The record-union., 1897-09-19

RUSKIN.
Painter in words, on whose respondent
page.
Caught from the palette of the seven
hued bow,
The colors Of our English Turner gov,
Silver of silent stars, the storms red
rage.
The spray of mountain streams, rocks
gray with age,
Gold of Athena, white of Alpine snow,
Cool green of forests. blue of lakes be-
low,
And sunset-crimsoned skies-O seer and
sage,
Crowned with wild olive, fine of sense
and sight,
In thy prophetic voice, through work,
trade, strife.
The stones cry out: by truth the
nations live.
And by injustice die. Be the weights
right,
Thy measures true. These be the
lamps that give
The way of beauty and the path of
life"
r.. R. Bowker in September Century.
New York Post: Americans, as is so
we'll known here. have a very keen APP
probation of the work of French artists,
and they yearly flock to Paris by hun
dreds to learn their methods, though, as
a matter of fact, but few who return to
their own country ever enter into serl-
Gus competition with their masters.
Such men as Bouguereau, Lefebvre, and
Puvis de Chavannes still find ready sale
for their pictures in the United States.
but whether they will do so when their
works are taxed 20 per cent. is a moot
point. Even Supposing that the tax
makes no difference in the case of first
class men. are we so sure it will be the
same with the large number of French
artists who supply illustrations for the
American magazines?
The question. not without its mys-
teries, what books boys like and why
they like them, is again discussed.
Some have pretended to observe q
change in boys tastes in fiction Not
so, says Max Pemberton, who has him
self written books for boys and edited
a boys paper: Il can say with no
hesitation at all that boys tastes now
are what they were twenty or thirty
years ago. Your boy" he told an inter
viewer. will not have anything new
tangled or idiotic He has only one
work of criticism for that-rot. The
same DULLES. the same flags, the same
islands. the same manliness, the same
courage that his father loved, he loves.
He likes a Jules Verne book, but the
old puppets must be there. For style
he cares nothing; he reads Stevenson
for the story. He must have incident,
excitement-a hero. Perhaps he is
just a grade above Jack Harkaway,'
but / hazard the opinion doubtingly.
The main thing is that he loves an
honest man, adores courage, despises a
liar and coward, and compels the au-
thor TO point some sort of a moral.
Some light is thrown on the question
by the testimony of librarians. They
report boyish appetites well marked,
but uAaccountable. Some people Won
der at the portentous length of some
series" of boys books. Castleman
and H. Alger, Jr., for example, have
their Franks and Georges do this. that,
and the other, and make a book out of
each thing done country visited, ex-
plot performed, or moral pointed. But
boy readers go through the whole set
INK a NENbUIluS name. NO series can
be too long for them. They like much
reading laid up for many years, and
stand before their rows upon rows of
Castlemons and Algers. calling upon
their souls TO eat, drink, and be merry.
Ev'ry Month: It is not so long ago
that a young and enthusiastic French
man, Bastian Lepage. brought down
upon his head the opprobrium of aca-
demical Paris. for his new manner of