tender, susceptible tintings of our sweet summer. Just so some artists never see the beauty of things as they are, but only the possibilities of some model in their minds. For the readiest example, take an artist who frequently drew horses in illustrations for "Scribner," and never was satisfied unless he could transform the New York cab-horse into an angular, high-shouldered beast from one of Schreyer's Arab You can verify the comparison, if you like, scenes. IN union there is strength, as some of us may have heard; and artists in association are finding it pleasant for gentlemen of like tastes to work together, and also find themselves better able to make terms with the picture dealer, or to reach the public without him. The number of small, friendly clubs and associations forming in art is a good sign for the quality of pictures to come, and for the future interests of artists. In a very unpretending way, à coterie of artists in Boston this winter gave an exhibition of pictures containing as many good ones for its size as any to which our readers are likely to be invited for some time. Literally under the roof of a narrow business building, up five flights of stairs, where careless or uninterested foot will hardly come, in rooms little better than a loft, the Paint and Clay Club has by turning over back numbers of the magazines. its red-lined den. Walls painted Venetian red, probably the artists themselves taking hand in the job, a colossal mask and trophy in red clay at either end of the room, are the limits of decoration, save the ninety odd pictures, nearly all of which show the artistic instinct for a subject and conscientious work. The memorable picture is Mr. W. F. Halsall's "Drifting," a windy green sea lying in heaps, a sky just breaking into watery light, and a vessel, with stumps for masts, lying on her side helplessly in the offing. Seldom does a picture so simply and legitimately tell its story, or appeal so successfully to the imagination. The vague, luminous green of the billows, their weight and rush against the brave, beaten thing that lies at their mercy, not a human figure visible, the sunlight sifting out of a sky growing placid after hard storm, are painted as sky, dim cloud, and waves seldom are, and convey the full sense of the tragic, inexorable loneliness of the sea. Next in good and literal painting is a study of "Beeches and Maples," tall, bare, and slender, against a leaf-strewn bank, with the late sunshine striking across their boles. Such an effect one would delight to meet in autumn walks, and is glad to see as clearly, simply painted as Mr. Marcus Waterman has done it. Mr. Selinger has tried to convey the It is gratifying to see literary men, who as a class are credited with even less business talent than artists, moved by any consideration to join interests as a profession. Writers have hardly outgrown the "clerkly" stigma put upon them in feudal ages. And it is a pitiful fact, known to all who see anything of the inside of literary work, that the traditions of Grub Street are not extinct in the trade of to-day. The Authors' Club of New York, started last November, numbers on its list of founders men of such literary and social standing as Thorndike Rice, editor of the "North American Review," E. C. Stedman, Richard Grant White, Vincenzo Botta, George William Curtis, S. S. Conant, Noah Brooks, Clarence King, Parke Godwin, E. L. Godkin, and a score more of well-known and creditable names. The object, as stated, is to bring together the best literary men of New York and other cities in friendly interest; to give authorship something of the dignity and protection due, considering its place and influence in society. This is a great move in advance for the literary guild, if it carries the impulse which founded it to its legitimate end. The Authors' Club will pardon us for saying that the very first thing it needs to do, before attending to international copy right even, is to put authorship on the same business footing as any other trade. As things are, its results, which are considered the most valuable productions of humanity, certainly the costliest, as spending vitality in its very essence to produce, have no more certain rate than goods at sheriff's auction. They are considered worth what any one chooses to pay. In the majority of cases in American literature today, the author receives less for his time than the compositor who sets up his article, and is not half so sure of his pay. This is wholly irrespective of the intrinsic worth of the article, as most of the gentlemen of the Authors' Club will agree from experience. Will Mr. Stedman say what he was paid for his poem on the "Diamond Wedding" twenty years ago, which was the talk of the town the week it was published? Will Mr. Stoddard say what he received for some of his early poems, which are among the sweetest, most spontaneous songs of the time? If the price equals that paid Milton for his "Hymn on the Nativity" it does not follow that either they or Milton were justly dealt with, or that the publishers distinguished themselves either by fairness or sharp business sense, for they might have had more such poems by making it worth while to write them. If these gentlemen of the Authors' Club can get one hundred dollars for any sort of an article to-day, it behooves them as well to look after the interests of younger authors; for in a sense they are identical. In the laudable purpose of making money, publishers will take the cheap work in place of the higher quality, with the assuring remark that the public don't know the difference. There is a stated price for turkey wings in the market: there is none whatever for literary work. The timid author must take what the publisher chooses to give, without question. The Authors' Club or the Authors' Association which we hope to see formed can resist degrading terms with some sort of spirit. The Authors' Club very possibly does not contemplate any chivalrous ventures of protection for authors in general; but it has done something in giving the profession order and shape, and may gain courage by contemplation of its own size and influence. Trades-unions with right ends and right spirit are excellent things; and no trade is in so much need of organization as the scattered journeymen of literature. "Is Mrs. Langtry beautiful?" Very; uncommonly so: I answer, after seeing her in a dozen views. She is of the old-fashioned English, high-bred type of beauty, neck and arms like statuary, shapely, warm marble, bright rose coming and going on a Parian cheek, violet eyes, and thick, glossy chestnut hair-one of Charles Reade's beauties; a woman who illustrates old English love poetry, and a host of by-gone similes, with her "breast of snow," "her cheek of rose and lily blent," and eyes "like violets dipped in dew." With all this, many women in society have as good features, possibly as attract ive coloring in another way. The piquant modern style of waxen complexion, wild-rose tinting, retrousse nose, and dark eyes, with blonde hair—a sort of lost-angel beauty-has prepared this serene, complete sweetness, this gracious blending of the highbred woman with the Greek goddess, to strike us with the force of novelty. Her manner-kind, serious, and simple-is full of lasting charm; it is not what she does, so much as what she does not do, that attracts one. The absence of flutter, of effect, of self-consciousness-this very air as simple as a milkmaid-irresistibly attracts because it is genuine. You need not study it, madame, with a view to add it to your repertoire. You can no more adopt it than you can wear a Greek costume. It takes a life and a lineage to produce such a women. The free, protected, happy life of the Dean of St. Hilier's family sent his daughter forth with that brave, steady brow, and frank, friendly manner which distinguished her in a drawing-room of critical, nervous London beauties. The Prince of Wales did himself credit as a man of taste by his admiration of this woman. Good women-good at heart and pure of sense-will find much to admire, much to sympathize with, in Mrs. Langtry, the actress, whose worst fault seems to have been that she was too much admired, and whose sharp experiences have not yet won the girlish simplicity from her face and manners. For the woman set aside as the caprice of London society, who has taken up the arduous career of the stage, most toilsome of professions, unprotected by those who should stand by her closest in this trial, in the hands of bad friends, false friends, neither whose moral sense or good taste fit them to guide such a career, the woman of safe reputation, in a sheltered home, should have, could have, were she truly of her sex, nothing but sympathy and good-will. Mrs. Langtry is not to be held responsible for the taste of her manager and theatrical friends. To avoid the mistakes made, she needed to have the experience, the foresight, of a lifetime on the stage, or else some friend whose interest was not more concerned in making social capital out of her than for her best reputation. Is Mrs. Langtry an actress? Not yet certainly not one by nature. Yet she is a woman so gifted by nature that hard study may develop unexpected talent in this art. What she does by rote might be done more agreeably; but in certain passages of deep feeling she has tones of rare and sincere pathos, which seem torn from the heart-attitudes worthy of the highest drama. There is more brain in this woman than the public gives her credit for; it is a mistake to put her in hoydenish casts like Juliana in the "Honeymoon," or in comedy at all. I will hazard the opinion that, educated in classic drama, for which her matchless form suits her, or in old tragedy like Massinger's, she would surprise her teachers with exquisite, heart-moving power, dignity, sweetness, pathos-not supreme passion, but the record of deep, womanly experience, as few actresses have ever played it yet. THE experiment of bringing a party of Eastern people out to winter among the rose arches and flower beds of the Del Monte, at Monterey, was a bold one; but it must convince a great many visitors that California is the superlative of winter resorts. With the resources of the most tasteful hotel on the continent at their disposal, including every variety of amusement, from a bowling cottage overrun with roses, shuffle board in a glass piazza inclosed from the weather, and a ladies' billiard-room opening from the main parlor, to inlaid chess-tables and silver cribbage pins; with a physician to watch the health of the party; with the loveliest walks and drives for miles along the coast, varied by frequent visits to the gayeties of San Francisco-it would seem as if such a programme must banish the shade of ennui from the most dependent spirits. Such an inviting season is the plan of a Boston man, carried out with a completeness which seldom falls to plans which promise so much. Its success supposes rare tact and fidelity in the conductor of such a party; the terms provide that people of easy means and a certain social standing will be brought together-the good taste and tempers of all are responsible for the rest. Brought by special train of palace cars, their arrival made the signal for little fetes at way stations, and the best attentions of railroad people a great part of the way-above all, with experienced, vigilant hands to take charge of the thousand details of baggage, meals, and routes-the privileged visitors find the overland journey quite another thing from what it is to those who travel alone. Truth to tell, travel over controlling roads, through newly opened countries, but partially provided with civilized comforts, is no holiday experience for any but the most vigorous. There are excursions and excursions. The hordes who come out in cheap trains to see all they can in a fortnight are one thing; a Raymond party of well-to-do, educated people who travel at their ease is another. What matter if they appear on the street in traveling cloaks and hats, offending the sense of the dressy San Franciscan woman; or if they can stay a whole month at the seaside without taking out their good clothes? To put it coarsely, those plainly dressed people can most likely buy up the showy women who criticise them, plush dresses, big plumes, diamond ear-rings and all, without thinking twice of the matter. They are taking our choicest carvings, curios, and specimens home for their collections; they will be tempted to come again, if they have a pleasant time; having a discerning eye for the beauties of our scenery, and the frankness of California society. Rich or poor, one would suggest the wis dom of preserving a tradesman's civility toward new-comers; for some who come to look will return to buy, or at least carry a good report of the country to others who will come. OUTCROPPINGS. A February Day after Rain. THE breath of violets is in the air, The warmth of summer sunshine on the hills; In wealth of verdure lie the valleys fair, In gladness leap the rivulets and rills. The lark soars high in ecstasy of song, All join in chorus in the glad refrain. All nature feels her quickening pulses stir, The trees are decked with swelling leaf and bud; And overhead are blue skies bending down, While underneath-we wade through seas of mud. B. E. Wood. Plantation Memories. AN OLD-TIME NEGRO REVIVAL. DID you ever attend a "big revival meetin'," held by the negroes in the South, before the war? No? Then number it among the opportunities lost, never to return; for love, "The darkies are not now, What our childhood's darkies were!" Much of the quaintness and simplicity of the old times are gone forever. Dinah no longer ties up her head in a bright bandana kerchief, but (as I have myself known her to do) wears a false front of long blonde or brown hair, as her fancy may dictate, with supreme disregard to the contrast presented between it and rest of her sable locks: whilst to further enhance her beauty, she chalks her ebon face with pearl powder, "jes' like the white folks does." She is no longer "Aunty," with the love and respect that so often accompanied that good old title, but Mrs. 'a light lady of color," or a "dark" one, as the case may be. In those old days a big Methodist revival (and the negroes were almost all Methodists) was the one great delight and dissipation of a people held in bondage; and when they sang with all their souls, "Canaan, bright Canaan! 66 I'm bound for the land of Canaan," a pathetic thrill ran through the heart, as one heard their plaintive voices lifted in longing for a land of freedom and rest, which hope in her wildest prophecies could only promise to them as lying beyond the Jordan of death. This sentimental view of affairs was, however, often dispelled by the many ludicrous things that would occur on such occasions; and though pitying the ignorance that gave rise to them, it was not in human nature sometimes to resist giving way to the merriment they occasioned. Never shall I forget the last big revival I attended before the war. It was held by the "cullud " Methodists in the town of B- G- - and had progressed for some time, attended with great success, under the eloquence of "Brother Jonas," a colored preacher noted for his love of big words, by the use of which he won great honors among his unlearned and admiring congregations, who could not be critical as to their oftentimes absurd misapplication. It was Saturday night-always the gala time of these meetings. "Old mawster and mistess" slept late on a Sunday; and the services at church could hold on until twelve o'clock, and after, and the darkies still get home in time to take a little rest, and be up with their work in the morning before the white folks were out of bed. The church was packed to its furtherest back seat below with its crowd of sable worshipers; whilst the small gallery above, reserved, as was customary on great occasions, for the accommodation of any of the white "bredderin" and sisters who chose to attend the services, was filled to overflowing by the crowds who came to hear the negroes' singing. This, indeed, was well worth hearing at any time; but in a revival like the present, where the whole congregation were wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement, music was the safety-valve through which they worked it off. Their full, melodious voices rose in one immense volume, as all, without exception, joined heart and soul in the songs. The fact that they could not read the words was overcome by the universal practice of reading two lines at a time, and letting the congregation sing it, by sections, as it were, whilst the "lining" itself was intoned in a musical sing-song, that was far from unpleasant to the ear. If any one failed to catch the words as the preacher gave them out, it mattered little; they made up others as they went along, which answered every purpose, but the time and the rhythm were always perfect; they all sang, and the result was simply glorious. On such occasions as this, Brother Jonas usually "spread hisself," declaring that he "cum thar 'thout knowin' what he was gwine fur to say, and let the Lawd put de words into his mouf'," thereby relieving himself, at once and forever, of all responsibility as to his misuse of the English language. The excitement this evening was intense: "Brud' Jonas had outdone hisself" in his sermon, as with fervid, natural eloquence he had protrayed the terrors of hell and the joys of heaven, earnestly persuading all who wished to escape the one or inherit the other VOL. I.-14. to come forward to the "mourners' bench," and A thousand thoughts revolve; And make this last resolve." Crowds from all parts of the house go forward to be prayed for; it seems that pandemonium itself is let loose. The shouting of the "members," as they see their friends going up to the altar; the groaning and howling of the "sinners," as they kneel around the mourners' bench, where brothers and sisters "gifted in pra'r" arrange themselves around them, each praying at the top of his voice for the special "mourner" he has in charge. Sometimes two or three "members" would be gathered around one sinner, each trying to outdo the others by the loudness of his supplications; whilst above them all and the grand old hymn, which is still going on, Brother Jonas is heard calling on those in the congregation, still unmoved: "Come along, sinners! Now is de accepted time, and de day of salivation! Confess de Lawd befo' men, and he'll confess you befo' his Fader! Hell's right behin' you, an' de Debil's got his grab hook ready fur to pull you down!" Crowds of "little niggers" in the far back seats now rush forward, with one accord, afraid to stay longer in the semi-darkness under the gallery, for fear a veritable "Debil" will grab them then and there. The evening's excitement is at its height. One sister has already fallen in a "trance," and is seeing visions; another has the "jerks," and with leaps and bounds, and wonderful contortions of body, gives vent to sharp shrieks, that ring through the house above all the din; whilst shouts of "Bress de Lawd!" "Glory!" Hallelujah! "Amen!" resound from every side. It is nearly twelve o'clock. At last, in a sort of lull in the storm, Brother Jonas mounts his pulpit, which he had left for a time as he went up and down the aisles exhorting the people to choose dis day whom ye will serbe!" "Own de Lawd, and shame de Debil!" He now proceeded to close the meeting for the night, by giving out the appointments for the ensuing Sunday. After announcing the usual morning service, he adds triumphantly, "In de afternoon, at two o'clock, I will baptize in de riber, Providence permitting, of dem dat has cum out on de Lawd's side-twenty adults and twenty-five adulteresses!” These meetings usually continued for a week or two, with preaching every night and three times on Sunday, and with the interest and excitement increasing toward the end. We attended the services on another evening during this same revival, when an old gray-haired "Uncle" got up towards the last, to exhort the meeting. |