in which "the peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of
shadowy fire"--I can hear him saying, "You can't read Shakespeare, can
you?" As I thought over this question later, I understood. Then I was
too far rapt by the pictures to wonder at it greatly. Later came to mind
Emerson's declaration that Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare "do not fully
content us," that the "heavenly bread" is to be found in Zoroaster,
Plato, St. John, and Menu. Both Emerson and Mr. Russell fail to use art
as the standard. To the mystic, to whom this world is not reality, what
appeal may have its seeming truths and shows as compared to the certain
truth of the idealists and the beauties of the eternal life? The deep
human knowledge, the great pageants of Shakespeare's kings and queens,
are but "glories of our blood and state ... shadows, not substantial
things."

Mr. Russell talked very simply of his pictures, of how their subjects
came to him, and of his enjoyment in thus recording them. He does not
consider himself a painter, but he thinks there was the making of a
painter in him had he had instruction in his earlier years. This
attitude towards his various powers, as well as the attitude towards him
of ardent young countrymen of his, came out in a story he told us of a
boy that he found waiting for him one night at a street corner near his
home. The boy timidly asked him was he not Mr. Russell, and then walked
silently by his side until the house was reached. They entered and the
boy mustered up courage to say he had waited for him two hours at the
head of the street. "A.E." had been waiting for the boy to say what
brought him, but he was obliged to encourage the boy before he would out
with it. Said "A.E.," "You came here to talk with me. You must be
interested in one of the three interests I have given much time to. Is
it economics?" "No," replied the boy, indignantly. "Is it mysticism?"
continued "A.E." "No," cried the boy, almost angry at such an interest
being attributed to him. "It must be literary art, then?" "Yes," said
the boy, with a sigh, his haven reached at last. "A.E." soon found the
boy an exquisite who thought the literary movement was becoming
vulgarized through so many people becoming interested in it. Finally the
boy turned questioner and found that "A.E." was seeking the Absolute.
Having found this out, he again sighed, this time regretfully, and said
decidedly that "A.E." could not be his Messiah, as he abhorred t