INCE Miriam sang and Deborah von Steinbach appears, with such genius judged and Anna prophesied, woman's ability has challenged recognition. Of women artists Kora of Corinth seems to head the list. She assisted her father in modeling clay vases, which she filled with flowers, placing them on shelves in front of the dwelling, where passers-by purchased each day's out-put. But her title to honor was in sketching with charcoal the fine profile of her Greek lover, as his shadow fell on the wall. This was afterwards filled in with clay and modeled the first bas-relief. Temerata, a painter, followed, whose picture of Diana Pliny saw at Ephesus; and Helena, whose battle piece commemorating Alexander's victory over Darius is supposed to be the original of the Pompeiian Mosaic. Down the line of centuries Sabina in sculpture that, although a young girl, much of the ornamentation of the Strasburg Cathedral was intrusted to her, by the architect and builder, her father. Two of these groups were allegorical, representing the Christian Church, and the Jewish. The former consisted of figures of noble dignity, and gentle grace, each carrying the cross in one hand and the consecrated host in the other. In the latter, each figure, with downcast eyes and drooping head, held a broken arrow and the shattered tables of the Law. In 1741 Angelica Kauffman appeared, of whom Raphael Mungo said, "As an artist she is the pride of the female sex, in all times and in all nations. Nothing is wanting; composition, coloring, fancy, all are here." Goethe's somewhat modified praise was, "The good Angelica has a most remarkable and, for a woman, a really painting all she saw, and spending unheard-of talent." Mme. Vigée Le Brun and Rosa Bonheur brought the light of genius down to our own time. much time on horseback, hunting, with her brothers, the wild game of the desert. At the close of that period she returned to England, enriched in body and mind and with a wealth of canvases. Mrs. Nicholls' pictures had already received recognition, being hung on the line in the Royal Academy Exhibitions. Later she went again to Venice, where she met her future husband, an American artist. At the beginning of the following year they were married in England, and immediately set sail for America. Here her rank was at once recognized. Honors have fallen plentifully upon her. She has received medals at the World's Fair, Chicago, and in New York and Boston, as well as in the art centers of Europe. Mrs. Rhoda Holmes Nicholls was born in Coventry, England, only daughter of the Rev. George Holmes, graduate of Oxford, and vicar of Little Hampton—a fashionable watering place. From a scholarly father and a mother enjoying all the refinements of polite society, the daughter inherited intellectuality and a cultured taste. Childhood and girlhood were devoted to study, vocal and instrumental music and art being added to the usual schooling. Graduating with honor, she entered one of the schools of Kensington Museum. Though with no thought of a professional career, at the end of the first year she was winner of the Queen's prize (sixty pounds a year for The first characteristics of this artist's three years), to which the queen added work are strength, accurate knowledge, ten pounds in token of high approval. sure intention, and vigor of expression. Yet the young artist presently sacrificed What she has to express she sets forth this prize to study in Italy, attracted unhesitatingly with clearness and vim. by the joyous color of the south. In There is always great charm in her Venice she studied landscape painting color; it is pure, vibrating, strong, and with Vertunin, and, with Camerano, yet refined. She is master of all the human figure. Evenings were mediums, though doubtless best known spent with the Circolo Artistico, a club by her water-colors, because of wide of professional artists gathered from every civilized country, and representing Dutch, Spanish, German, Italian, French, and English schools. This was the most profitable period of Mrs. Nicholls' study-an era in her life. Marguerite, queen of Italy, seeing the brilliant work of this young artist, sent for her and complimented her highly on both her talent and attainment. After three years Mrs. Nicholls went to South Africa, where her two brothers owned an ostrich farm of twenty-five thousand acres, said to be the largest in the world. Here she spent a twelvemonth, enchanted with the picturesque, low dwelling, arched doorways and courts; with the strange, wild creatures, natives of the desert; with the immeasurable stretch of gray sand, and with the blue lines of mountains; reproduction in the Art Interchange, Art Amateur, and other magazines and papers. Her highest honors, however, have been won with oil paintings, and oils are the medium she prefers. Her wide range of Mrs. Nicholls has done considerable illustration, though she makes no specialty of it. With Childe Hassam and F. Hopkinson Smith, she illustrated Mr. Howells' Venetian Life for Houghton, Mifflin & Co. subjects is remarkable,—the dancing waters of the lagoon, marble palaces, haughty Kaffirs, wide stretches of desert, ostriches, English gardens, sunny hedgerows, flowers in still-life, monks, nuns, monasteries, courts, and fountains. Her manner of treatment is always serious and dignified. However, her favorite subjects, these 66 latter days, are her little son and when darkness has blotted out all daughter. These she has caught on color, and her children are happy in the wing"-in sunshine and shadow, the land of Nod, Mrs. Nicholls finds asleep or at play, with fair, flowing refreshment in books. While she cares hair, fine features, and dainty limbs, little for society she does not ignore and with grace in every line. its kindly offices. Mrs. Nicholls lives on West 50th street, New York, in one of the oldtime mansions where sunshine can flood the place. The top floor is given up to Mrs. Nicholls is vice-president of the New York Water-Color Club, member of the Women's Art Club of New York, and also of Canada, member of A VISIT FROM BARRIE. SUPPOSE no statement needs less a stage in our cultivation as a race and support of argument than that the as a people, where there is a wideproduction of literature in these spread desire to enrich and perfect in days is a democratic influence of al- our own spirits a fellowship, a fraternal most unsurpassed power. Especially intimacy, as far-reaching as a lively and do the better novels plead constantly loving imaginative realization of conand effectually with their innumerable ditions of life will let us; and when readers, for the widening of human men like Hardy, Meredith, Caine, kindness and of fraternal justice and Watson, and Barrie help us on toward sympathy from every rank of life this happy achievement, turning into and degree of fortune to every other the tenderest and most rewarding. below and above it. Scarce any other brotherhood a remote cousinship to influence proves itself so strong to keep men and women whose outward guise our hearts warm and open to brothers we never saw, we are not satisfied and sisters beyond our sight and reach. with owning their books or giving I doubt even if any one will deny that them the legal justice of copyright; we the novels of the day, the masterly love them, we long to know and see ones, are promoting international am- them, we covet and rejoice in their ity. Certainly the fact is plain as to the personal companionship. English-speaking races, and I believe. that to be without those revealing and endearing pictures of their particular to a certain great daily journal that countrymen's traits, characters, and conditions which Americans, Northern and Southern, and Britons, English and Scotch, are making, would be a most untimely lack, a positive misfortune. As Dr. Nichol implied at the dinner lately given to Mr. Barrie and him in New York by the Aldine Club, the writings of such men have made it more painful to Americans and Englishmen to disagree than it would be without them. This is answer enough-if, indeed, no answer at all were not still better— thinks "there is something mysterious about the uproar which has been raised over Mr. Barrie.” There is no uproar, and there ought not to be any mystery in the matter to any one with enough human feeling to understand one of the happiest tendencies of the times. It was the present writer's good fortune to have Mr. and Mrs. Barrie as guests for three days about a week after their arrival in America on this, In this matter our British cousins their first visit to our shores. I do not have somewhat the better of us, and a regard the eagerness with which our familiar theme is the remarkable hold reading world pursues every revelation the present day English and Scotch of the private personality — appearnovelists of the first rank-with little ance, habits, methods of work, pasor no design or expectation-have times, etc.,-of distinguished writers acquired on the regard and genuine as a merely idle and unworthy curiosaffection of our vast American reading ity. Its universality is proof enough public. We actually love the authors to the contrary. If it has its excesses, of "Lorna Doone," of "Tess," of "Diana of the Crossways," of "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," and of "The Little Minister" and "Sentimental Tommy." We have come to it has also its good side and commendable meanings. Yet I cannot begin to give to the printer my experiences with one so retiring as Mr. Barrie, without a prayer to be delivered from any word |