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Page 78
"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." A Romaunt. By Lord Byron. Boston: Ticknor
& Co.
"The Last Leaf." Poem. By Oliver Wendell Holmes. Illustrated by George
Wharton Edwards and F. Hopkinson Smith. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
"Pepper and Salt; or, Seasoning for Young Folks." Prepared by Howard
Pyle. New York: Harper & Brothers.
"Davy the Goblin; or, What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland,'" By Charles E. Carryl. Boston; Ticknor & Co.
"Bric-�-Brac Stories." By Mrs. Burton Harrison. Illustrated by Walter
Crane. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
"Rudder Grange." By Frank R. Stockton. Illustrated by A.B. Frost. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
In turning over the pictorial books of the season one experiences a
genuine pleasure in coming upon this illustrated edition of "The Sermon
on the Mount," which belongs to a high order of merit from its
satisfactory interpretation of the subject and the beauty of its general
design and careful detail. It is, of course, a modern performance, and
nothing is more characteristic of most modern art than that it does
consciously, from reminiscence and with a reaching after certain
effects, what was once done simply, intuitively, and from the urgency of
poetic feeling. A great difference must naturally exist not only in the
outward mode but in the spirit of a group of modern artists who set to
work to illuminate a sacred text, and that in which the task was
undertaken by cloistered monks in whose gray lives a longing for beauty,
for color, found expression only here. Thus one realizes that the
decorative borders--which one looks at over and over again in this
volume, and which actually satisfy the eye--do not represent the
artist's own actual dreams, but are founded instead upon the ecstatic
visions of Fra Angelico and others as they bent over their work in their
silent cells; but they are beautiful nevertheless, far transcend what is
merely decorative, and are full of imagination and feeling. In fact,
into this frame-work, which might have contained nothing beyond
conventional imitation, Mr. Smith has put vivid touches which show that
he has the faculty to conceive and the skill to handle which belong to
the true artist. It would be easy to instance several of these borders
as remarkably good in their way: that which surrounds the "Lord's
Prayer" suggests dazzling effects in jewelled glass. The book is made up
in a delightful way, with full-page pictures interspersed with vignettes
illustrating the text and set round with those richly-designed borders
to which we have alluded. Mr. Fenn's pictures of actual places in the
Holy Land, besides striking the key-note of veracity which puts us in a
mood to see the whole story under fresh lights, are full of beauty and
charm. We are inclined to like everything in the book, although in the
various ways in which the beatitudes are interpreted we are conscious of
some incongruities, and wish that certain illustrations had made way for
designs showing more unity of conception among the artists. For
instance, Mr. Church's introduction of a New England scene of
tomahawking Indians cannot be said to throw a flood of light upon the
meaning of "Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness'
sake." Mr. St. John Harper's pictures are a trifle obscure; but their
obscurity veils their want of pertinence and suggests subtilties that
flatter the imagination into fitting the application to suit itself. Any
mention of the book which failed to include Mr. Copeland's work on the
engrossed text would be altogether inadequate, for it is very perfect,
very beautiful, full of surprises and delightful quaintnesses, and helps
to make the book what it actually is, a complete whole, which really
answers our wishes of what an illustrated book should be.
Mr. Whittier's "Poems of Nature" make the felicitous occasion this year
for one of Messrs. Houghton & Mifflin's rich and attractive series of
their authors' selected works. An admirable etching of the poet faces
the title-page, and the poems, chiefly descriptive of New England
scenes, are illustrated by designs from nature, the work of a single
artist. That Mr. Kingsley is in sympathy with the poet, and that he is
an impassioned lover of nature and the various moods of nature, no one
can doubt, and the impression of truthfulness which his work produces on
the mind makes his pictures interesting and full of sentiment even when
they are not entirely successful. Perhaps he aims in general at rather
too large effects to bring them out vividly; for when the scene he
chooses is least composite he is at his best. "Deer Island Pines," for
example, and "The Merrimac" are excellent, and we find much charm in "A
Winter Scene" and in a Boughton-like "November Afternoon."
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