Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-06-27


BEEN SELECTED, BUT IT'S A G1FT-HoRsE
CASE.
Gath" In the CncfrnSs1 Enquirer.
NEW YORK. June 22-The day Of the celebra-
ton, or rather Of the reception Of Bartholdfs
great statue, took one Of the iron steamboats,,
socaUed, which make q fleet to Coney Island
and Long Branch, and passed the pedestal of
the statue The pedestal rises above the small
island of Be0loe's some sixty or seventy feet,
and presents rather incongruous mass to the
eye. have my doubts whether the figure,
when raised there, will meet the
IMAGINATIvE IDEAS
OF the sculptor. He, according to his own ac-
count, entered the bay of New York, which is
very different from any harbor In France, or,
indeed, In Europe, and was surprised to see
what to him seemed kind of inland sea with
numerous islands. some of them OF q noun
famous form, often well wooded, and with con-
tinuous towns and villas, forts and piers, ex-
tended through and around this double inland
sea.
expression from Frenchmen and other foreign
ers when they came up the bay of New York
on steamers to myself or fellOw-paSsengerS. The
Waterways of America often terminate in these
huge ports and estuaries which give q strange
mlngling of nature and man. The ports of
France resemble our Pacific ocean roadsteads,
and generally have to be constructed where
some little stream enters the sea by digging and
moulding, and when you get inside, even at
docks dug out of the ground.
Perhaps the finest of the harbors of France is
sea, and steam craft go up this river as up the
Delaware or the Mississippi to the piers Of the
city. Many OF our
AMERICAN HARBoRs HAVE NO EQUALS
Poston, Portland, Providence, New London.
New York, Hampton Roads, San Francisco, all
show these remarkable navigable and land
bound pools or channels. NJ. Bartholdi with a
Erenchman's instinct OF art, and recollecting
ceived the idea of illustrating the harbor itself
by erecting great PharOs He was far ahead
Of the artistic instinct of the United States.
Here the practical dominates at all times. and
one reason why the money was not promptly
raised for the pedestal of the statue was GER
tain feeling that the statue itself was a wild
Frenchman's thought. Had the statue been
designed for New York Island local interest
would have been attached to it which is to
some extent lost in the short distance between
BedlOe's Island and New York Island. The dis
lance may be two miles from our battery l
that 1t should have been built upon the battery
itself, at the termination of New York Island,
where the multitude could have gathered
tions. But the bay of New York between the
battery and Staten Island is about six miles
long, and to erect even this great statue one
third of the way down the harbor will much
diminish its quality to the eye, and therefore
city loses much of It's power by being placed
within the delta or gully of the city. There are
heights around Washington of two hundred to
three hundred feet, and had the Washington
monument been put upon one of these 1t would
have been visible for great many miles. But
Bartholdi grasped the first impassioned idea of
the monument when he saw the harbOr 1t &C.
CURED to him that at very beautiful harbor
should be seen the Pharos illustrative of liberty
welcoming the races OF the earth as they came
up the lower bay, passed through the Narrows,
and debouched into the upper bay.
persons business in particular to reason with
him about the situation. He exhibited at our
centennial celebration the forearm, hand and
torch OF the statue, very nobly modelled. and
this portion of the subject alone would have
procured a public purchaser in New York.
Every sculptor and student of art commended
DELICIOUS MODELLING
OF the hand and torch. But reasoning from the
plans of the people, artists in general doubted
whether such a piece of clear Imagination as
erecting this great human tower down the bay
would give the effects the sculptor hoped. The
American people are lamentably short in the
antique imagination. Our most imaginative
writer, Hawthorne, was more 1ancfful and met
aphyscal than Imaginative He had nothing of
Victor Hugo in him. The French Imagination
partakes of that of Virgil and Homer: the Latin
races draw their being from the antique world,
where Homer puts upon rocky island his giant
cyeiops, with one eye ranging over the seas, and
and victims venture to say that not thousand
americans In the hundred years OF our republic
p the spirit of Homer that huge
of fable. When the Statue of Liberty will be
raised, rs there is now no question it will be, it
will be nearly 800 feet above low tide water in
the bay. This Is about three-f1fths of the height
of the Washington monument; it is the height
OF the largest average cathedrals of Europe.
But those cathedral towers are a great mass,
and they often stand upon plains where they
exert their Impression to a vast distance. This
be three hundred feet high, will not be more
than twice the height of the masts of MANY of
our vessels and ma the surrounding landscape is
mountains, which overlook the bay, probably
rise to the height of one thousand feet, and
staten Island, which is only four miles away,
has heights probably of five hundred feet.
The little island where the statue is to be is
MERE SPOT
in the bay, though large enough to have been
fortified as one of the defences of New York in
the day before Rodman, Whitworth, and
krupp. l only repeat what you already know
when 1 say the pedestal of this statue will be
S2 feet square and about 80 feet high, or per-
haps 40 feet above the usual tide. Then from
the top of the pedestal to the highest point Of
the statue, which is the torch held out in the
woman's hand, is about $50 feet, some twenty
nearly the same height above the towers of the
Brooklyn bridge.
But the brooklyn bridge is a mass OF towers
and network, quite comparable to the money
put into it-namcly, some $4,000, 900. The
cost Of the pedestal of Bartholdi's statue, and
OF the statue itself, will probably not be more
than S5OO,OOO. Again, the island the sculptor
has selected is not exactly in the eve OF the
city OF New York; it stands Off toward the Jer-
sey snore, ana When you go down the bay to
pass through the Narrows from this city You
leave the statue something like three-quarters
OF mile TO your left. Ii all the shipping of
New York were to pass right under this Pharos
II would have a more distinctive effect Had
1t been put up on the little island where Fort
Lafayette stands, right in the Narrows, every
vessel passing in or out OF New York would
have gone beneath the legs of the Colossus of
Rhodes. Still, gift horse is not to be looked in
the mouth, and this great statue will undoubt-
edly be one of the wonders of the modern
world as 1t is the highest of all the colossi ever
made.
have wondered whether the bronze of which
TINS statue Is partly compOSed-the rest being
OF iron bronZed to the same tOne-wiil not be-
come so dark as 1t oxydiZes that the lineaments
Will be lost to the human eye like those beauti-
full lineaments in Crawford's statue of Freedom
on the dome OF the American Capitol. Crawford
put up there grand statue of Freedom leaning
on her shield with Indian plumes in her hei.
met and you can see how beautiful this design
Is by looking at some of the government bank
notes. In the course Of time the figure has
blackened, and you see merely black and
somewhat harmonious mass up there Never
theess, BarthOldi's figure may have some in.
nuence upon the narrow Imagination of the
American people, reduced and stunted nv
nearly two centuries of q worship of the prac-
teal.
suicide Resulting from q Joke.
THE CAUSES THAT LED TO ROBERT srINso,Ss
COMMITTING SUICIDE
telegram from Boston, June 23d. saws:
Robert Stinson committed suicide last week at
West Stockbridge. He was twenty-three wears
Old, and the SON Of ex-Judge Stinson, Of Norris
town, Pa. He had spent several summers at
fr<v ol1%