t forbidding and remote. The Library looks attractive, and so far
as a large building can, even intimate....

[Illustration: BY EDWARD C. POTTER]

[Illustration: TERRACE LOOKING NORTH]

"The popularity of the Library has, consequently, been well earned. The
public has reason to like it, because it offers them a smiling
countenance; and the welcome it gives is merely the outward and visible
sign of an inward grace. When people enter they will find a building
which has been ingeniously and carefully adapted to their use.
Professional architects like it, because they recognize the skill, the
good taste and the abundant resources of which the building, as a whole,
is the result; and while many of them doubtless cherish a secret
thought that they would have done it better, they are obliged to
recognize that in order to have done it better they would have been
obliged to exhibit a high degree of architectural intelligence. In the
realism of its plan and in the mixture of dignity and distinction in the
design, The New York Public Library is typical of that which is best in
the contemporary American architectural movement; and New York is
fortunate, indeed, that such a statement can be made of the most
important public building erected in the city during several
generations."

[Illustration: ROMANCE BY PAUL BARTLETT]

=Sculpture.= Of the sculptural designs, the two lions on either side of
the main approach are by E. C. Potter. They have been subjected to much
criticism, mainly of a humorous nature, and in the daily press. This
adverse comment has not been endorsed by critics of art and
architecture. Mr. Potter was chosen for this work by Augustus St.
Gaudens, and again, after Mr. St. Gaudens' death, by Mr. D. C. French,
also an eminent sculptor. Any layman can satisfy himself, by a brief
observation of the building as a whole, that the architectural balance
of the structure demands figures of heroic size to flank the main
approach. With that requirement in view, the designer of such figures
has but a limited choice of subject, since there are few living
creatures whose forms possess dignity without being cumbrous. The
sculptor in this instance has followed well-established precedents in
designing the lions according to the canons of decorative art. They are
as realistic as would be suitable for figures of this size, and in this
position.

[Illustration: PHILOSOPHY BY PAUL BARTLETT]

The groups in the pediments are by G