The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-07-12
Recent Publications.


of the art-loving public of America. The book is
fascinating; it is the experience ofan artist who
at once comprehending in his youth that there
is no royal road to Art-or rather that all
roads to her high places are royal with the king
illness of hard toll crowned by won success
took way for himself, beating down such bri
ers as beset him, or midknee deep in some
stream, for he cared nothing for travelled
tilcks and neither looked up or down the wa
ters for bridges OF other mems building. 1t is
this original spirited, even aggressive person.
ality that is the charm of NJ. Couture's writing;
it is easy to believe that this magnetism is
still more powerful in the face-to-face relation
of master and pupil No wonder that the in
fuence of the theories and the practice of this
painter has stamped deeply the pictorial art
of his times. This is volume fresh from
the hand of a man who understands technical
ly the values of words as of colors; every
chapter has its point to make; and in the most
genial easy fashion-makes it. 1t is typical
talk of the atelier; rapid, daring, desultory he
tells familiar and comic anecdotes and with
sudden transition speaks of Art in words of
fervor and fire. He is a superb experimental
ist; and does not prescribe experiment which
differs from his own. 1t is Nature, interpreted
by the individual sight of each man that
must be the ideal, a generalization Of which
the practical application in each case means
intensity of serious study, conscience of the eye
and hand. Hence NJ. Couture observes every
thing and gives most entertaining accounts Of
his observations. He was, he assures us, O
stupid boy, and his father was greatly con-
cerned about the young Ounce who asked tho
tremendous question: Papa, is to-day to-
morro1c? This boy, mo reover, had little lik-
ing for school, and for the usual formulas of
learning of any kind. Independence and di-
recsness are the qualities that seem most char
acteristic of NJ. Couture's talent. His precise
position among the artists of his time need not
be discussed here-but his influence is very
great. To the ardent learner of the art of
painting, no volume can be more enchanting
than this simple, brilliant, impulsive studio
talk of NJ. Couture. Its "reminiscences and
anecdotes are fund of suggestiveness to ar
lists who have already had experiences some
what similar. Apart from its technical inter-
est-it has for the general reader the charm of
the unaffected recital Of the working of an
honest, sympathetic and sensitive nature.
Our Autumn Holiday ON Fren ch Rivers
By j. L. Molloy Boston: Roberts Bros; Port
land: Loring, Short & Harmony This deli
cious volume of landscape and genre sketches
is as genuine and natural a product of the
sunny season as ripe strawberries are or wild
roses. Sunny, full of life, careless with the
joyful acceptance of the lavish largesse of
nature. 1t seems like the work OF poet at
play; hardly SO sustained as the very elegant
and picturesque work of Mr.. Hamerton, which
it frequently recalls; but more lively and
amusing, more full of irresponsible, charming
nonsense than the serious grace of Mr.. Hamer-
toms style would be likely to allow itself. The
motif of the book is simple: Five pleasant
citizens of London town agreed to take boat
and by force of arms pull themselves through
the rivers of fair France. This they did, with
the aid of black-and-tan dog as faithful as
small; and they so conquered the alien country
as to take away with them in memory-many
castles, towns, walls, people, even streams and
valleys Thus briefly, their chronicle. Their way
was triumphal progress; all sorts of beauty,
of trees, fields Skies peasants, costumes, fruit,
birds seem to have fairly come flocking to the
shore to see the Marie and her crew, pressing
forward like the models of the Spanish stairs
to have their pictures taken. The perfect re-
fnement and instant sympathy with which
Mr.. Molloy takes the spirit of every scene is
very notable; the laughing sunlight of open
fields; the shadowy GOODNESS of night upon the
river; the ancient sadness that hangs about
the dolmen-stone, like withered trails of YER
vain left after high days of the Druids, sadness
that lives in the air of Brittany, in the eyes of
its people, in the cadences of its songs. Then
with the sudden change of minds open to ev-
cry impression, some oarsman of the Marie
makes a remark of humorous tendency, and
the tide of talk and ripple of repartee sets
in. 1t is talk at its best, the easy chat of men
who know each other and the world we'll, and
who-usually busy with active affairs-enioy
as none but busy men may, their brief delight
of leisure Mr.. Molloy has a singularly deli
cate and quick touch and his fun and pathos
are equally ready and genuine. His little vol
ume of sketches is a rare work; it is in every
way charming, full of information, and deli
cious as the fragrance and SAVIOR of peach,
grown against a south-looking wall with its
crimson cheek set toward the sun. Wherever
the lover of pleasant books may be, in quiet
country town. under shade of mighty hills and
their pine-forests or near the sounding prom
ontories of the sea; or if he stay in the heat
and noise of the town-he can have no more
delightful reading than this record of an Au
tumn Holiday on French Rivers.
Detmold Boston: Houghton & Osgood; Port
a. O. l.
el of Mr.. w. II. Bishop, and has been recently
published as serial in the Atlantic Monthly.
The cordial endorsement which Mr.. W. d.
Howels gave Mr. Bishop before the public had
opportunity to judge of his merits, was thor
oughly warranted by the result. Next to liter
| airy gifts, it is not original with the PRESS to
remark, is the power of recognizing the exist
ence of these gifts in others-and Mr. How
| ellss talent includes these neighboring excel
lencies, like the roof of block of houses. Det-
mold is remarkable work for a first novel,
and excellent in every way. Its clearness, its
shapeliness, and its frank acceptance of the
truth-greatly overlooked by many of our new
novelists-that the interest of q story cannot
| be kept up without q reasonable quantity of
action and incident prove Mr.. Bishop to be an
| effectlVe ana ready novelist. Ine scene OF the
book is laid in Italy; it is one of the stories of
American tourists line of fiction of which
Mr.. James seems at present to be chorus-lead-
er. 1t is no small praise to Mr.. Bishop to say
that his work is unaffectedly original he has
not caricatured the American in his external
aspect, as Mr.. Anthony Trollopes Senator Eli
as Gotobed, or as to his inner consciousness
like Mr.. James's jerky American" Both
Detmold himself and his friend Morris Hyson
are life-like portraits of the average, wel-be-
haved, well-informed and agreeable young
American; they are bright, business-hke, and
full of natural healthy feeling. Alice Starfeld,
the heroine, is not very attractive young
woman; her impassive ways, her strivings af-
ter culture, and her cold, sweet, thin character
are very true to life, as a certain type of Amer
ican women, good and pleasant in every rela-
ton of life, but falling short of the ripe perfec-
tion of attractiveness Castelbareo, the Italian
who had been to school in America, is a capi-
tally drawn figure, though of secondary i'm
ina fOft ;s