Show r BIG COTTONWOOD I I Items Interesting and Ingenious I from an Itinerant I BIG COTTON WOOD Oct 2S 83 It was before the snow storm and we had started out to follow the chase Mr HoMer and I not as might be inferred for sport not to satisfy a savage instinct to kill or maim or disfigure it was a question of meat We were unmounted and no baying hounds voiced our coin ing We had one hound That is he was part hound and part bull and part shepherd but his instincts were too prcmiscuous to be useful and Holder referred to his maternal descent ID a way which implied reproach re-proach Holder was ahead and had V trailed to the summit of a very steep hill had removed his hat and exhaled the following Ill be dd if that isnt the pret tiest thing I ever looked at By this time I had gained his side and L was contemplating the scene which I had giveu rise to his outer expression expres-sion of admiration Belo w us lay a crescentshaped canyon the sides of which were garnished with huge and unsightly blotches of color red and green and yellow etc thrown together in contemptuous disregard of rhythm or meter without elegance I IV of gradation resonant but dissonant V dis-sonant 1 could not repress a smile of commiseration com-miseration in which there might have been an unconscious trace of modest annoyance I regarded Mr Holder in this chilling way for some moments ana then addressing him with perhaps 3 undue severity I said You poor miserable unfortunate wretch So that discord of color is sufficient to satisfy your untutored imagination that preposterous prospect which LL > miJ UL puoaeaa aititubiuus lui a JCL ute but which to the cultivated eye is simply ridiculous True thei is color enough too much and the arrangement is hideous defective in modulation and pitched in too high a key to be restful or soothing transmit it to canvas and no school of art would tolerate it an instant There is plenty of room here for something instructive and to meet the requirements of art After sketching the outlines which are well enough you should open at the base with a prelude of dun or brown follow up with an air of green and a strain of yellow Where that hard blue lime crops I should come out with a hornpipe of red and in this I should be sup ported by the breMissouil Webfeet I but doubtless the more aesthetic would resent it as a presumptuous piece of ultraaboriginisni and would demand a polka of Dick or a mazurka of violet In either case it would be proper to wind up with a refrain of mixed tones with a leading baritone of blue and per haps taper off with a tremulo of white This would be artistic and in certain lights soporific Holder here volunteered a remark that it might be emetic I continued contin-ued it would not shcck ones sense of association In the foreground an undershot water wheel with Q Vinnlra nif 4rri missing would lend a subtle v poetic H suggestiveness It would suggest I interpret rightly that some man L had went broke In the saw mill business A man with his blankets on his back heading this way would add a dreamy impreSSiveness i t would impress the realistic idea tha the labor market of the Park was overstocked Pieces of a broken packsaddle strewn around with a mule veiled by the Indian summer haze career ing in the distance might appeal to the sympathies though the subjec tive treatment of this refractory subject should only be entrusted to one whose hand had attained a firm thouga mild insistence No ama teur should attempt the handling of the mule These are mere acces sories What I wish to convey is that nature when she essays the decorative is too boisterous too broad The old dame means well enough but her Icudness often verges on the scandalous It is the pleasing province of art to subdue her to hold her down and this ap < plies to music as well Now that ear of yours seems big enough to take in a low down 0 ioU If uv no JJ mel n1 IL Ctt ody like Slavery Days or WE NeverS peak but you would not like an opera too coarse too umbra geousl I Yet there are shades and naif shades tints and subtints of melody running through these com positions which delight and rejoice the finer tympana I was present once at one of these performances It was a German opera and that language stands unrivaled un-rivaled for purposes of musical disguise > dis-guise I had a book to keep track of the business but soon threw it a3ide to be ready to assist in the ap plause which I knew was ming when the soprano hid reached the very highest point compatible with safety How the audience did come down not tumultuously tumult-uously not in a way to startle but in a rhapsodical fortissimo of fns and kids I It was a most cheering exhibition of faith evincing an enthusiastic relief in something they could never hope to comprehend This is elevating ele-vating but simple music is often depressing I knew a young felloe once up north he was not a very bright sort of fellow but managed to stumble on to a pretty good claim The days are long up in that country in the summer and after he would quit work it was as much as he wanted to do lo climb to his cabin There was a bird which had located with its family on the opposite bill and after sun down this bird would start in and sing and keep it up till dark It was a song of content but somehow it chorded with the solitude in such a way that it seemed to intensify it i and this fellow would not stand it bur would jerk on his boots and break for town and rally round the bar and go through That bird with its little song was his evil genius You see it I had sung opera it would not have chorded with anything and no evil results I would have followed This 1 think is sufficient to show that the balance is largely on the side of art it you I can understand it but what I regret re-gret to notice in your case isas Mr Beecher tersely expresses it a deficiency of atmosphere If you had a little belter wind or were more gaseous you might achieve something You might if you got off lucky produce a little domestic infelicity but I dont think you could make much as an exhibition afterward You could not impart im-part anything new on the moral use of riches V because you have not the ideas or the language lan-guage and you have not had the experience ex-perience and if any impulsive female should ever rush up and em I brace you on the street you could I not regard it as involuntary tribute trib-ute of homage to genius it would more likely demonstrate an undisciplined undisci-plined tendency to toughness Holder wa ked away but soon returned re-turned with the information that he had discovered a yearling steer in the brush and the conversation became be-came confidential In his cise I bad only awakened a fleeting interest though it is some compensation tome to-me that Nature evidently abashed has flung a mantle over her dowdy attire and under the flimsy pretext of an early winter has hidden her confusion II |