The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-05-12
IN PICTURES AND PRINT.


Mere Writer.
The artist author has somethina
that he wishes to tell, and to do this
he has at his command two modes
of expression, each of which supple.
ments and supplies the shortcom-
ings of the other. Where the linn
itation blocks the way of words be
can imagine out his idea with his
.iencil. When it fails, words can
supply its need, and so he can pre-.
sent his idea before the world at q
tremendous advantage.
1t seems as if he must be better
fitted than any one else for that
presentation of what he means. He
has lived and moved with his char
aoters. He has eaten and drunk,
slept and wakened with them, and
to him as to no one else they are
visible personalities. But let him
describe them, however minutely
and accurately, and they will not be
impressed on the mind of the casual
reader as they would be if he saw
them in a picture, or, if the reader
is imaginative enough to clothe
those characters with body, it is
probably not at all what they were
really meant to be.
How intensely interesting it
would have been if Poe, like Blake,
had been able to imagine out some
of those strange visions that filled
his brain not only in words, but in
actual lines as well, or if Cervantes
had left us some idea of how Don
Quixote and his Spanish squire real
ly looked, however roughly drawn
they might have beenl
1t is under the Byzantine EN-
perors that the earliest manuscripts
of modern Europe We're produced,
and they exist in great numbers and
are of surprising splendor. A timid
suggestion may indeed be ventured
that the Byzantine scribes were less
careful of their calligraphy than of
their paintings. That may be true,
and it may yet remain true that the
Byzantines had splendid cal
ligraphy of their own and splendid
notion of how to adorn their pages.
The Irish monks of the sixth and
seventh centuries, the English
monks of the ninth century and the
French of a somewhat later time
were the fellows for beautiful let
tering. The splendid manuscript
which is called by the name of King
Knut and which lies in the British
contains lettering which
IS SO beautiful in its strange modifi-
,ation of the classical Roman letter
hat even the splendid renaissance
work of five centuries later scarcely
equals it. Every one knows the
Gothic" character of the twelfth
md thirteenth century manuscripts,
, character which the modern Ger
nan typographer has preserved for
,ur sins and to punish the eyes of
hose who would fain study German
thoroughly, but few persons know
he pre-Gothic character, the beau
iful lettering founded on the an
ique forms, which was preserved
n the north and in the south, alike
n Lombardy, in France, and in
England, down to a time at least as
ate as the year $50. Take any in
tial page of tenth century manu-
cript, northern or southern, and
zee how much more beautiful is the !
writing than are the figures of men
nd animals which are supposed to
dorm it. The ignorance shown in |
these visible objects is
,reat, and the absence Of any power
ver their forms is really ugly and
ffensive, but the power of abstract |
orm, of making letter into a
thing, is, however, SO great
s to be quite inconceivable to race
# people like ourselves, who have !
ost the trick of decorative design.