Adrift upon the tide of years,

The mystic, murmuring river,-
Sometimes we see the sunlight play,
The cypress starlit ever.
And always up the singing stream
One fair dawn gleams afar,
Touched with the rose of early day
Beneath the morning star.

And if, at times, in sportive mood,
She holds the king-cup under,
Demure as when she broke the spell
That held our lives asunder,

Be very sure, a glad heart bids

The fond lips more than utter How, through the lapse of happy years, Her old-time love loves but her.

Desdemona.

I TOLD her of my three years' cruise,
Its haps and mishaps, and when I
Had finished, in her sweet, rapt muse,
She murmured breathlessly, "Oh my!"

And when I told my journeys o'er,
From torrid zone to lands of snow,
She paused in wonderment before
She softly cried, "You don't say so!"

And when I told of dangers, fears,-
Our shipwreck, when we suffered so,
Half frightened and almost in tears,
She faltered forth, "I want to know!"

The Telegraph Operator.

SHE sits within her narrow cell,
A jewel worth a fairer setting,
And I-I linger for a spell,
My urgent telegram forgetting.

I love the sounder's cheery call,
I love to watch the dimples playing
About her fingers, white and small,-
I wonder what that hand is saying.

I love to dream of other years,
Of blessings that perhaps await her,
Of sweet eyes never dimmed by tears;
I love-I love the operator!

Street Cries.

LAMENT OF A DISTRACTED CITIZEN.

THE Englishman's waked by the lark,
A-singing far up in the sky;

But a damsel with wheel-baritone,
Pitched fearfully high,

Like a lark in the sky,
Wakes me with a screech
Of "Horse Red-dee-ee-eech!"

The milkman, he crows in the morn,

And then the street cackle begins:

Junk-man with cow-bells, and fish-man with horn, And venders of brushes and pins, And menders of tubs and of tins. "Wash-tubs to mend! Tin-ware to mend!" Oh! who will deliverance send? Hark! that girl is beginning her screech,"Horse-" "—tubs "—" Ripe Peach!"

Then there's "O-ranges," "Glass toputin,"
And bagpipes, and peddlers, and shams;
The hand-organizer is mixing his din
With "Strawber-" "Nice sof' clams!"
"Wash-tubs to mend," "Tin-ware to mend!"
Oh! heaven deliverance send !

I'd swear, if it wasn't a sin,

By "any woo-ood?" "Glass toputin!"

From morning till night the street's full of hawkers
Of "North River shad!" and "Ba-nan-i-voes!"
Of men and women and little girl squawkers-
"Ole hats and boots! Ole clo'es!"
"Times, Tribune, and Worruld!"
"Here's yer Morning Hurrold!”
What a confounded din

Of "Horse red-""-to put in!"
"Ripe-" "oysters," and "Potatoes "-" to
mend!"

Till the watchman's late whistle comes in at
the end.

WHAT can be more beautiful in its way than a wide beach of the fine gray quartz sand that lines our coasts from Maine to Florida!—it is so subtle and delicate in tone and texture, disposes itself in such graceful, tangential curves as it receives the kisses and, at the same time, the image of the incoming waves. The most delicate impulses record themselves upon its sensitive breast -currents of air, the small tracks of birds, insects, and crustacea, and the wonderful channels made by little rills of water that follow the retreating tide.

Who has noticed these ? In the first place, the sand on the edge of a slight declivity has, by the action of the water flowing in masses over it, been channeled and worn until what remains, by the regularity of the forces affecting it, is formed into a series of beautifully rounded hillocks disposed in regular lines. The retiring waves, having accomplished so much, leave their work to be completed by the tiny rills that, flowing from the summit down the sides, engrave, in intaglio, beautiful and uniform ornament. Each little trickling thread of water tends toward some one point common to all, and assists in forming one channel which is the sum of the smaller. Such in turn seeks a center with others of its kind, and all this with a regularity which those who have not observed the like can scarcely credit. At intervals the resulting pattern is emphasized by the dead stalks and leaves, which, standing separately at tolerably uniform intervals, and sweeping the sand with the dried remains of their lower leaves, blown about by the wind, form circles as accurate as those struck with dividers.

Surely in such suggestions as these, which can be copied directly and almost literally from Nature, is to be found a corrective for the dangerous tendency of our time to remain content with copying past forms of beauty already used ad nauseam.

How exquisite, and how seldom studied, are the forms of water! The little wavelets that dash among the shells and pebbles at your feet will, if you care to learn, teach you more of the true principles of grace and beauty than the most erudite treatise you shall read. The apex of each wave culminates in a blossom of spray, and yet they so intermingle that one cannot be separated from another; they are edged, and yet flow

ing; they present a succession of conchoidal hollows: a spiral shell represents a vortex of water; a bivalve, the shallow depression between each wavelet: obedience to rigid mechanical conditions results in artistic freedom. As the spent wave retreats, what a gathering together and marshaling of the remnant of its forces as its waters, flowing in from different directions, unite to contend vainly but desperately with its successor! At this point occurs a beautiful effect, which any one in love with Nature can scarcely tire of watching, for, while the forms of the outgoing waters become confused, as images in a broken mirror, through the glitter, and dash, and silver spray gleams the spiritualized form of the incoming wave, like the cherubs' faces shining through the clouds in Murillo's picture of "The Immaculate Conception." A flock of small birds fly so closely to the waves they seem to brush the summits with their breasts. How utterly unlike, in their line of flight, in their action, in their contours, to the conventional representations to which we have been accustomed! Their wings are in some cases depressed below the body, and in others foreshortened toward the spectator. As they take short curves, they turn nearly upon their backs, presenting their upturned breasts to view. It is perfectly safe to affirm that no European or American artist has yet caught and portrayed the spirit and action of birds in flight-the opposition of lines formed by the relative position of their heads and wings, the different character of flight belonging to different species, and the buoyancy peculiar to Japanese designs. In the three or four carefully executed copies of Japanese designs given with this paper, let the reader not be misled by the apparent absence of elaboration and the boldness of the drawing. The Japanese artist reverses the method of his Chinese teacher. Instead of infinite but meaningless finish, he preserves only the absolutely essential. only is everything superfluous dispensed with, but much that, in our eyes, sophisticated by our often overwrought and overelaborated art-work, might seem to enhance the general effect. What is aimed at is to obtain from each touch and line all the expression of which it is capable. Realizing the impossibility of reproducing nature in the entirety of its endless detail, these peo

Not

ple are content to use such elementary lines as comprehend and best indicate particulars too numerous and minute to be separately represented. This peculiarity of what was until lately considered barbarous art might, perhaps, be profitably dwelt upon in view of the too frequent tendency exhibited among us to small, close technique, unnecessary elaboration of superfluous accessories, and multiplicity and complexity of detail.

Short as is the time, however, since Japanese art, with all its wonderful suggestiveness and power of expression, has been known or no

architecture, as I take it, decorates the edifice into which it is incorporated by its fitness, by its exhibition of the beauty inherent in the governing idea or motive of which the whole building is a complete embodiment; it is ornamented by moldings in projection which emphasize significant parts, and possibly it is further embellished with color. A man is said to receive a decoration, or to be decorated with an order or medal-not ornamented. In short, decoration is, like faith, "an outward sign of an inward grace," while ornament in this sense is fitly and

ticed, it is already beginning to exercise a beneficial influence, as by an infusion of fresh blood, upon the decorative art of Europe and America. Indeed, its very abuse-and no phase of decorative art has been more universally and frightfully travestied-testifies to its popularity, as it also does to the fact that assimilation and not imitation tends to real improvement. It is in the use made of the diapered surfaces that the Japanese artist is most happy. No one has better hit the true mean between decoration and mere ornament or pattern-designing. Observe these words; decoration and ornament are not to be taken as synonymous. A piece of

necessarily used to give weight and character to parts of the decorative construction.

In the example on the next page of a Japanese vase from the collection of Momotaro, the material is clouded or variegated by a process of which no European manufacturer knows the secret, but by which the vase seems to be filled with moving currents of water. Swimming in this water appears an exquisitely drawn group of fish, as if seen through the sides of the vessel. The peculiar porcelain of which this vase is made is called "skaki" (pronounced skaisk).

It is noticeable what a parallelism exists between the flight of birds and the swim

ming of fish. Our initial illustration-a sketch of sea-robins swimming through a piece of fan-coral, from a study at the Aquarium, and a copy from a Japanese design of a group of birds flying through the opening in a hollow pine-tree-represents this resemblance much better than I can describe it in words. It would seem likely, considering the frequency of the use of one, that this resemblance would have led decorators to utilize the other; but I have examined many pieces of decorative work, more especially the celebrated Austrian crackled glass-ware, but I have not met with a single attempt at grouping fish or representing them in action.

The distinction between the decorative and the ornamental or pattern work is very clearly illustrated in the vase of Japanese manufacture represented in the above engraving. The decorations-the fish-interpret and bring out the waved and variegated material of which the vase is composed, and are very properly treated in a naturalistic and not in a conventionalized manner, while the pattern work enriches, as a frame a paint

ing, the top and bottom of the vase. Of course, when I speak of naturalistic treatment I do not mean realistic, for here again occurs a distinction that leads to error if not recognized. Naturalistic should, I imagine, be applied to forms not falsified, or even "formalized," by conventional treatment,realistic, to attempted pictorial deception. If, for example, the effort of the Japanese artist had been to deceive the spectator into a belief that the fish represented upon the vase were really fish within it, the effort would fall into the second catagory and become a mere trick, which excludes all idea of the artistic. If, on the other hand, he merely wished to suggest the idea as truthfully as possible for the sake of carrying out a more or less poetic fancy, it is comprised in the first. If it is true, as a great critic remarks, that "genre is or should be more nearly allied to poetry than any other department of painting," surely the art of pure ornament is or should be more nearly allied to music, and like music should proceed upon principles and analogies, rather than any direct imitation of individual