The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-27

affirmed that if a critic is old and worn,
has seen much labor. and has had his
ideas rooted in the past. ana II his own
life has yielded no results adequate 10
his gifts it is hard for him to be Just
and generous. To this Mr.. Winter replied
by reference to Mr.. Gaines felicity in the
choice of langua ge-'a felicity, he said
which Semes to be associated with great
sweetness of temper. lovely refinement OF
style and a most urbane and benevolent
tolerance. even for an old and worn
wretch. who, as he dodders into the even
ing twilight of a. miSSpent life is actually
able to gaze upon the play of The Chris
tian without being paralyzed with ad-
Well this "dodderer'' has now been the
dramatic critic of the Tribune thirty
three years. He was a youth of % when
he began the service; he is mature man
of So now. And however people may have
dssented at times from it's judgments, 1t
has been genuine criticism that Mr.. VIM
ter has supplied through these many years
not mere scraps of gossip and half
formed opinion. And in addition, ne mas
written numerous poems that Eill always
be accounted of more than ordinary Val9e,
and various biographies and essays. 30,
for a ''misspent'' life, his has been on the
whole, remarkably fruitful. Like so many
authors, Winter was educated for the law,
only for short time. His home has long
been in Staten island-a location not very
favorable, one would think for evenings
at the theatre, followed by midnights at
ter has managed it.
There are fashions in the book trade, as
in everything else, and for several years
back what are known as nature books
have been in special request: Conse-
quently in all the publishers lists, books
on flowers and birds and trees have been
put forth quite profusely. The popular
claim of these books one and all, has
been that they enabled the reader to easl-
| ly identify in nature the objects treated
of. This claim they sought to fulfill part
| ly by pictures; but description, at best. is
an insure dependence in such matters,
! and the pictures, being for the most part
mere drawing reproduced in black and
| white left much to conjecture. So when
you took your book in hand and went
forth to identify a bird. or tree, or flower,
| you were very apt to find that the object
you had selected might be one thing or
| another. you were not quite sure which.
| Thus the first nature books still left an
| unmet want.
But an unmet want trade abhors: and
! So within a few months there has begun
| to appear a series of nature" books with
| pictures presenting natural objects in all
! their natural colors. And these books
have. double significance: they not only
supply means of identifying flowers and
| birds and the like that is nearly infallible,
! but they mark revolution in photo
/ graphy and printing. [ have just been
| looking over the sheets of a forthcoming
: butterfly book, and when / thought of all
| it meant it seemed to me nothing less
| than marvellous. Here was the actual but
| terfly in all the minutiae of his form and
! all the variety and delicacy of his color.
| And so cheaply is this result achieVed that
| a book containing some fifty of these col
/ ored Illustrations will retail at not to eX-
| coed So: whereas if the pictures were litho-
! graDhed which was the only process
/ for such work until lately. such a book
would cost anywhere from three to fifteen
| times that sum, and this means, of
course that it could be bought only by
d. few specialists and a few book fan
eiers. Under the new process, the but
; terfly is photographed on plates, three
] photographs being made of each. so
varied as to produce different distribu-
tions of color; then there is a separate
! the three plates thus obtained Hence,
| ing and mingling of the printing pro-
! duce all the manifold tints shown in the
| finished result. Of course. the photog-
| raphy, and then the printing, is an art
! by itself; and only an expert, which /
| am not, could set it forth in the full
wonder of its details. But any amateur
can appreciate the result: there is the
natural object, unmistakable. in all the
! beauty of life. There have already been
! two bird books published that We're IL
! Illustrated in this way; and there are quite
remarkable but rather less remarkable
I think, than this butterfly book. The
new process is next to be tried I under
! stand, in illustrating the wild flowers
| Here it will be especially valuable: for
nature students have found flowers the
i most difficult of all objects to identify
J from book descriptions. ~