freedom's reveille.

Its white fleets plow the morning sea, Ita flag the Morning Star has kissed. But still the martyred ones of yore —

By tyrants hanged, or burned, or bled — With hair and Angers dripping gore, Gaze backward from the ages dead,

And ask : " IIow long, O Lord I how long Shall creeds conceal God's human side, And Christ the God be crowned in song

While Christ the Man is crucified ? How long shall Mammon's tongue of fraud

At Freedom's Prophets wag in sport, While chartered murder stalks abroad.

Approved by Senate, Church, and Court? "

The strife shall not forever last

'Twixt cunning Wrong and passive Truth — The blighting demon of "the Past,

Chained to the beauteous form of Youth; The Trflth shall rise, its bonds shall break,

Its day with cloudless glory burn, The Right with Might from slumber wake. And the dead Past to dust return.

The long night wanes; the stars wax dim;

The Young Day looks through bars of blood The air throbs with the breath of Him

Whose Pulse was in the Red-Sea flood; And flanked by mountains, right and left, The People stand —a doubting horde — Before them heave the tides uncleft, Behind theni flashes Pharaoh's sword.

But lo! the living God controls,

And marks the bounds of slavery's night, And speaks through all the dauntless souls

That, live, or perish, for the right. His Face shall light the People still,

His Hand shall cut the Sea in twain, And sky and wave and mountain thrill To Miriam's triumphant strain.

OJuw*. ⁴

REALISM IN LITERATURE AND ART.

by clarence fl. daiirow.

Man is nature's last and most pcrfcct work; but however high his development or great his achievements, he is yet a child of the earth and the forces that have formed all the life that exists thereon. He cannot separate himself from the environment in which he grew, and a thousand ties of nature bind him back to the long-forgotten past, and prove his kinship to all the lower forms of life that have sprung from that great common mother, earth.

As there is a universal law of being which controls all forms of life, from the aimless movement of the mollusk in the sea to the most perfect conduct of the best developed man, so all the varied activities of human life, from the movements of the savage digging roots to the work of the greatest artist with his brush, are controlled by universal laws, and are good or bad, perfect or imperfect, as they conform to the highest condition nature has imposed.

The early savage dwelt in caves and cliffs, and spent his life in seeking food and providing some rude shelter from the cold. He looked at the earth, the sun, the sea, the sky, the mountain peak, the forest, and the plain, at the vegetable and animal life around, and all he saw and heard formed an impression on his brain, and aided in his growth.

Like a child he marvelled at the storm and flood; he stood in awe as he lookod upon disease and death; and to explain the things he could not understand, he peopled earth and air and sea with gods and demons and a thousand weird creations of his brain.

All these mysterious creatures were made in the image of the natural objects that came within his view. The gods were men grown large, and endowed with marvellous powers, while tree and bird and beast were used alike as models for a being greater far than any nature ever formed.

It was an angry god that made the rivers overrun their

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banks and leave destruction in their path. An offended god it was who hurled his thunderbolts upon a wicked world or sent disease and famine to the sinning children of the earth ; and to coax these rulers to be merciful to man, the weak and trembling people of the ancient world turned their thoughts to sacrifice and pray en

The first clouded thoughts of these rude men. were transcribed on monument and stone, or carved in wood, or painted with the colors borrowed from the sun and earth and sky; ill short, the first rude art was bom to sing the praise, and tell the fame, and paint the greatness of the gods. But all of this was natural for the time and place; and the graven images, the chiselled hieroglyphics, and all this rude beginning of literature and art were formed upon what men saw and heard and felt, enlarged and magnified to fit the stature of the gods.

As the world grew older, art was used to celebrate the greatness and achievements of kings and rulers as well as gods, and their tombs were ornamented with such decorations as these early ages could create; but yet all literature and art was only for the gods and the rulers of the world- Then, even more than now, wealth and power brought intellect to do their will, and all its force was spent to sing the praises of the rulers of the earth and air.

The basis of all this art of pen and brush was the reality of the world; but this was so magnified and distorted for the base use of kings and priests, that realism in the true sense could not exist.

It would not do to paint a picture of a king resembling a man of flesh and blood, and of course a god must be far greater tlian a king. It would not do to write a tale in which kings and princes, lords and ladies, should act like men and women — else what difference between the ruler and the ruled? The marvellous powers which romance and myth had given to gods and angels were transferred to those of royal blood. The wonderful achievements of these knights and princes could be equalled only by the gods; and the poor dependents of the world, who lived for the glory of the great, were fed with legends and with talcs that sang the praises of the great.

Literature, sculpture and painting, music and architecture, indeed, all forms of art, were the exclusive property of the

Til K AKlvNA.

great and strong; and the artist, then, like most of those to-day, was retained to serve the great and maintain the status of the weak.

No one dreamed that there was any beauty in a common human life or any romance in a fact. The greatest of the earth had not yet learned to know that every life is a mystery and every death a tragedy; that the spark of the infinite, which alone transforms clay to life, animates alike the breast of the peasant and the soul of the prince. The world had not learned that the ant hill was as great as Mont. Blanc and the blade of grass {is mysterious as the oak. It is only now that the world is growing so delicate and refined that it can see the beauty of a fact; that it is developing a taste so rare as to distinguish between the false and true; that it can be moved by the gentle breeze as well as by the winter's gale; that it can see a greater beauty in a statement true to life than in the inflated tales which children read.

Most of the literature and art the world has known has been untrue. The pictures of the past have been painted from the distorted minds of visionists and the pliant brains of tools. They have represented impossible gods and unthinkable saints, angels and cherubs and demons — everything but men and women. Saints may be all right in their place, but a saint with a halo around his head was born of myth and not of art. Angels may be well enough, but all rational men prefer an angel with arms to an angel with wings. When these artists were not busy painting saints .and Madonnas, they were spending their time painting kings and royal knaves, and the pictures of the rulers were as unlike the men and women whom they were said to represent as the servile spirit of the painter was unlike the true artist of to-day. Of course an artist would not paint the poor. They had no clothes that would adorn a work of art, and no money nor favors that could pay him for his toil. An ancient artist could no moro afford to servo the poor than a modern lawyer to defend the weak.

After literature had so far advanced as to concern other beings than gods and kings, the authors of these ancient days endowed their characters with marvellous powers: knights with giant strength and magic swords; princes with wondrous palaces and heaps of gold; travellers who met marvellous beasts and slew them in extraordinary ways-;

giants with forms like mountains and strength like oxen, and who could vanquish all but little dwarfs. Railroads were not invented in those early days, but travel was facilitated by the use of seven-league boots. Balloons and telescopes were not yet known, but this did not keep favored heroes from peering at the stars or looking down from on high upon the earth. They had but to plant a magic bean before they went to bed at night, and in the morning it had grown so tall that it reached up to the sky; and the hero, although not skilled in climbing, needed simply to grasp the stalk and say, " Hitchety, hate he ty, up 1 go. Hitehety, hatehcty, up I go," and by this means soon vanished in the clouds.

Tales of this sort used once to delight the world, and the readers half believed them true. We give them to children now, and even the least of these view them with a half contempt.

The modem man who still reads Walter Scott, docs not enjoy these ancient myths. He relishes a lie, but it rausv not be too big; it must be so small that, although he knows in his inmost soul that it is not true, he can yet half make himself believe it is not faLse. Most of us have cherished a pleasant waking dream, and fondly clung to the sweet delusion while we really knew it was not life. The modern literary stomach is becoming so healthy that it wants a story at least half true; should the falsehood be too strong, it acts as an emetic instead of food.

These old fairy tales have lost their power to charm, as the. tiles of the gods and kings went down l)efore. They have lost their charm; for as we read them now, they awake no answering chord born of the experiences that mako up what we know of human life.

When the beauty of realism shall be truly known, we shall read the book, or look upon the work of art, and, in the light of all we know of life, shall ask our beings whether the image that the author or the painter creates for us is like the one that is born of the consciousness which moves our souls, and the experiences that life has made us know.

llealism worships at the shrine of nature. It does not say that there may not be a sphere in which beings higher than man can live, or that some time an eye may not rest upon a fairer suaset. than was ever born behind the clouds ami sea;

but it knows that through countless ages nature has slowly fitted the brain and eye of man to the earth on which we live and the objects that we see, and the perfect earthly eye must harmonize witli the perfect earthly scene. To say that realism is coarse and vulgar, is to dcclare against nature and her works, and to assert that the man she made may dream of things higher and grander than nature could unfold.

The eye of the great sculptor reveals to him the lines that make the most perfect human form, and he chisels out the marble block until it resembles this image so perfectly that it almost seems to live. Nature, through ages of experiment and development, has made this almost faultless form. It is perfect because every part is best fitted for the separate work it has to do. The artist knows that he could not improve a single organ if he would, for all the rest of nature must be adjusted to the change. lie has the skill to reproduce this perfect shape in lasting stone, and the human brain could not conceive a form more beautiful and fair. Here is a perfect image of the highest work that countless centuries of nature's toil has made; and yet some would seek to beautify and sanctify this work by dressing it in the garb that shifting fashion and changing fancy make for men.

It was only the vulgar superstition of the past that ever suggested that the reproduction of human forms in stone was an unholy work. Through long, dark centuries religion taught that the human form was vile and bad, and that the soul of man was imprisoned in a charnel house, unfit for human sight. They wounded, bruised, and maimed their house of clay; they covered it with skins that under 110 circumstances could be removed, and many ancient saints lived and died without ever having looked upon the bodies nature gave to them. The images of saints and maityrs, which in the name of religion were scattered through Europe, were covered with paint and clothes, and were nearly as hideous as the monks who placed them there.

When the condition of Europe and its religious thought is clearly understood, it is not difficult to imagine the reception that greeted the first dawn of modern realistic art. Sculpture and painting deified the material. It told of beauty in the human form which thousands of years of religious fanaticism had taught was bad and vile.

If the flesh was beautiful, what of the monks and priests who had hidden it from sight; who had kept it covered night and day through all their foolish lives; who maimed and bruised, cut and lacerated it for the glory of the spirit which they believed was chained within ? The church had taught that the death of the flesh was the birth of the soul, and they therefore, believed that the artist's resurrection of the flesh was the death of the soul.

This old religious prejudice, born of a misty, superstitious past, has slowly faded from the minds of men, but we find its traces even yet; the origin of the feeling against realistic art lias well-nigh been forgot, but much of the feeling still remains. No one now would pretend to say that all the body was unholy or unfit for sight, and yet years of custom and inherited belief have made us think that a part is good and the rest is bad; that nature, in her work of building up the human form, has made one part sacred and another vile. It is easy to mistake custom for nature, and inherited prejudice for morality.

There is not a single portion of the human body wliich some people havo not believed holy, and not a single portion which some have not believed vile. It was not shame that made clothing, but clothing that made shame. If we should eradicate from our beliefs all that inheritance and environment have given, it would be hard for us to guess how much would still remain. Custom has made almost all things good and nearly all things bad, according to the whim of time and place. To find solid ground we must turn to nature, and ask her what it is that conduces to the highest happinoss and the longest life. The realistic artist cannot accept the popular belief, whatever that may be, as to just where the dead line on the human body should be drawn that separates the saered and profane.

There are realists who look at all the beauty and loveliness of the world, and all its maladjustments, too, and who do not seek to answer the old, old question, whether back of this is any all-controlling and designing power. They do not answer, for they cannot know; but they strive to touch the subtle chord which makes their individual lives vibrate in harmony with the great heart of that nature which they love, and they cannot think but what all parts of life are good, and that, whilo men may differ, nature must know best.

Other realists there are who believe they see in nature the work of a divine Maker, who created man in His own image as the last and highest triumph of His skill; that not the minutest portion of the universe exists except because He wished it thus. To the realist who accepts this all-control-ling power, any imputation against a portion of his Master's work must reach back to the author who designed it all.

We need not say that the human body might not be better than it is. We only need to know that it is the best that man can have, and that its wondrous mechanism has been constructed with infinitely more than human skill; that every portion is adapted for its work, and through the harmony of every part the highest good is reached, and that all is beautiful, for it makes the perfect being best adapted to the earth. Those who denounce realistic art deny that knowledge is power, and that wisdom only can make harmony; but they insist, instead, that there are some things vital to life and happiness that we should not know, or that, if we must know these things, we at all events should pretend that we did not.

One day the world will learn to know that all things are good or bad according to the service they perform. A great brain which is used by its owner for his sellish ends, regardless of all the purposes that are sacrificed to attain the goal, is as base and bad as the mind can well conceive; while a great brain dedicated to the right and just, and freely given to the service of the world, is high and grand. One day it ought, to learn that the power to create immortality, through infinite succeeding links of human life, is the finest and most terrible that nature ever gave to man; and to ignore this power or call it bad, to fail to realize the great responsibility of this tremendous fact, is to cry out against the power that gave us life, and commit the greatest human sin, for it may be one that never dies.

The true artist does not find all beauty in the human face or form. These are a part of a mighty whole. He looks upon the sunset, painting all the clouds with rosy hue, and his highest wish is to create another scene like this. lie never dreams that he could paint a sunset fairer than the one that lights the fading world. A fairer sunset would be something else. He sees beauty in the quiet lake, the grassy field, and running brooks. He sees majesty in the cataract and mountain peak. He knows that he can paint no streams and mountain peaks more perfect than the ones that nature made.

The growth of letters has been like that of art, from the marvellous and mythical to the natural and true. The tales and legends of the ancient past were not of common men and common scenes. These could not impress the undeveloped intellects of long ago. A man of letters could not deify a serf or tell the simple story of the poor. He must write to maintain the status of the world, and please the prince who gave him food. So he told of kings and queens, of knights and ladies, of strife and conquest, and the coloring he used was human blood.

The world has grown accustomed to those ancient tales — to scenes of blood and war, and novels that would thrill the soul and cause the hair to stand on end. It has read them so long that the true seems commonplace and not fit to fill the pages of a book. But all the time we forget the fact that the story could not charm unless we half believed it true. The men and women in the tale we learn to love and hate; wo take an interest in their lives; wo hope they may succeed or fail; we must not be told at every page that the people of the book are men of straw, that no such beings ever lived upon the earth. We could take no interest in men and women who were myths conjured up to play their parts, reminding us in every word they spoke that, regardless of the happiness or anguish the author made them feel, they were but puppets, and could know neither joy nor pain. It may be that the realistic story is commonplaco, but so is life, and the realistic tale is true. Among the countless millions of the earth it is only here and there, and now and then, that some soul is born from out the mighty depths that does not so- i return to the great sea, and leave no ripple on the waves.

In the play ot life each actor seems important to himself; the world he knows revolves around him as the central figure of the scene; his friends rejoice in all the fortune he attains, and weep with him in all his griefs. To him the world is bounded by the faces that he knows and the scenes in which he lives; he forgets the great surging world outside. and cannot think how small a space he fills in that infinity which bounds his life. He dies; a few sorrowing friends mourn him for a day, and the world does not

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know he ever lived or ever died. In the ordinary life almost all events are commonplace, but a few important days are thinly sprinkled in among all of those that intervene between the cradle and the grave. We cat and drink, we work and sleep, and here and there a great joy or sorrow creeps in upon our lives, and leaves a day that stands out in the monotony of all the rest, like the pyramids upon the level plains. But these are very, very few, and are important only to ourselves; and for the rest, we walk with steady pace along the short and narrow path of life, and rely upon the common things alone to occupy our minds and hide from view the marble stone that here and there we cannot fail to see, as it gleams upon us through the overhanging trees just where the road leaves off.

The highest mountain range, when compared w^rith all the earth, is no larger than a hair upon an ordinary globe; and the greatest life bears about the same resemblance to the humanity of which it is a part.

The old novel, which we used to read and to which the world so fondly clings, had no idea of relation or perspective. It had a hero and a heroine, and sometimes more than one. The revolutions of the planets were less important than their love. War, shipwreck, and conflagration all conspired to produce the climax of the scene, and the whole world stood still until their hearts and hands were joined. Wide oceans, burning deserts, Arctic seas, impassable jungles, irate fathers, and even designing mothers were helpless against the decree that fate had made; and when all the barriers were passed, and love had triumphed over impossibilities, the tale was done. Through the rest of life nothing of interest could transpire. Sometimes in the progress of the story, if the complications were too great, a thunderbolt or an earthquake was introduced to destroy the villain and help out the match. Earthquakes sometimes happen, and the realistic novelists might write a tale of a scene like this; but then the love affair would be an incident of the earthquake, and not the earthquake an incident of the love affair.

In real life the affections have played an important part, and sometimes great things have been done in the name of love; but most of the affairs of the human heart have been as natural as the other events of life.

The true love story is generally a simple thing. On a.

sloping hill, beside a country mad, lives a farmer, in the house his father owned before. He has a daughter, who skims the milk, and makes the beds, and goes to singing school at night. There are other members of the household, but our tale is no concern of theirs. In the meadow, back of the house, a woodchuck has dug his hole, and reared a family in its humble home. Across the valley, only a mile away, another farmer lives. He has a son who ploughs the fields, and does the chores, and goes to singing school at night. lie cannot sing, but he attends the school as regularly as if he could. Of course he does not let the girl go home alone! and in the spring, when singing school is out, he visits her on Sunday evening without excuse. If the girl had not lived so near, the farmer's son would have fancied another girl about the same age who also went to singing school. Back of the second farmer's house is another wood-chuck hole and woodchuck home. After a year or two of courtship, the boy and girl are married, as their parents were before, and they choose a pretty spot beside the road, and build another house between the two, and settle down to common life — and so the world moves on. And a wood-chuek on one farm makes the acquaintance of a woodchuck on the other, and they choose a quiet place beside a stump, in no one's way, where they think they have a right to be, and dig another hole and make another home. For after all, men and animals are much alike, and nature loves them both and loves them all, and sends them forth to drive the loneliness from oft' the earth, and then takes them back into her loving breast to sleep.

It may lie that there are few great incidents in the realistic tale; but each event appeals to life, and cannot fail to wake our memories and make us live the past again. The great authors of the natural school, Tolstoi, Daudet, Howells, Ihscn, Keilland, Flaubert, Zola, Hardy, and the rest, have made us think and live. Their words have burnished up our thoughts and revealed a thousand pictures that hung upon the walls of memory, covered with the dust of years and hidden from our sight. Sometimes, of course, we cry with pain at the picture that is thrown before our view; but life consists of emotions, and we cannot truly live unless the depths are stirred.

These great masters, it is true, may sometimes shock the over-sensitive with the stories they tell of life; but if the talc is true, why hide it from our sight? Nothing is more common than the protest against the wicked books of the realistic school, filled with delineations of passion and of sin; but he who denies passion ignores all the life that exists upon the earth, and cries out against the mother that gave him birth; and he who ignores this truth passes with contempt the greatest fact that nature has impressed upon the world.

Those who condemn as sensual the tales of Tolstoi and Daudet still defend the love stories of which our literature is full—those weak and silly tales that make women fit only to be the playthings of the world, and deny to them a single thought or right except to serve their master, man. These objectors do not contend that stories dealing with the feelings and affections shall not be told — they approve these, but they simply insist that they shall be false, instead of true.

The old novel filled the mind of the school girl with a thousand thoughts that had no place in life — with ten thousand pictures she could never see. It taught that some time she would meet a prince in disguise, to whom she should freely give her hand and heart. So she went out upon the road to find this prince; and the more disguised he was, the more certain did she feel that he was the prince for whom she sought.

The realist paints the passions and affections as they are. Roth man and woman can see their beauty and their terror, their true position and the relation that they bear to all of life. lie would not l>eguile the girl into the belief that her identity should be destroyed and merged for the sake of this feeling, which not once in ten thousand times could realize the promises that the novel made, but would leave her as an individual to make the most she could and all she could of life, with all the chance for hope and conquest which men have taken for themselves. Neither would the realist cry out blindly against these deep passions that have moved men and women in the past, and which must continue fierce and strong so long as life exists. lie is taught by the scientist that the fiercest heat may be transformed to light, and is shown by life that from the strongest passions are sometimes born the sweetest'and the purest human souls.

In these days of creeds and theories, of preachers in the pulpit and out, we are told that all novels should have a moral and be written to serve some end. So wo have novels on religion, war, marriage, divorce, socialism, theosophy, woman's rights, and other topics without end. It is not enough that the preachers and lecturers shall tell us how to think and act; the novelist must try his hand at preaching, too. He starts out with a theory, and every scene and incident must be bent to make it plain that the author believes certain things. The doings of the men and women in the book arc secondary to the views the author holds. The theories may bo very true, but the poor characters who must adjust their lives to these ideal states are sadly warped and twisted out of shape.

The realist would teach a lesson, too, but he would not violate a single fact for all the theories in the world, for a theory could not be true if it did violence to life. Ho paints his picture so true and perfect that all men who look upon it know that it is a likeness of the world that they have seen; they know that these arc men and women and little children whom they meet upon the streets, and they see the conditions of their lives, and the moral of the picture sinks deeply into their minds.

There are so-called scientists who make a theory, and then gather facts to prove their theory true; the real scientist patiently and carefully gathers facts, and then forms a theory to explain and harmonize these facts.

All life bears a moral, and the true artist must teach a lesson with his every fact. Some contend that the moral teacher must not tell the truth; the realist holds that there can be no moral teaching like the truth.

The world has grown tired of preachers and sermons; to-day it asks for facts. It has grown tired of fairies and angels, and asks for flesh and blood. It looks on life as it exists to-day — lx>th its beauty and its horror, its joy and its sorrow. It wishes to see all; not only the prince and the millionnairc, but the laborer and the beggar, the master and the slave. We see the beautiful and the ugly, and know what the world is and what it ought to be, and the true picture which the author saw and painted stira the heart to holier feelings and to grander thoughts.

It is from the realities of life that the highest idealities arc born. The philosopher may reason with unerring logic and show us where the world is wrong; the economist may tell us of the progress and poverty that go hand in hand. But these are theories, and the abstract cannot suffer pain.

Dickens went out into the streets of the great city, and found poor little Jo sweeping the crossing with his broom. All around were the luxury and elegance which the rich have appropriated to themselves, — great mansions, fine carriages, beautiful dresses, — but in all the great city of houses and homes poor little Jo could find no place to lay liis head. His home was in the street; and every time ho halted for a moment in the throng, the policeman touched him with his club and bade him to " move on." At last, ragged, wretched, nearly dead with « moving on," lie sank down upon the cold stone steps of a magnificent building erected for " The Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." As we think of wretched, ragged Jo in the midst of all this luxury and wealth, we see the tens of thousands of other waifs in the great cities of the world, and we condcmn the so-called civilization of the earth that builds the mansions of the rich and great upon the rags and miseries of the poor.

The true realist cannot worship at the shrine of power nor prostituto his gifts for gold. With an artist's eyo he sees the world exactly as it is, and he tells the story faithfully to life. He feels for every heart that beats, else he could not paint them as he does. It takes the soul to warm a statue into life and make living flesh and coursing blood, and each true picture that he paints or draws makes the world a better place in which to live.

Head Daudet and Flaubert and Maupassant, and you can see living images that think and move and feel. It needs no analysis of character to tell us what they think. You see them move, and you know the motives that inspired the act. You can hear the murmuring of the waterfall, no louder than it ought to be; and as you look upon the foliage of the trees, you fancy that the leaves are almost stirred by a gentle southern breeze.

You can see and feel the social life, and the gulf that separates the rich and poor. If you would know the differences that divide French country life, look but a moment at the party which Flaubert paints, and you can see the gay faces and rich costumes of the dancers in the hall, and the stolid countenances and uncouth garbs of the peasants who look through the windows, from their world outside, at this fairy scene within.

The artists of the realistic school have a sense so fine that they cannot help catching the inspiration that is filling all the world's best minds with the hope of greater justice and more equal social life. With the vision of the seer they feel the coming dawn, when true equality shall reign upon the earth—the time when democracy shall no more be confined to constitutions and to laws, but will l>e a part of huniau life.

The greatest artists of the world to-day are telling facts and painting scenes that cause humanity to stop and think, and ask why one shall be a master and another a serf — why a portion of the world should toil and spin, should wear away their strength and lives, that the rest may live in idleness and ease.

The old-time artists thought they served humanity by painting saints and Madonnas and angels from the myths they conjured in their brains. They painted war with iong lines of soldiers dressed in new uniforms, and looking plump and gay, and a battle scene was always drawn from the side of the victorious camp, with the ensign proudly planting his bright colors on the rampart of the foe. Ono or two were dying, but always in their comrades' arms and listening to shouts of victory that filled the air, and thinking of the righteous cause for which they fought and died. In the last moments they dreamed of pleasant burial-yards at home, and of a grave kept green by loving, grateful friends, and a smile of joy lit up their fading faces, so sweet that it seemed a hardship not to die in war. They painted peace as a white-winged dove settling down upon a cold and "farewell" earth. Between the two it was plain which choice a boy would make, and thus art served the state and king.

But Verestchagin painted war so true to life that as we look upon the scene we long for peace. He painted war as war has ever been and will ever be — a horrible and ghastly scene, where men, drunk with blind frenzy, — which rulers say is patriotic pride, — and made mad by drums and fifes and smoke and shot and shell and flowing blood, seek to maim and wound and kill, because a ruler gives the word. He paints a battle-field a field of life and death, a field of carnage and of blood. And who are these who fight like fiends and devils driven to despair? And what cause is this that makes these men forget that they arc men, and vie with beasts to show their cruel thirst for blood? They shout of home and native land; but they have no homes, and the owners of their native land exist upon their toil and blood. The nobles and princes, for whom this fight is waged, are sitting far away upon a hill, beyond the reach of shot and shell; and from this spot they watch their slaves pour out their blood to satisfy their rulers' pride and lust of power. And what is the enemy they fight? Men, like themselves, who blindly go to death at. another king's command; slaves who have no land, who freely give their toil or blood — whichever one their rulers may demand. These fighting soldiers have no cause for strife, but their rulers live by kindling in their hearts a love of native land — a love which makes them hate their brother laboren? of other lands, and dumbly march to death, to satisfy a king's caprice.

But let us look once more, after the battle has been fought. Here we see the wreck and ruin of the strife. The field is silent now, given to the dead, the beast of prey, and night A young soldier lies upon the ground. The snow is falling fast around his form. The lonely mountain peaks rise up on every side. The wreck of war is all about. His uniform is soiled and stained. A spot of red is seen upon his breast. It is not the color that his country wove upon his coat to catch his eye and bait him to his death ; it is hard and jagged and cold; it is his life's blood that leaked out through a hole that followed the point of a sabre to his heart. His form is stiff aud cold, for lie is dead. The cruel wound and the icy air have done their work. The government which took his life taught this'poor boy to love his native land. As a child he dreamed of sccnes of glory and of power, and the great, wide world just waiting to fall captive to his magic strength. He dreamed of war and strife, and of victory and fame. If he should die, kind hands would smooth his brow, and loving friends would keep his grave and memory green, because he died in war. But no human eye was there at last, as tho mist of night and the mist of death shut out the lonely mountains from his sight. The snow is all around, and the air above is gray with falling flakes. These would soon hide him from the

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world; and when the summer time should come again, no one could tell his bleaching bones from all the rest. The only life upon the scene is the buzzard, slowly circling in the air above his head, waiting to make sure that death has come. The bird looks down upon the boy, upon the eyes which first, looked out upon the great, wide world, and which his mother fondly kissed. Upon these eyes the buzzard will begin his meal.

Not all the world is beautiful, and not all of life is good. The true artist has no right to choose only the lovely spots, and make us think that- this is life. He must bring the world before our eyes, and make us read and think. As he loves the true and noble, he must show the false and bad. As he yearns for true equality, he must paint the master and the slave. He must tell the truth; must tell it all; must tell it o'er and o'er again, till the deafest car will listen and the dullest mind will think, lie must not swerve to please t'le world by painting only pleasant sights and telling only lovely talcs. He must paint and write and work and think until the world shall learn so much, and grow so good, that the true will be all bcautifui, and all the leal be ideal.

TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

by kdoak fawcbtt.

Thou hast peered at all creeds of the past, and each one hath seemed futile and poor

As a firefly that fades on a marsh, as a wind that makes moan on a moor;

For thy soul in its large love to man, in its heed of his welfare and cheer,

Bids him hurl to the dust whence they sprang all idolatries fashioned by fear.

Not the eagle can gaze at the sun with more dauntless and challenging eyes

Than thou at the radiancc of truth when it rifts the dark durance of lies.

From thy birth wert thou tyranny's foe, and its deeds were disdain in thy sight;

Thou art leagued with the dawn as the lark is — like him dost thou leap to the light!

Having marked how the world's giant woes for the worst part arc bigotry's brood.

Thou hast hated, yet never with malice, and scorned but in service of good.

Thy compassionate vision saw keen how similitude always hath dwelt

Between fumes poured from altars to God and from flames haggard martyrs have felt.

What more splendid a pity than thine for the anguish thy race hath endured

Through allegiance to spectres and wraiths from the cohorts of fancy conjured ?

At the bold pomps of temple and church is it wonder thy wisdom hath mourned,

Since the architect, Ignorance, reared them, and Fright, the pale sculptor, adorned ?

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