Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1893-05-18
MAGAZINE NOTES.


exhibition number is pre-eminent in
beauty and elaboration; between twenty
and thirty full-page drawings are repro
duced, besides scores of smaller but
hardly less admirable illustrations. One
OF the most charming of the full-page
drawings is that by A. B. Frost of the
two lads reading their Don Quixote in
the "clean, sweet beech-woods." In
fact, the characterization in all the draw
ings by Frost illustrating Mr.. Howell's
article, "The Country Printer" are full
OF a shrewd perception of varying types
OF man that shows the artist to have a
knowledge Of humanity which is even
wider than his technical skill. He is
one of the few thoroughly successful il
Illustrators, who seem not only to make
time to read but to conscientiously study
the article he is to illustrate, with the
result that he turns out not merely the
required number of pictures, but that
his work is an actual illustration of the
text.
@. ID. Gibson, successful as he is in
telling stories of certain society folk, often
fails in his characterization of rougher
types; his burglars seem to be gentle
men in distress, and his toughs are swell
actors dressed for the part. He also
frequently ignores the picture intended
by the author, and his illustration fails
to illustrate. An example of this is seen
in his first drawing OF Sarah Orne
Jewett's Between Mass and Vespers.' y
There is no vagueness in her conception
OF the scene, she says: "Three middle
aged men OF the parish went few steps
westward to stand in the shade of great
maple tree" then completing the picture,
the old priest, who had Just come hur-
lying from the vestry-door along pre-
carious footway of single boards y
went past them down the street." Natur-
ally we expect the illustration to confirm
the mental picture aroused by the verbal
description; the three parishioners loung-
ing under the shade of the maple and the
priest hurrying along the precarious foot
way. Gibson, however, illustrates the
passage. quoted beneath the picture, with
three men standing apparently in a
boundless prairie, no sign of church, foot
path or tree within sight, while the priest
hurries past them into an unknown void.
Ii this sort of antasonism between the
authors and artists picture is annoying
to the reader, it must be a downright
vexation to any writer who does not en-
joy having his work embellisied by CON
tradictions. This carelessness, 10 give it
no harsher name, is not peculiar to Glib
son, but shared by many Of his co workers
upon the pages OF Life, when working for
other periodicals. 1t may arise from the
fact that they are accustomed to catching
the idea for their drawings from q two
line joke and do not realize the neces-
sity for the tedious process of reading the
story or article they are to illustrate for
the serious magazines; whatever the
cause, the provoking result is more and
more frequently encountered within the
pages of our best illustrated monthlies.
These very drawings are often delightful
pictures, but not illustrations in any true
sense.
Among the contributors to the reading
matter Of this number we find some Of
the most distinguished names OF living
authors: T. B. Aldrich, G. w. Gable,
Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson,
II. G. Bunner, W. d. Howells, Henry
James and Francisque Sarcey.
In Cables story OF "The Taxidermist''
there is a return to his delightful early
manner. We find in it several exquisite
passages in which the poetic use of the
words, the roundness Of sweet-syllabled
vowels, creates an illusion of beauty and
delight. 1t seems the very manner that
humming-bird would have chosen fol-
the chronicle of his fate. If we only
might have had this story with the plot
left out.