Plato, and
believed that, with his knowledge and love of the work of the Athenian
philosopher, a good decoration would result. Pyle was then in Italy; Bok
telephoned the painter's home in Wilmington, Delaware, to get his
address, only to be told that an hour earlier word had been received by
the family that Pyle had been fatally stricken the day before.

Once more Bok went over the field of mural art and decided this time
that he would go far afield, and present his idea to Boutet de Monvel,
the French decorative artist. Bok had been much impressed with some
decorative work by De Monvel which had just been exhibited in New York.
By letter he laid the proposition in detail before the artist, asked for
a subject, and stipulated that if the details could be arranged the
artist should visit the building and see the place and surroundings for
himself. After a lengthy correspondence, and sketches submitted and
corrected, a plan for what promised to be a most unusual and
artistically decorative panel was arrived at.

The date for M. de Monvel's visit to Philadelphia was fixed, a final
letter from the artist reached Bok on a Monday morning, in which a few
remaining details were satisfactorily cleared up, and a cable was sent
assuring De Monvel of the entire satisfaction of the company with his
final sketches and arrangements. The following morning Bok picked up his
newspaper to read that Boutet de Monvel had suddenly passed away in
Paris the previous evening!

Bok, thoroughly bewildered, began to feel as if some fatal star hung
over his cherished decoration. Three times in succession he had met the
same decree of fate.

He consulted six of the leading mural decorators in America, asking
whether they would consent, not in competition, to submit each a
finished full-color sketch of the subject which he believed fitted for
the place in mind; they could take the Grove of Academe or not, as they
chose; the subject was to be of their own selection. Each artist was to
receive a generous fee for his sketch, whether accepted or rejected. In
due time, the six sketches were received; impartial judges were
selected, no names were attached to the sketches, several conferences
were held, and all the sketches were rejected!

Bok was still exactly where he started, while the building was nearly
complete, with no mural for the large place so insistently demanding it.

He now recalled a marvellous stage-curtain entirely of glass mosaic
ex