St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-12-26
ART AND AN ARTIST.
The Religious Editor Buys a Gem
of Art.

The Religious Editor Buys a Gem
of Art.
The sanctimonious youth who presides
over the Minneapolis Sunday school depart
ment of the GLOBE is man famous among
his many friends for generosity and kindli-
| ness of heart. In thought, as in person,
he is great, and the Christmas season ex-
banded and enlarged his feelings to a de-
gree which threatened bankruptcy. but
the religious editor was not abashed by the
! thought of financial reverses; his soul was
warmed toward his fellow-man and woman.
and he went forth with wallet fatter than
is the wont of the newspaper mars wallet
to be. to seek gifts for certain of his legion
friends. First he visited fine
art store; the religious editor num-
bers among his acquaintance many
persons of greatly diverse characteristics,
/ and one of his lady friends has penchant
for high art. Now, the religious editor is
not an art connoisseur: he is high authority
on the pugilstic craze. and foretold as with
prophetic instinct the result of the st. Paul
hippodrome Thursday night; he is vene-
rated as a sage by the owners of bull dogs;
he is admired by the poSsesSOr of the game
cock; he is an intimate friend of the bicycle
rider. and knoweth the records of the trot-
ting horse and of the running horse like
wise. of the rover and the sprinter; the
baseball umpire lOOketh up to him for adj
vice and counsel, the Sparrer applyeth to
him for pointers, and MatSada SOrakichi
Oweth to him his proves. All these things
he knows. but his knowledge OF art is
murky, and so. albeit the maid of aesthetic
temperament must be made to think his
cognizance of ceramics coequal with his
sporting information, he himself enters
the presence of the purveyOr of pottery even
as the small boy encounters the kindergar-
ten teacher for the first time.
The religious ed tor will buy vase that
shall eclipse, in art-intensity, any of the
many which adorn his lady'S bower. And
the gentleman in Prince Albert coat and
high-art smile, who comes to aid him in the
selection, sets before him wOndrOus wares;
all the fashionable foibleS. as well as vases
of genuine merit, are displayed. and In five
minutes his mind is one bewlldering whirl
of strange names, garnered it must be from
every tongue that has been spoken on earth
since the days of Ham. AS has been limited,
the religious editor is no chump; he is not
on to the art racket; very well, he will ar
rogate to himself information wide in its
range as the world, including even this man
and his pottery. He looks profound, he
contemplateS with contempt vases before
which his art-craZed friend would almost
have knelt in devout admiration; wares of
which she has spent months in reading
why, she could describe to him
with the utmost minuteneSS the
whole process of their manufac-
ture-she could design all the kins in
which the bottles were burnt and tell the
differences in their construction: she knows
all about ''effects" and tones" and warm
and neutral tints" and feeling" about
which the dealer speaks SO fluently-but he
will none of them. He knows that mere
money is no guide, so he thinks to strike
happy medium. He will not buy too high
priced vase. because he does not desire to
create in the mind of the maid an eXagge
rated estimate of reportorial wealth; and ne
is too generous to be mean in his purchase.
He gaZes over the counter, looks very wise
feels fo0liShly Ignorant, and buyS-one
of the prettieSt specimens Of modern make
in the st ore. But he does not know it is
pIettY-he pays a good price for it, and
thinks it ought to be; however. when the
package is placed before his brothers in the
sanctum. he almost blushes-he quit color
ing long since-at the profuse praises that
are bestowed upon it, and this morning he
will feel as nearly guilty as is possible for
religious editor to feel when his artistic
friend floods him with compliments for his
exquisite taste and expresses her amaze
ment at the wide range of a mind which
can grasp, with equal facility, the intrica-
cies of a scientific set-tO and the delicately
graduated tints of peach-blow vase.