less importance than the rocks. The earth on
which men have lived, where the work of their hand is evident, with all
the sentiment of the presence of man, with smoke arising from numberless
homes, is foreign to Mr. Hone. The monsters of the primeval world might
sprawl on the rocks, for all the evidence of lapse of time since their
day, in many of his pictures. He, too, has refined away his world until
only fragments of the earth remain to him where he can dream in; and
these are waste places, where the salt of the sea is in the wind, and
the skies are gray and vapor-laden, or the loneliness of dim twilights
are over level sands. Whatever else he paints is devoid of its proper
interest, for he seems to impose on the cattle in the fields and on the
habitable places a sentiment alien to their nature. He has a mind with
but one impressive mood, and his spirit is never kindled, save in the
society where none intrude; but in his own domain he is a master, and is
always sure of himself and his effect. There is no tentative, undecisive
brushwork, such as we often see in the subtle search for the unrevealed,
which makes or mars Mr. Yeats' work. He is at home in his peculiar
world, while the other is always seeking for it.

"A Sunset on Malahide Sands" shows a greater intensity than is usual
even in Mr. Hone's work. There is something thrilling in this twilight
trembling over the deserted world. Philosophies may prove very well in
the lecture-room, says Whitman, and not prove at all under the sky and
stars. Pictures likewise may seem beautiful in a gallery, yet look thin
and unreal where, with a turn of the head, one could look out at the
pictures created hour after hour by the Master of the Beautiful; but
there is some magic in this vision made up of elemental light, darkness,
and loneliness, and we feel awed as if we knew the Spirit was hidden
in His works. But primitive as this peculiar world is, and remote from
humanity, it is just here we find a human revelation; for is not all
art a symbol of the creative mind, and if we were wise enough we would
understand that in art the light on every cloud, and the clear spaces
above the cloud, and the shadows of the earth beneath are made out of
the lights, infinitudes, and shadows of the soul, and are selected from
nature because of some correspondence, unconscious or half felt. But
these things belong more to the psychology of the artist mind than to
the appreciation of its work. I ha