The San Francisco Call and Post from San Francisco, California • Page 27

Out of the London Art Galleries. LONDON, May London is the city of contrasts. Nowhere is the modern and the old, the somber and the brilliant, the hideous and the beautiful so sharply or so abruptly interchanged. To come from one of the outlying suburbs into the heart of the town is to run up and down the whole 6cale of human development. Could anything be more dreary, more sordid than the streets of so many of the smaller districts, the tali, smokebegrimed house fronts, only to be distinguished by the number and the variety of the dressmaking and "advertisements.

The streets are deserted as those of a village and as now and then the organ-grinder resolutely turns out his haunting memories of Italian opera or the a Bounding and grotesque echo of other joys and other possibilities. And this within half an hour of the Marble Arch or Hyde Park corner. On one side the imposing dignity and reserve of Park Lane and Mayfair; the windows at this season crowded with blossoms; carriages with monumental footmen waiting at the doors; the street a living stream, the plunging heavily between strings of hansoms and cabs and carts and drays; riders on horseback, and the bicycle here and the bicycle there and the bicycle everywhere. Where the crowd parts the people pass into Hyae Park, where the flower-beds glow among the shadowy trees like the wardrobe of a queen spread out for the world to gaze crocus beds, gold and red; I hyacinths and tulips cf every size 'and every degree of gorgeousness. They blaze like the shop-windows in Bond or Regent streets, where the bright, round guinea rules and the shilling is forgot.

It costs but 1 shilling, however, to enter the galleries galleries upon galleries, which it is the solemn duty of every Englishman or matron, youth or maiden to visit. The academy, the new gallery, the English Art Club, the Grafton, the Water Colorists and a dozen others, all within a radius of a few miles, in Regent street or i Piccadilly or Pali Mall. Always a new one to be founded as a public educator, and always more pictures to be painted and lost sight of. And every picture exhibition is crowded with eager people, cultivating arduously their interest in art. In America the exhibition is a matter of moment on opening day, then nothing could be more undisturbedly peaceful than the big rooms full of paintings; the artist himself is but a poor creature to be encouraged, to be patronized, to be protected.

In the popular mind he ia along-haired individual, with a velveteen coat, an expression of genius concealed about his person, and eccentric ideas about the support the world owes him. Here in England or in London rather he is an exotic, to be kept in a hothouse atmosphere of respect and adulation; to be assiduously cultivated and cared for and exhibited like his own works, and his correctness of shirt front and collar and polished boot is a model for the vulgar and ignorant. In the new gallery we have the choice of I schools, with again the same questions of modern and old, hung apparently so as to bring the contrast into the most vivid relief. A very entertaining relief for the humor-loving, but a keen anguish to the soul of the dilettante with a respect for his own sensations of delight. The gallery in itseli is a joy, and should touch to an ecstacy of emulation any One Ride lira A Horseless Carriage.

The era of the horseless carriage is com- i ing as sure as the era of eood country roads. The champions of the horse may poohpooh the idea and assert that pleasure- Joying man will never surrender the steed of flesh and blond to a mere piece of twentieth century mechanism; they may claim that there is a luck of enjoyment, and absence of thrill of the delightful sort, and no end of danger in riding on a machine run by electricity and gasoline, but they can only rank as Bpeciai pleaders on one side of the controversy. The steam car was once just as much of a curiosity, and was viewed with eyes as skeptical as the horseless carnage is today. Not a hundred years has gone by fir.cc steam was first harnessed to the paddie-wheels of boats and the flywheels of trains, and yet steam is beiner replaced here and tbere by electricity and doubting Thomases are soon made firm believers in the beneficial results of new discoveries. It is hardly a dozen years ago since people declared that the electric streetcar would never be a success.

Now it is in universal use. Men in general didn't think that Edison's electric light would set the world of night afire; but it did, and it was not very long in doing it. A short time ago the telephone was a curious thing. Now everybody uses the telephone. And it will be the same old story with the horseless carriage.

The Bubject of good roads is being agitated from one end of the State to the other. Down in Los Angeles County it is proposed to make the roads question a lecal campaign issue, and other counties may follow the example. With the dawning of the day of good roads in the West will come the rising of the sun of the horseless carriage. Manufacturers cut down the prices as the demand grows, and ultimately we shall be able to buy an electric-motor buegy for about the cost of an ordinary roadhorse. "But how does it feel to ride in one of those electric carriages?" somebody is bound to ask.

"Does tne thing shake you up and deafen you with noises that keep your nerves on edge? Is it hard to steer? Don't you have serious trouble turning corners? Aren't you constantly in fear of colliding with some vehicle or other, or of petting upset by running into a chuckhole?" All such questions may be speedily answered by the experience of a Call man who yesterday made a special trip in a horseless carriage for the very purpose of describing all the relative sensations. He was accompanied by J. M. Ouph of the California Gas Engine Company, who is planning to build a number of horseless carriages. The vehicle in which the trip was made is the one belonging to Charley Fair, being the first of its kind west of the Rockies.

The route taken was through the principal streets of Alameda and over country roads in the vicinity of Oakland. Comfortably sealed in the attractive looking carriage, a button under the seat is pressed, an electric spark ignites the gasoline, and the engine operates with a noise almost like that made by a railway locomotive in starting, but more subdued, of course, and with the exception of the buzzing sound of the electricity" The brake right-minded millionaire of California, if he be not lost to all sense of public duty. Three rooms, with admirable lighting, around a central court, in which a fountain splashes, in which there are restful chairs and divans, in which the sculptures and miniatures are seen against a charming background of cool green palms and waving ferns. An upper gallery runs all around the central court and here are the smaller landscapes and figures in oil or water color or pastel. Commencing in the south room we are carried to Windsor, to Norfolk, to with bewildering rapidity.

We see 3trange females from old legends, emaciated angels, personages from Greek and Northern myths, symbolic representations of death and time and judgment, modern ladies in or out of modern clothes, and painted gen- tlemen in or out of robes of office. We have sunset evenings and moonlit evenings and mild nights and summer evenings and showery evenings, days in mild and wild weather, but in all this choice and various collection there are but few pictures worthy of their carefully selected titles. Graham Robertson, whose claims upon fame have been hitherto largely represented by a portrait of himself, painted last year by John Sargent, has bloomed out from a pictnre-lover to a picturepainter. He is young, he is rich, he has a beautiful studio built from his own designs, looking out upon Holland Park. His pictures, in spite of all this against him, are very promising.

He has taken Burne Jones and Dicksee as his tutelary saints only he has departed from the ascetic grace of the former and has endowed his Queen of Samotbrace with an ample charm. I am the Queen of Samothrace, God making roses made my face. And it is a goodly face to look upon, sufficiently well drawn and very well colored, with that clear and unshadowed flat modeling so much affected by modern men. A very poetic canvas is that called "The Page," by Mrs. Marianne Stokes.

It is an illustration of Heine's most touching little song: Bs war em alter Konig, 6ein Hera war schwer. Beln Haapt war gran; Der anne, alte Konig, Der nahrn einejunge Fran. The poor little Queen, moving dreamily through a charmingly suggested landscape, is a slim figure with a face modeled as the early Florentine painters loved to do. She has a little thin white cap drawn over her fine hair that has a faint glint of gold, and her long, green robe seems all too heavy for such a slender creature. The page holds the gold-embroidered silken train, with his young, delicate face uplifted under a cloud of blond hair, yearning toward the pale Queen.

Mrs. Stokes has made effective use of actual gold and silver in the decorations of the dress. The figure of the page is a little overbalanced by his great sleeves, on which the mixture of paint and silver gives an actual feeling of a rich silver-threaded material. Mrs. H.

M. Stanley (Dorothy Tennant) has two pictures not remarkable in any way. "His First Offense" is a rather welldrawn figure of a boy, in which the face and ragged clothes are all done with rather too much of pathetic appeal the; other canvas is a nude, conspicuous only by the name of Stanley. A really beautiful portrait is that of Lady is then thrown off, and away starts the carriage at any rate of speed desired. When well under way the bolM is hardly noticeable.

It is remarkable with what smoothness the carriage travels. It speeds along at the rate of fifteen to twenty miles an hour, and no vehicle ever turned sharp corners more prettily than does this horseless carriage. Just ahead of us is a country woman driving a horse which shows ajgns of fear. The woman is curious, and is paying more attention to the object of her wonderment than to the animal she is driving. horseless carriage turns properly to the right.

The woman somewhat nervously jerks the wrong line, and the horse moves toward the side on which the machine of mystery is speeding. But there is no collision. The horseless carriage is guided to the opposite side of the street in a twinkling; and, had it been necessary, the bra.ke could have been applied and the wheels brought to an aimost immediate standstill. Horses haven't got used to the horseless carriage yet, and they shy as it passes Almost invariably. Tied to a stake along the roadside In the country back of the encinal was a horse which sprang up and sniffed as his modern enemy appeared, and as the thing of unseen power rolled by the horse jumped with such force as to break his rope, and then fled away supposedly filled with all the terror that pursued Tarn o' Saanter's Meg.

No wonder the horse gets maddened at this new invention. It appears that it was not enough to crowd him out of many of his old-accustomed places with the bike and the tandem; but the genius of man must even take the shafts out of the carriages, and then whirl over the land without the aid of any horse at all. A farmer and his wife drive up to a fence on the roadside to let the machine go by. They are both staring at it with eyes that tell a tale of astonishment. Their mouths are wide open.

One might imagine that farmer turning to his spouse and declaring, as the strange conveyance disappeared in tne distance, "That's the darnedest concern I ever set eyes on, Jerushy. I'd jest hke to got a squint at the ineides of it. By gum, they're getting things down tine as silk nowadays. Next thing some city cuss'll come to visit our Sally in a flying machine. are mighty fa9t days.

Things that were impossible when we was young is jest child's-play now. I'm beginning to believe almost anything I hear. Gosh how that infernal wagon does get over the ground Jerushy, if we had one of them businesses we'd stock it with grub and go deuce knows where with it, jest to show off. It's great!" Twenty miles an hour on a good, smooth road is a very rapid rate of speed. A norse may make a spurt for a moment that will pat the horseless carriage in the rear; but the monster of electric power is tireless, and the horse soon succumbs to exhaustion.

With the electric carriage you may ride all day and all night, and it is destined to be a most valuable thing in an emergency that requires quick travel over a long distance and where trains are not available. Hiding along the beautiful wide avenues THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY 31, 1896. Mappin by J. J. Shannon.

Shannon and Sargent are the portrait painters of London. Shannon paints more frequently the dukes and duchesses. Sargent while A RIDE IN CHARLEY FAIR'S HORSELESS CARRIAGE. of Alameda, the children are attracted by the horseless carriage. They run alongside of it, and a couple of barefoot boys strive to keep up with the big vehicle for a few yards.

Some of the boys make bold to hang on behind, but the strong odor of gasoline cures them of such a notion. The little fellows laugh and shout as the odd contrivance rushes away from them. Near tbe beach a halt is made and an immense crowd gathers in short order. Tbe questions with reference to the various parts of the horseless carriage come pouring in from all directions. One almost regrets that he hasn't a bushel or two of pamphlets explanatory of everything for free distribution among the crowd.

We toot a warning signal and escape from the thoroughly interested but too inquisitive throng. Along the beach the horseless carriage is a drawing card. The rosy-cheeked, ruby-lipped, blue-eyed and golden-haired summer girl is there, and she waves her dainty lace parasol at the vehicle, whose occupants are getting, the full benefit of the fresh breezes on the wing as it were. The summer-girl would like nothing better than such a ride on a warm Junetime day. The bathers in the water turn and gaze at the horseless carriage.

It is such a curious affair to them that most of them laugh outright at first and then sober down to serious consideration. Undoubtedly, if all the comments that are made in regard to that carriage could be gathered and printed, they would make an amusing column. From the houses on the way people, young and old, run out and look after the horseless carriage. The occupants feel that they are envied the luxury of suck not above painting the aristocracy prefers the singers, the writers, tbe actors and actresses, tbe remarkable people of tbe century. No two men could see a model i ride.

It is a luxury, too. The traveling is so smooth, the carriage is so comfortable, the speed so brisk, the task of guiding so simple and easy, that a ride in a horseless carriace of the type owned by Charley Fair is delightful. There is practically no danger at all, and, despite the fact that this carriage has been operated on crowded streets, it has never been mixed up in any kind of an accident. An afternoon's ride in a horseless carriage makes a person feel a longing to be the possessor of one. But as soon as the counties of California get together on the all-important subject of good roads, and as soon as our highways are as well graded and paved as they should be, just so soon shall we behold a multitude of horselelss carriages in the West.

Then the stab e-keeoers will invest In them and the bicycle will have a stron'r holiday rival in these pleasant vehicles, of which at present there is only a sample or forerunner in the Golden State. RUNNING TO SEED 'Lizabeth," said Farmer Cornroe of "Varmount," laying aside his weekly paper, "is there any more flyleaves in the Bible?" "Yes." "An' is all that pokeberry ink gone?" "Not quite." "Got 'er goose quill 'bont the house?" "I think so; what are you goin' ter do?" "Goin' to write to New York for a peck that'new kind o' Mardi Gras seed that the papers ia talkln' so much ertxrat; want ter try it in the lower bottom field for early pasture." THE OLDEST INHASITANT "Is thU hot enough for you?" asked Satan. warm," admitted the newly arrived oldest inhabitant, '-but I remember fifty years ago, when it was so durn hot 1 The attendant imps, at signal, seized him with greater difference their point of view is as far apart as that of Franz Hals and Van Dyck. Shannon has proceeded along the beaten and shoved him down seven stories nearer the bottom which isn't lndianapolis Journal. NOW LET HER GO Steadily the water gained on the pumps.

It was now six feet deep in the hold. The ship was sinking. Preparations were made to abandon the doomed vessel and take to the boats. With a linn hand the captain wrote a brief account of the disaster, giving his reckoning of the latitude ami longitude and the direction in which he expected to navigate the boats. Then he called for a bottle.

It was brought. He removed the cork, rolled up the manuscript, and was about to insert it when one of tbe passengers, a tall Missouri colonel, hastily up. "Captain," he said, pale, but with the ring of iron resolution in his voice, "I see they's a few draps left in that flask. Hand it here and I'll empty it. Thanks.

Now let 'er go." HIS FAULT Willie (studying his Bay, pa, where does the Hudson rise? Pa don't know exactly. You don't! Just think of the teacher'll scold me like biases on account of your Truth. SO SHE COULD FLY "Grandma, when I am an angel will I have "I hope so, dear. Why do you "'Cause I think I'd rather have a Life. IS THIS TRUE? Little The preacher says lucre is no marrying in heaven.

Little Of course not. There wouldn't be enough men to go La Crosse Argus. Some the English Color Masters. track, soberly, conscientiously, with a delicate and very often a delicious sense of character and color. There is not a careless touch in his reserved and dignified portraits.

How beautifully the old hands of Lady Mappin are suggested under her old-fashioned mits; the fur coat hanging over tbe edge of the chair is a picture in itself. If the head separates from the figure and occupies a different position in regard to the background it is because he has lingered too long upon it, sacrificed too much to this fine, grave, old face, with a touch of weariness upon the heavy. lidded eyes and a touch of the appeal of mournful experience upon the soft, old moutn. With Mr. Sargent the technique is the first thing to be considered by the student, the last apparently to occupy the painter himself.

He is a pitiless reader of charac- ter the momentary confession of a quick gesture, a furtive look, a significant smile he seizes upon, and holds for all time as the smile, the look, the characteristic gesture. It is aimost demoralizing to come suddenly in the north room upon nis portrait of Countess Plary Aldingen. If "the lady herself were to walk into the gallery, full of self-constituted critics in tailormade gowns and "smart" hats, in her white satin gown, with her bare neck and the effect could hardly be more startling. The lady has risen abruptly from a sofa of rose satin, the folds of her dress still clinging to it, her fan is crushed in one hand, the other is almost to be extended in a greeting a marvelous, thin hand, as characteristic as the head. She is tall, slender to thinness her uplifted head is thin, too, and as frankly ugly as it is alive with animation, amusement and intelligence.

Her eyes are bright and hard, her lips open in a curious, slightly scornful smile. The newcomer may certainly expect a not entirely amiable witticism. Llewellyn's large portrait of Mrs. Cosmo Beran, which balances the Sargent on either side of a large, decorative picture, suffers all things by the contrast. The woman is a lay figure, the painting is of the watery sweet order, the pose is absolutely conventional a woman i in white satin also, holding back a portiere.

Between these two portraits is a whirl of color, "The Garden of Dances," by Herbert Olivier. In the confusion of figures the one of Folly, throwing back a head like a Greek faun, is delightfully gay and graceful. The large allegorical and the illustrative picture, once sacred to the academy, has evidently taken root in the new gallery and blooms profusely as any weed and always with an explanatory line of prose or poetry. So there is "Tbe Theft of the Princess' Swan Skin" by Colliers Smithers. I (The land east of the sun and west of the moon.) Burne Jones' dream of Launcelot at the Chapel of the San Grael.

(Right so he heard a voice, etc.) "The Game of Life and Death" is by Philip Burne Jones, son of the great Sir Edward, and he has taken a number of lines: Her lips were red, her looks were The Dlchtmare Life in Death was she. And the painter has not limited his representation of a "Nightmare Life in to this picture. The landscape men are not remarkable this year, with the exception of George Wetherbee, whose beautiful rich and delicate imagination makes a poem of every blade of grass. At Burlington House it is almost impossible The Mai- Who He was a doctor who knew a vast deal about his profession, because he was always studying, but at Cucugnano, where be had been established for two years, no one bad any faith in him- The reason was not far to find. Meeting him always with a book in his hand, the people of Cucugnano said "This doctor knows absolutely nothing; he reads, and reads without stopping.

If he has to study so much he must be badly in need of learning, and if he has no learning he is an ignorant fellow." And so it came about that they had no faith in him. A doctor without patients is like a lamp without oil. All the same, he had to find some way of eking out an existence, for during his two years at Cucugnano the poor wretch had not made enough to pay for the water he drank. Things could not go on in this way any longer. He had to think of some way of ending it.

One day the news was spread through Cucugnano that the doctor's science was so great and potent and sublime that he could not only cure a sick person, which was quite an ordinary thing to do, but that he could also bring to life the dead, which was a miracle. Yes, he could bring to life a man who had been buried, make him rise out of the earth in open daylight in the middle of the cemetery, coram popolo. There were very few people who lent any credence to this report. The incredulous said: "We must put him to the proof, see him at work by their works ye shall know them. But it is possible that he may succeed, he has read so much, and they are making new discoveries every day." At last it was agreed that tbe next Sunday, just as noon had struck, the doctor in the middle of the cemetery of Cucagnano, should raise a dead man two, three, some people said as many as nine or ten.

Thus it came to pass that the next Sunday at noon tbe cemetery was as crowded as the church on Easter day. As the second stroke of the hour sounded the doctor arrived, faithful to bis promise, and he had to use his elbows to force a passage through the crowd. The people saluted him, mocked at him and laughed in his face. "Friends." said he, "I have promised to raise up a dead man, and I will keep my word. Keep Silence and listen, It will cost me nothing to give you back Giaconio or Giovanni, Nannina or Betta, Amedeo or Simon.

Would you like me to raise Simon ah, what was his name Simon Capannaro he died of pleurisy hardly a year ago?" "Excuse me, doctor," said Catherine, the widow of poor Simon. "He was a good man and mado me very happy. I almost cried my eyes out for him; but you won't raise him no, because, you see, toward tbe end of the mouth, to please my relations, I am going to marry Pasqualone, and the banns have already been published." "You did well to tell me, Catherine," said the doctor. "Then we will bring back Nina Carota, who was buried last Candlemass." "For pity's sake, doctor!" cried Giacomo Carota. "Nina was my wife.

We lived together ten years ten years of purgatory, as all Cucugnano knows. Let us to see the pictures. On the 4th of May was the official opening and the crowds move in masses through the ereat doorways. On Monday evening the great dinner at Greenwich for the new and old members of the academy was held, a dinner saddened by the recent death of the president, Sir Frederick Leighton. The last canvas to be completed by the former president of the society is exhibited for the first time.

The "Clytie" is drawn with the ease and dignity of the master the classic period dies hard, but at least it has always had one recommendation to the sincere lovers of its careful drawing and the lacK of any of that delightful license that makes impressionism, so called, an excuse for so much bad painting and drawing. In the academy the moderns have an ample field for all forma of eccentricity the ancients for all forms of classicism; and if we must have bad let us have the bad art that is frankly bad, not a mysterious darkness on a salad of every color in the rainbow. Bituminous art has also developed in proportions which are becoming really alarming. I have seen, or rather I have endeavored to distinguish, asphalt lovers embracing under a cart-grease wall. These phantasmagorias in the "note noire" will very shortly, unless something is done, suppress the solar system.

White upon white is extremely hard to paint, but black upon nothing is easier. These are fantastic ideas, devoid of sincerity where there is no sincerity there is no painting. Modern art is unquestionably menaced by serious dangers. Impressionists have been told that they were feeling their way. It must be admitted that they have not yet foaud it.

In fact, if the plunging of figures in a fog more or less dense is true then the art of Rubens, of Rembrandt, of Theodore Rousseau, of Corot, is false art. As a whole the exhibition at the academy is a shade better than it has been for some years. The academy picture, the classic and time-worn allegory, the portrait against a stormy and impossible background, ail these are still the characteristic wall decorations, but George Wetherbee has four or five delicate landscapes, Alfred Parsons two or three ratner too sweet but beautifully painted, Walter Osborne three or four exquisite portraits, one of a woman in gray against gray, with a violet sash and violet eyes. Sarpent has four portraits. One of Joseph Chamberlain, the Home Secretary, is only to be seen under the elbows or between the heads of tbe people who surround it; one of Mrs.

Lan Hamilton, which is unusually charitably handled the woman is sweet and has a winning and unaffected The slender figure is hidden under folds of chiffon so lightly painted it seems impossible to believe the same hand can have managed the broad sweep of the satin folds. The other portraits are not distinguished. Frederic Yates, a one-time San Franciscan, has two portraits, of which one the Daughter of Sir Joseph Spearman, is by far the more charming. Mr. Yates has a very happy touch in painting children.

Nothing could be more delicate than the childish gown, the big white collar, the flowers in the little hands, all in a luminous shadow. The portrait of Frederic Harrison, by W. W. Vuless, is a powerful piece of painting, interesting from every standpoint, that of the painter and that of the student of character. Van Dyck Beown.

remain as we are, both for the peace her soul and for that of mine. I could say a good deal more, but "Very well, I see that it would be a martyrdom for you to have two wives. But whom shall I raise up then, good people, for I have eot to give you back some or Ah! there's old man Pietro." "Pietro di Massovecchio said Felice Buonpugno. "The same." "Poor old father. Heaven will reward you, doctor.

He was certainly a good man, but don't bring him back because it would throw our affairs into such a tangle that we should all fall to quarreling, and that would breafc his heart for he always liked to see us at peace. After a long lawsuit we have divided up his property; there are six of us, and though we are not exactly in want, none of us are too well you don't want "Excuse me. You see, doctor, if you brought him back we should all have to give him a pension, and the crops have been so bad this year you know that the vines will bring in next to nothing and the olives are mildewed." "We will let old man Pietro sleep. But whom do you want?" "Ghita, wake my Ghita," exclaimed an elderly woman, weeping lilce a Maddalena. "No, doctor, don't bring her back," cried a young girl.

"She did well to die. She left me tbe dress she was to have worn at her wedding, and the man who loved her has fled with another." "Poor, poor Ghita! I am beginning to get tired. To put an end to this I will wake up Gringaletto, who was choked eating larks not a month "I won't have it, I won't," cried Louise Gringaletto. raising her arms. "For ten years I have supported him and he never earned a cent.

Npw I am beginning to pay up our debts, and it would not be just, doctor." "How many excuses! Do you see that little cross of wood there? It is the grave of a poor baby, scarcely ten months old. It would perhaps be a sin to raise it, but if you say the word "Doctor," said a poor woman, weeping, "the little one is ours, alas! and I am the grandmother. My daughter buried it, and if you had seen how beautiful it was! But heaven takes with one hand and gives with the other. Now my daughter has another. We could not take care of them both, and we are not rich enough to put one out to nurse." Then the doctor exclaimed: "Enough for to-day.

Since you do not want to work the miracle I will do It another time but I beg you to agree beforehand on the person that you wish me to bring back." And he went off. From that memorable Sunday the doctor has wrought miracles at Cucugnano. It is true that he has not raised the dead, but he has saved the lives of the sick. people have faith in him "Because," they say, "if he did not keep his promise in the cemetery it was not his fault; to tell the truth the fault was ours, Jor we wished our dead to remain underground." for The Call from the prove ncal ol J. Boumwiille by mable Evelyn Lisikbj 27.