International studio (60.1916/1917)

From an Old, Old Book

from a Gentleman in Calcutta to His Friend in
Pennsylvania”; an essay on “Gessner and his
Works,” a man who once wrote a feeble poem
called “The Death of Abel,” and who is no longer
even considered; an article on “American Manu-
factures” savagely attacking the high tariff idea
(this in Pennsylvania, too!), and a superlurid
tale called “The Pariah of Bombay.”
Modern magazine writers, opulent as they have
grown to be, will smile at the fact that, in 1816,
Mr. Thomas gave notice that he would pay three
dollars a page for “any original articles deemed
worthy of insertion in the Anatectic.” In this
issue there is no evidence that would-be contrib-
utors were tumbling over each other to take ad-
vantage of so handsome an offer, for there is only
one signature, “Indagator.” The rest consists
of editorials and reprints from English magazines.
Appearing just after the commencement of the
war with Great Britain, the publisher made an
immediate success by printing a series of illus-
trated biographies of the military and naval
heroes of our country, many of which were
written by Irving. But this year, which shows
the first step taken in native lithography, marks
the Anatectic’s decline. By 1821 financial diffi-
culties overcame it and it disappeared. So both
the original stone from Munich and its sponsor
are gone. Let memory link them with present
greatness in art and letters and with greatness
yet to come.
ROM AN OLD, OLD BOOK
BY ANTONY ANDERSON
“I read a curious story the other
day,” said the Poet thoughtfully. “It
was printed in an old, old book whose pages had
been softly fingered by time, till they had become
most beautifully and delicately yellow. The
spelling was quaint and archaic, and all the S’s—-
so squat and saucy in modern books—were mas-
querading in the stiff and formal poses of F’s.
The thought struck me, at the moment of reading,
that the strange and gruesome tale might make
a fine motive for a picture.”
“Ah!” said the Painter, interested at once.
“Tell it to us.”
“A certain blacksmith living on the outskirts
of the Black Forest had been bitten by a mad
dog. The hours passed, and at last he felt the
insidious venom of hydrophobia creeping through

his body from his heart to his brain. Saying not
a word of his mishap or his great fear to his wife
and children, he betook himself to his gloomy
smithy and carefully bolted the door behind him,
for he must not be interrupted. There, after com-
mitting his immortal soul to his Maker, he began
to forge, in grim silence and melancholy isolation,
the links of a chain.”
The Poet paused and glanced at his auditors.
“Pray go on,” said the Editor.
“When all the links had been joined he welded
one end of the chain to the heavy anvil; the other
he fastened around his leg. Then he flung his
tools far beyond his own reach, and with folded
arms awaited his awful and inevitable doom. But
come what might, he knew now that it was not
in his power to inflict his own monstrous fate
upon any of his loved ones.”
“The situation is grand and terrible,” said the
Painter, after a silence of some duration. “Yet
it is not a subject for a picture.”
“Why not?”
“Ruskin would perhaps have told you because
the idea is too horrible for human contemplation.
You remember, do you not, that he once induced
a young American painter, Mr. Stillman, to de-
stroy a fine picture of a wounded deer because it
depicted agony and death? However, that is not
my objection to your blacksmith. The idea is
fine and beautiful. But you could not tell the
whole story with a brush or pencil. No matter
how well you painted in your figure and its acces-
sories, the picture would be meaningless without
the aid of words. This printed explanation would
help to make it literary—and to be literary in
painting is almost a crime. Every painting should
tell its own story, without help from literature.
What would you think of a poem that needed the
commentary of a painting to be understood?”
“Not much, I am afraid,” the Poet confessed.
“It would undoubtedly be a pretty lame affair.”
“The tale of the heroic blacksmith shall be
allowed to remain in prose,” the Editor put in
with great decision. “While it is noble and in-
spiring toward the end, some of its preliminary
details are too sordid for the higher flight of
poetry. The old chronicler had the true art
instinct when he told the story in prose.”
Then, at the earnest request of the others, the
Poet went in search of the mildewed little vol-
ume, that they might see the book and read the
tale for themselves.


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