monumental composition, or of unlike masses at different distances from an ideal center, which is free or pictorial composition, though the Japanese use it in ornament; the principle of repetition, the extreme form of which is the continuous frieze or border, but which is constantly used in pictures; the principle of contrast, the straight line making the curve seem more graceful, the curve making the straight line seem more uncompromising and more rigid.

The structure of the design being thus formed, it will be enriched and re-enforced by the use of light and dark and by the use of color. In a simple panel of ornament, for instance, the filled spaces, that is, the ornament itself, will be either darker or lighter than the ground or empty spaces; or they will be of a different color from the empty spaces, without any greatly marked difference of value. Or the filled spaces may be both lighter and darker than the ground, as they would be in sculpture in relief. The dominance of the most important mass may be increased by making it the lightest, or the darkest, or the most powerfully colored mass, or by giving it the sharpest contrast of light and dark; and however this is done, certain of the subsidiary masses will be given a secondary importance by a less marked use of the same means.

So far the process is identical, whether the content of the design is pure ornament or a great figure painting; but as we approach the free design of the easel picture a new element comes into play. Ornamental design is design in two dimensions only, and decorative painting always tends to retain, or to return to, two-dimensional compositions. But in proportion as painting becomes desirous and able to convey the illusion of space, it begins

to compose in the third dimension also. The things it represents have not only an elevation, but a ground-plan, and the ground-plan must be as thoroughly designed as the elevation. The distances of one mass from another in the direction of the depth of the picture must be as carefully proportioned as the vertical and lateral distances, and the lines traced upon the ideal ground-plan must be as beautiful as those visible upon the vertical surface.

These are, as well as I can explain them in brief compass, the immutable principles of design: few in number, but admitting of so much variety in their application that all the great compositions that have ever been made have not begun to exhaust the possible combinations there is room for an infinite number of fine compositions still. The extent to which these principles govern the work of the great designers is almost incredible until one has convinced oneself of it by prolonged study. Their scope is co-extensive with the work, and in the masterpieces of design there is absolutely no room for accident. Every smallest detail, each fold of drapery, each leaf in each smallest spray of leafage, is where it must be, and is of its proper form and inevitable size to play its part in the symphony of design. It could no more be somewhere else, or of some other shape, than a note could be of another pitch in a musical composition. Any change in it would change the character of the whole. Designs of this perfection are rare, of course, but they exist; and in some of the compositions of Raphael and Veronese you could not change so much as a tendril of hair or a ring on a finger without loss.1

1 Kenyon Cox, The Classic Point of View, pp. 77-93. New York, 1911. By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.

IX. SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK ON PERSONALITY

AND METHOD

It is an open secret to the few who know it, but a mystery and a stumbling-block to the many, that Science and Poetry are own sisters; insomuch that in those branches of scientific inquiry which are most abstract, most formal, and most remote from the grasp of the ordinary sensible imagination, a higher power of imagination akin to the creative insight of the poet is most needed and most fruitful of lasting work, This living and constructive energy projects itself out into the world at the same time that it assimilates the surrounding world

to itself. When it is joined with quick perception and/ delicate sympathies, it can work the miracle of piercing the barrier that separates one mind from another, and becomes a personal charm. It can be known only in its operation, and is by its very nature incommunicable and indescribable. Yet this faculty, when a man is gifted with it, seems to gather up the best of his life, so that the man always transcends every work shapen and sent forth by him; his presence is full of it, and it lightens the air his friends breathe; it commands, not verbal assent to propositions or intellectual acquiescence in arguments, but the conviction of being in the sphere of a vital force for which nature must make room.1

1 From the Introduction to Lectures and Essays by the late Kingdon Clifford, 1901.

X. SHALER ON THE METHOD OF AGASSIZ

When I first met Louis Agassiz he was still in the prime of his admirable manhood; though he was then fifty-two years old, and had passed his constructive period, he still had the look of a young man. His face was the most genial and engaging that I had ever seen, and his manner captivated me altogether. But as I had been among men who had a free swing, and for a year among people who seemed to be cold and super-rational, hungry as I doubtless was for human sympathy, Agassiz's welcome went to my heart I was at once his captive. It has been my good chance to see many men of engaging presence and ways, but I have never known his equal.

As the personal quality of Agassiz was the greatest of his powers, and as my life was greatly influenced by my immediate and enduring affection for him, I am tempted to set forth some incidents which show that my swift devotion to my new-found master was not due to the accidents of the situation or to any boyish fancy. I will content myself with one of those stories, which will of itself show how easily he captivated men, even those of the ruder sort. Some years after we came together, when indeed I was formally his assistant, I believe it was in 1866, he became much interested in the task of comparing the skeletons of thoroughbred horses with those of common stock. I had at his request tried, but without success, to obtain the bones of certain famous stallions from my acquaintances among the racing men of Kentucky. Early one morning there was a fire, supposed to be incendiary, in the stables in the Beacon Park track, a

mile from the College, in which a number of horses had been killed, and many badly scorched. I had just returned from the place, where I had left a mob of irate owners and jockeys in a violent state of mind, intent on finding some one to hang. I had seen the chance of getting a valuable lot of stallions for the museum, but it was evident that the time was most inopportune for suggesting such a disposition of the remains. Had I done so, the results would have been, to say the least, unpleasant.

As I came away from the profane lot of horse-men gathered about the ruins of their fortunes or their hopes, I met Agassiz almost running to seize the chance of specimens. I told him to come back with me, that we must wait until the mob had spent its rage; but he kept on. I told him further that he risked spoiling his good chance, and finally that he would have his head punched; but he trotted on. I went with him, in the hope that I might protect him from the consequences of his curiosity. When we reached the spot, there came about a marvel; in a moment he had all those raging men at his command. He went at once to work with the horses which had been hurt, but were savable. His intense sympathy with the creatures, his knowledge of the remedies to be applied, his immediate appropriation of the whole situation, of which he was at once the master, made those rude folk at once his friends. Nobody asked who he was, for the good reason that he was heart and soul of them. When the task of helping was done, then Agassiz skilfully came to the point of his business, the skeletons, and this so dextrously and sympathetically, that the men were, as it seemed, ready to turn over the living as well