The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1889-11-09
DAISY RIVES A GENIUS.
WONDERFUL DRAWING BY THE SIS
TER OF AMELlE RlVeS-CHANlER.
Her Pictures Of Horses, Mules and Dogs
seem Almost to breathe. They Are So

Special Correspondence.l

special Correspondence
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2l.-Down in Albemarle
county Va, about 100 miles from Washing
ton, is an old Virginia plantation, which
stretches over beautiful tract OF rolling
country, with the rugged hills of the Blue
ridge at its rem. This old place has done its
full share toward spreading the fame of the
now world famous Albemarle pippin, an ap
pie so luscious that it is exported in large
quantities for consumption in Europe. But
the pretty pink and white pippin is not by
any means the choicest and most noble prod
uct Of this plantation. II has raised two OF
the remarkable geniuscs Of the day, One OF
them the world already knows and admires.
Few women have become famous so quickly
as Amelie Rives, now Mrs. John Armstrong
Chanler. She is known and discussed wher'
ever English fiction and poetry are read. The
other genius is Ameies sister. Of her the
world has not heard, though it will hear.
Amelie Rives was born poet and artist.
am not surprised TO hear that for a time she
has stopped writing and turned her attention
10 art That she will win fame as an artist
do not doubt, for the artistic sense is strong,
overwhelming in her, as it is in all true poets.
Without having ever taken lesson or the
least bit of instruction, she can already draw
and paint with extraordinary skill.
IL is as an artist that the vein Of genius
which seems H. run through the Rives' fami.
for the mother is remarkable woman
and the father an engineer so able that the
Panama Railway company pays him $25 ,OW
a year for his services-finds expression in
Daisy, Amelies l5-year-old sister. Daisy Is
sweet and shy, a hater of books and a lover
of nature and solitude. Horses and all ami.
mails she dotes upon. More daring she than
Amelie ever was in jumping brooks, hedges
and fences a-horseback. IL Daisy has not a
horse to ride she will ride a mule. And
when she is not upon the back of a quadruped
she is playing with one, pony or dog
When she was younger, and before she had
acquired any notion Of being prim young
lady. it was as much as her elders could do tc
keep her from living in the stable. Befors
breakfast and after breakfast, before dinner
and after dinner and till bed time she could
always be found out with the horses. If she
had had her way about it, probably she would
have slept beside Pretty One, the gentle mare
whose mistress is the author Of 1.-The Quick
or the Dead" or with Jackanapes, the fiery
thoroughbred we have all read about in
Virginia. of Virginia" Nor am l so sure
that Amelie Rives did not have her pretty,
wild, young sister Daisy in mind when she
wrote the story of that luckless heroine, just
as she had her own love story the wooing OF
herself by young John Armstrong Chanler,
to paraphrase in 1.-THE Quick or the DeadT
Daisy Rives never saw drawing master,
nor even text book on drawing. But she
has studied the animals she loves. She knows
a.. = I,,t 81, nt,tra
animal nature-which, after all, may be the
same thing Daisy Rives draws horses, dogs
and mules like one inspired. She is a Rosa
Bonheur with field restricted to the domes.
tic animals which she knows. Her horses
appear to move, live and have being. Here
is one neighiDg, another kicking; here are
two playing there one munching his oats
every one like life itself.
Two or three years ago, when but miss
just out of pnafores, Miss Daisy drew sew
eral pictures of horses in motion, horses
walking, trotting, running, single-footing,
looping. AT first glance one would say they
were badly drawn pictures, that no horse
ever twisted himself into such attitudes, that
the whole thing is absurd. But compare
them with instantaneous photographs of the
horse in motion--wth the famous Whey
bridge pictures, for instance-and the genius
of this young Virginia girl stands out most
strikingly. She has every twist of the limbs,
every bending of the joint, just as the pho
tographs have them. And when she drew
those pictures the girl had never seen an in
Simultaneous photograph of a horse in mo-
ton and did not know such thing was in
existencel
well, Miss Daisy, would be willing to
buy horses on your pictures of them without
ever settin' my eyes on EN-"
A remarkable feature of this young anna.
tours work is its narrow range. Horses, mules
and dogs are all that she can draw. She can
delineate horse that you would say was fit for
! king to ride, but she cannot put the king on
his back If she did he would look like the
pictures Of men the little girls make in kim
dergarten schools She cannot even draw q
| saddle fit to cover the back Of respectable
| horse.
A deliberate and studious effort on hel
| part to delineate an old mule, his negro dri
yer and the rumbling, wobbly cart resulted
| In failure. There was the mule, so natural
| that you could almost see his ears wag to and
| fro, and tempting you instinctively to keeI
away from the end Of the picture containing
| the animals business legs; but the cart was
SO little like a real cart that it might easily
have been mistaken for an old fashioned spin
ming wheel, such as there are fine specimens
of in the store room OF the Rives mansion, OIL
for wrecked frigate, or almost anything
else in the world.
| Struggle as hard as she will, the girl find:
| it impossible to delineate anything but heI
favorte animals These she draws almost
without knowing how. Place before hei
paper and pencil, and suddenly horse, a
horse of character and individuality-th
portrait of some horse she knows-makes it
appearance almost without effort on her part
| asked her to make me picture of pig
and she reluctantly consented. This is thu
pig she drew--I can redraw it from memory
| G