a few months after his graduation, and upon the recommendation of Liszt began the study of composition in Paris. But unexpected circumstances occasioned a sudden change of plan, and Mr. Wister returned to America at the close of 1883. Shortly afterwards failing health sent him elk hunting in Wyoming and Arizona, and thus came about the first memorable visit destined to have such lasting results. Seeking health he found not only new strength, but a new world. The novel surroundings, the atmosphere of stirring romance, re-awoke the literary instinct that nods sometimes, but never dies. He appears, however, to have had no conscious intention at this time, or indeed for long after, of writing these things which impressed him so vividly. Instead he returned straightway to the East as soon as he was well again, resolved to enter the legal profession. Entering the Harvard Law School in the autumn of 1885, he graduated two years later with the degrees of LL.B. and A.M.; after which he settled to the practice of his profession in Philadelphia, meaning apparently to make it a life work. But the spell of the West was upon him and could not be broken; the literary instinct which it had stirred could not be stilled, and thus it followed that the young lawyer was irresistibly drawn away from his briefs, again and again, until fifteen separate journeys to the West are recorded within ten years.

Such a struggle can have but one outcome, and the undivided allegiance always demanded by art was gradually granted in this case. In 1891 Mr. Wister began to write, giving less and less attention to his profession, until literature now wholly absorbs him. He has written a number of stories, which are finally gathered into a volume entitled Red Men and White, thus making the cumulative showing which alone. justifies an attempt to estimate the success of the short story writer. This honest effort is, however, somewhat interfered with in the outset by the preface, which moves heavily and uncertainly through a mist. But, fortunately, the art of the essayist is something apart from the gift of the story-teller, and this introduction, which does not introduce, may therefore be passed without further comment. In the stories themselves there is no uncertainty, no wan

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dering, no fog. Their movement is as direct and as free and as stirring as the sweep of the wind across the plains. This is the first effect of Mr. Wister's work. This feeling of the great plains; of the grandeur, the mystery, and the desolation of their vastness; of the desert's changeless, unfathomable silence; of the bare noonday glare, "making the world no longer crystal, but a mesa, dull and gray and hot;' of the sharp, dim peaks edging the horizon, far off where the unshaded mountains stand; of "the day's transfigured immortal passing where the sun becomes a crimson coal in a lake of saffron, burning and beating like a heart, till the desert seems no longer dead, but asleep ;" of the unearthly beauty of the moon, under which the earth grows lovely, no longer terrible, but infinitely sad." Scarcely any one, perhaps it is only fair to say no one, has so nearly succeeded as has Mr. Wister in communicating the impression made by the great sand sea. And through the stories may be traced the gradual relaxation of this first fierce grasp of the strange country itself on the author's imagination; and the consequent ascension of the psychological over the physical, as he draws nearer to the inner life of the people-to those subtler things which are not spread upon the hot sands, for the casual passerby to see. He naturally enters first into the nature of the Indian, as the central figure of the situation, and the result is the first appearance of the real red man in recent literature. Perhaps even this partial reservation is less than Mr. Wister's due, and he may be more truly said to be the first to bring the real red man into fiction, either old or new. At all events, his is the real living Indian of to-day, and not the Mohegan or Hiawatha of old-fashioned romance. As Mr. Wister does not idealise him, neither does he depreciate him, but enters into his condition and characteristics and feelings and motives, as one who knows whereof he speaks. Moreover, he differentiates the Indian types, and succeeds in individualising at least two so distinctively as to make an entirely new and valuable contribution to literature. Cheschapah, the young chief of "Little Big Horn Medicine," rather dwarfs the other, for the reason that his is a dominant personality; but E-egante is not less clearly and strongly realised,

and their characters form a fine contrast. Cheschapah's devouring ambition has its grand as well as its absurd side, and E-egante's dandyism and vanity are eminently real and human.

With the last named story Mr. Wister's study of the red savage ceases, and he passes on to paint the civilisation of the plains, as impeded by primitive white forces. There is a terrific showing of this in "Salvation Gap," and the analysis of the causes evolving the tragedy further shows that the author is steadily working from the rough surface of the life he portrays to its turbulent heart. This deeper tone deepens still more, and also broadens, in "A Pilgrim on the Gila" and "La Tinaja Bonita." In the one it sounds farther than the distant, peaked edges of the sand archipelago, in revealing the influence that an obscure and guilty love may exert over large affairs of state, over even the Capitol at Washington. In the other, the note is, if possible, broader yet, in that it touches one of

the most universal sources of human wretchedness, by showing that jealousy works the same suffering and wrong in the desert as elsewhere.

And yet, effective as these intense stories are, they leave, nevertheless, a vague feeling that Mr. Wister has circumscribed his power in thus dealing almost exclusively with painful themes. This can scarcely have been necessary to the truth of his work. There must be bright spots even on these tragic great plains; and such an artist as he has surely more than a single dark colour for his brush. Indeed, the gleams of humour shining through the perpetual clouds give tantalising glimpses of the sunny flood that might warm the heart, were the sky ever clear. And then to this constant stormy gloom seems to be owing the absence of that subtle touch of finest, truest sentiment, without which work even as good as Mr. Wister's can never wholly satisfy.

Nancy Huston Banks.

warmth of colour, shed from innumerable sketches and paintings hanging on the walls or flung about the room with a seeming carelessness, refreshed one's vision like a sudden glimpse of dreamland. This was Miss Reed's studio (she rather modestly resented my calling it so), and as I found it empty when I entered-I heard her musical laugh in an adjoining room-I had a few minutes to look around and take my bearings. One cannot help impressing one's individuality upon one's surroundings, and it was

pleasant to note the harmonious setting which each detail helped to form in Miss Reed's atelier, and the air of refinement

in varying stages of process, almost covered the walls or lay on the floor, tilted against legs of chairs or other

ETHEL REED. BY HERSELF.

supports. In many of the portraits of women a certain uniformity of type began to assert itself as I glanced from one to another, and it dawned upon me at last that the original of these studies was the artist herself. Later, when she confirmed my observation, I had the pleasure of congratulating her on her choice of a model.

In one corner of the room there was a little shelf containing about a score of books, composed for the most part of well-thumbed literary classics. I remarked especially a copy of Keats and an edition of Omar Khayyam, which bore evidences of frequent reading. There was another shelf, I must confess, which groaned beneath the weight of what looked like French novels, whose character I shrank from inspecting lest I should dispel the pleasant illusion I had formed of Miss Reed's elegant and dignified tastes in literature. Lying about were the usual bric-a-brac

so dear to the soul of an artist, one curiosity which I handled with care being a Japanese snicker-snee. Scattered over the large flat table was a profusion of books, papers, sketches, posters, drawing and painting implements; a couple of pipes, a tobacco-box, and a cigar stump which I looked at suspiciously, she referred to with a merry twinkle in her eye as "artistic properties." I was about to ensconce myself in one of the comfortable artchairs, when a glare of warm colour from a sheet of paper on the table caught my eye, and as I happened to be examining it when Miss Reed entered, she at once satisfied my curiosity by saying:

"That is a poster I am making for a little sketch of Puvis de Chavannes, by Lily Lewis Rood, which has just been published in Boston."

On further inquiry I discovered that she had been moved by her interest in the subject to undertake the poster, but that she was doubtful whether the publishers were likely to go to the expense of reproducing it.

"What's the use of wasting your precious time on it, then?" I asked.

"Oh, well," she answered, "the original will probably be exhibited in Messrs. Damrell and Upham's old bookshop, and will attract attention to the author."

This is but a trifling thing to report, but I mention it as being a characteristic of Miss Reed which is not infrequently absent in youth, especially successful youth; for within the past few months Miss Ethel Reed has made a distinguished appearance in the art of making book posters. This distinction is based on work that is instinct with originality, and which is conceived with a freshness and freedom unpremeditated and strikingly individual. It is the bold and fearless expression of ideas unhackneyed and untrammelled by past traditions or conventionalised forms.

Its

very crudeness sometimes is proof of the overmastering strength of conception and the striving to make form and outline subject to the innate force behind the work. There has been an increasing interest in Miss Reed, and a growing conviction that she is an artist of exceptional power and ability, and it was to gratify this interest, and to enlighten the readers of THE BOOKMAN about the artist and her work, that I called on her when recently in Boston.

I found that though Miss Reed was willing to talk to me about her work, she was not at all elated with the success she had won, and a natural diffidence and pretty air of self-unconsciousness, which was perfectly sincere, clothed her with a most becoming garment of humility, which nevertheless was disconcerting to the interviewer. I asked her how she came to think of drawing posters.

"I didn't think of it at all. It has all been due to a friend of mine who is connected with the Boston Herald. He saw one of my paintings" (a very fair likeness of herself by the way)," and suggested that I should copy it and submit it to the Herald as a poster for its Sunday edition. I acted on his suggestion, and was successful. That was last February. You can see," she added, with the sensitive touch with which artists regard their work, "that the reproduction flattened and quite spoiled the effect of the original."

Looking at the original painting, I drew her attention to a picture alongside of it, which depicted a violinist in the act of drawing the bow across his instrument.

"That was taken from life. By the way, I was at one time determined to become a violinist. I have always been passionately fond of music, especially of the violin, and, indeed, it was my first passion."

"And how did you come to give it up?"

"I have not exactly given it up, but the ambition to paint portraits grew upon me, and has exceeded it in strength."

"Where did you study drawing?''

"I cannot say that I have studied anywhere. When I was twelve years old I took some drawing lessons from Miss Laura C. Hills, but my inattention and rebelliousness caused her much

vexation, although she took great pains with me and incited me to work. Two years ago I spent some time at the Cowles School."

"Have you had no special training or course of study?”

"No. I'm afraid you will think me an unaccountable sort of person, for all I can say is that when I have an idea I simply sit down to the paper, and the drawing and colour come to me as I proceed."

Most of your work is done spontaneously and without much forethought, then?"

"Oh, I think hard enough about it beforehand ; but once I have the idea and get started, it takes very little trouble and time to finish the rest."

But what about your ambition to become a portrait painter-has that been also supplanted ?"

"Oh, no," she laughed, "but since I started to make posters, I have had more work than I can keep up with; besides I have been doing some decorative book work, which, you will admit, is more ambitious, and perhaps you would say more dignified, than making posters.'

One of these books is a little volume of historical and narrative verse, by Mr. Charles Knowles Bolton, entitled The Love Story of Ursula Wolcott, which

will be published immediately by Messrs. Lamson, Wolffe and Company. A little brochure of his, entitled The Wooing of Martha Pitkin, was published last year. The facsimile of one of the pages which we give indicates the style of the book and the character of Miss Reed's illustrative work. The other book is Miss Gertrude Smith's Arabella and Araminta Stories, about to issue from the press of Messrs. Copeland and Day, and for which Miss Mary E. Wilkins has written an introduction. That the book is "magnificently original," as one critic has said, is largely due to Miss Ethel Reed's happy, artistic rendition of the dreamland of childhood. The pictures are drawn after the manner of the new

movement in design, but here again Miss Reed has touched the lines with the magic of her own imagination. Unconsciously the Japanese influence in art and the spirit of the French poster enter into their composition, but the key to their inner secret is the childlike quality of tenderest humour and "humanest affection," which is all-pervasive.

"I have never enjoyed doing anything so much," said Miss Reed, "as the drawings for these stories. It was lots of fun; I was a child with Arabella and Araminta, and dwelt with them in the happy Land of Make-Believe."

"I believe that has been the secret of your

success with these drawings; for to do one's best work, one must truly and thoroughly enjoy it. Had you done any book illustrating previous to this?"

"Nothing with the exception of a little vignette called Butterfly Thoughts,' which St. Nicholas printed in March, I think it was, of 1894."

"Do you contemplate doing more of this kind of work?"

"I can hardly say yet. It will depend on circumstances. I am illustrating a book of Fairy Tales, and I am working on a little thing of my own."

By dint of perseverance I overcame Miss Reed's aversion to speak of this "little thing" of her own. She has made a start with Pierrot in The Garden