dissipation is pictured on every face and form. Those people are ready to indulge in any vice upon the slightest excuse, while Musidora here is the personification of virtue. Study these pictures together and you will soon perceive that clothing does not constitute modesty, nor the want of it vulgarity.” Well, I must say Dora has got a sweet face. Now, what does this marble gal mean?"

66

66

That is Una and the Lion. The sculptor portrays her innocence as her protection, even from a wild beast; and thereby warns man that to rob her of her virtue, he must degrade himself below the level of the brute.'

Next came the Lorelei; then some Siren, and the woman kept on until she had called out a brief explanation of everything in sight which she formerly thought vulgar. She left the building with her husband, but on passing down the stairs she was heard to say, " John, we just don't know nothin.' If I understood picters like them people, I'd want to stay in this buildin' a whole hour."

The strangers gone, my lady spoke first: "I have been trying to discover the principle that underlies this delicate subject. Can you give me, in a word, the key to the situation."

"I'll try. There's Venus at the Bath. Suppose the picture represented that same Venus in the street. Do you see the point?"

"I think I do. It is harmony of surroundings, sistency."

Con

"Correct, only, here it is called congruity. Concerning truth, you learned in your logic that?"

"That the criterion of truth is congruity between the subject and the predicate."470

"Correct again. Now, practice differs, but principles are eternal. Every artist has some way of making his picture tell some truth, and his success can never be assured until congruity pervades his work. It is just as true of this simple landscape we were studying as of those difficult figures." And I led her back to where we were first interrupted and the following dialogue ensued:

"Take that word 'congruity' for your key and now unlock the meaning of this. Who are those two persons on that bridge?" She thought a moment and then replied,

— “I should saw they are lovers."

"Yes."-(And so I continue to ask and she answers)— "And why on a bridge?”

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They are crossing the Stream of Life.”

"And not coming but — ?"

? "

"To soothe away the cares of life.”

"And what is the attractive feature of this flock?"

"You see, now, that with all these things considered to

gether you cannot be mistaken as to who these people are. Much more is still to be found in the background. The church steeple

?"

"Solemnizes their vows."

66 And the halo in the distance - ?"

"Is heaven."

"Yes, and the whole picture is in a circle. What does that mean?"

"The circle is the symbol of eternity, but it is all around — not simply beyond the stream."

"And do you not see how that applies?”

"I confess I do not. Please explain."

"It is a year, Miss Weldon, since you came to me, and I

first grounded you firmly on intuitions. 392 434

Now charge

yourself fully with that idea the intuition of time and see what you discover."

A moment's introspection, and she responded,

"I see it all; I see it all. The infinite past and the infinite future meet in the present moment, and we live in eternity NOW!"

"Well said. Then the circle should be all around. You see the waves flowing in ever-widening circles around the point where a pebble dropped from the bridge."

"I do."

66

That is a fitting illustration of the truth you have just spoken; we live in eternity now. We occupy that point in the center and the same point is center, not only of one circle, but of all those circles. In other words, all the past is ours, because the present is the summation of the past; whilst all the future is ours by reason of immortality."

And thus I might go on for hours illustrating to you how readily an apt student of nature will discover the principles or philosophy of expression as depicted in art. There is an eternal fitness of things, discoverable only by comparison of things with each other, but which, once discovered, enables us to express harmony, consistency, agreement in other words, congruity between one idea and another; whether formulated into words and sentences, or painted into form and color, or chiseled into enduring marble.

Now we have reserved for our closing thoughts the subject of Poetry. So far as the Philosophy of Expression is concerned, the mechanism of poetry is of equal importance with the fire of genius; and that mechanism or formality of expression is called Versification. The leading elements of versification are rhyme and rhythm. These elements may be related to each other in such ways as to constitute several varieties of verse, but nearly all poetry can be classified under the four principal divisions; viz., Iambic, Trochaic, Anapæstic and Dactylic. Iambic verse has feet of two syllables each, accented on the second, thus

Trochaic verse has feet of two syllables each, but accented on the first, thus

These two forms of verse, Iambic and Trochaic, are best suited to solemn or serious subjects.

Anapæstic verse has feet of three syllables each, and each foot is accented on the third syllable dian's Lament"

thus, "The In

I will go to my tent and lie down | in despair;
I will paint me with black and will sever my hair;
I will sit on the shore where the hurricane blows,

And reveal to the God of the tempest my woes
I will weep for a season on bitterness fed,
For my kindred are gone to the hills of the dead.
But they died not by hunger or lingering decay,
The steel of the white man hath swept them away.
My wife and my children, oh, spare me the tale!
For who is there left that is kin to Geehale!

Dactylic verse has feet of three syllables each, but accented on the first, thus-" Heber's Epiphany "—

Brightest and best of the sons of the

morning,

Dawn on our darkness and | lend us thine | aid.
Star of the East the horizon adorning,

Guide where our | infant Redeemer is | laid.

The last two forms

Anapæstic and Dactylic

lend

themselves easily to lighter sentiments, thus,

O, the Rose of Grenada was blooming full-blown,

And she laughed at her suitors who thought her their own,

Till there came from Morocco the Moor, Ala-Jaerr,

And he tossed from his spearhead the horse-tails in air, saying—

"List to me, lady;

For hither I've flown,

O, Rose of Grenada,
To make thee my own."

Another,

There was a gay maiden lived down by the mill,

Ferry me over the ferry

Her hair was as bright as the waves of a rill,

When the sun on the brink of his setting stands still,
Her lips were as full as a cherry.

Another "The Song of the Cannon Ball."

I come from the ether cleft hotly aside,
Through the air of the soft summer morning;
I come with a song as I dash on my way,
Both a dirge and a message of warning:
No sweet idle dreams nor romance of love,
Nor poet's soft balm-breathing story
Of armor-clad knight, at tournament gay,
Where a scarf was the guerdon of glory;-
Whistling so airily

Past the ear warily,

Watching me narrowly,

Crashing, I come!

Now compare this easy flowing style with the stately and dignified tread of the Iambic, thus —

At midnight in his guarded tent,

The Turk lay dreaming of the hour,
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power;

In dreams, through camp and court he bore

The trophies of a conqueror;-etc., etc.

It would be very pleasant to illustrate in this way all the different kinds of meter used with each variety of verse, but time forbids, and we shall, therefore, turn our attention now from the matter of mechanism to the inherent quality that distinguishes poetry from mere jingle.

In testing for poetry a composition must not only be faultless in rhyme and rhythm and other qualities of versification, but the sentiment conveyed must be of such beauty or sublimity or other creditable quality that it is capable of being charged with the poetical essence the said poetical essence being imagination verbalized. Prose often contains these