The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1899-06-23
What preparation for the wear an6

that in which our population daily
drudges. Or what good thing the half
hour of artistic opportunity on the way
home in the evening from exhaustion
that demands recuperation for mind
and soul as well as body! Who will do
for the city where you live what w. W.
Corcoran did for Washington and what
others have done for Philadelphia and
Boston and New York? Men of wealth,
k you are too modest to build and en-
dow such place during your lifetime,
why not go to your iron safe and take
out your last will and testament and
make codicil that shall build for the
city of your residence a throne for
American art? Take some of that
money that would otherwise spoil your
children and build an art gallery that
shall associate your name forever not
only with the great masters of painting
who are gone, but with the great mas
ters who are trying to live, and also win
the admiration and love of tens of thou
sands of people, who, unable to have
fine pictures of their own, would be ad-
vantaged. By your benefactions build
your own monuments and not leave it
to the within of others. Some of the
best people sleeping in Greenwood have
no monuments at all or some crumbling
stones that in a few years will let the
rain wash out name and epitaph, while
some men, whose death was the abate-
ment of nuisance, have pile of Aber-
deem granite high enough for king
and eulogies enough to embarrass a
seraph. Oh, man of large wealth, in
stead of leaving to the within of others
your monumental commemoration and
epitaphology, to be looked at when peo-
pie are going to and fro at the burial of
others, build right down in the heart of
our great city, or the city where you
live, an immense free reading-room, or
free musical conservatory, or a free
art gallery, the inches for sculpture and
the walls abloom with the rise and fall
of nations, and lessons of courage for
the disheartened, and rest for the
weary, and life for the dead; and $50
years from now you will be welding
influence in this world for good. How
much better than white marble, that
chills you if you put your hand on it
when you touch it in the cemetery,
would be a monument in colors, in
beaming eyes, in living possession, in
splendors which under the chandelier
would be glowing and warm, and
looked at by strolling groups with cata-
logue in hand on the January night
when the metropolis where the body
sleeps is all showed under!
The tower of David was hung with
1000 dented shields of battle; but you,
oh man of wealth, may have grander
tower named after you, one that shall
be hung not with the symbols Of car
mage, but with the victories of that art
which was so long ago recognized in my
text as pleasant pictures" Oh, the
power of pictures! I cannot deride,
as some have done, Cardinal Mazarin,
who, when told that he must die, took
his last walk through the art gahers
of his palace, saying: Must quit all
this? Look at that Titian Look at
that Corregio! Look at that deluge of
Caracci! Farewell, dear pictures!"
As the day of the lord of hosts, ac-
cording to this text, will scrutinize the
pictures, l implore all parents to see
that in their households they have
neither in book nor newspaper nor on
canvas anything that will deprave.
Pictures are no longer the exclusive
possession of the affluent. There is not
a respectable home in these cities that
has not specimens of woodcut or steel
if not of painting, and your
whole family will feel the moral uplift-
ing or depression. Have nothing on
your wall or in books that will familiar
ize the young with scenes of cruelty and
wassail; have only those sketches made
by artists in elevated moods and none
of those scenes that seem the product
of artistic delirium tremens. Pictures
are not only a strong but a universal
language. The human race is divided
into almost as many languages as there
are nations, but the pictures may speak
to people of all tongues. Volapuk many
have hoped with little reason, would
become a worldwide language; but the
pictorial is always worldwide Ian
guage, and printers types have no EN-
pndSlS cOH pared with II. we say tnaJ
children are fond of pictures; but no.
tice any man when he takes up book.
and you will see that the first thing he
looks at is the pictures. Have only I
those in your house that appeal to the ]
better nature. One engraving has some
times decided an eternal destiny. I'm
der the title of fine arts there have come {
here from France a class of pictures
which elaborate argument has tried TO I
prove irreproachable. They would dis
grace a barroom, and they need to be ]
confiscated. Your children will carry {
the pictures of their fathers house with '
them clear on to the grave. and passing
that marble pillar, will take them '
through eternity. &
Furthermore, let all reformers and {
Ill Sabbath school teachers and all
christian workers realize that, if they
would be effective for good, they must
make pictures, if not by chalk or black :
boards or kindergarten designs or by :
PENCIL on canvas, then by words. Ar
are soon forgotten, but pic
ures, whether in language or il col
y