breeze, and, mind you, she is
strapped up all the time. Then, when all is completed, the poor dear
lady is expected to run her immortal race. Of course, by this time there
is no action in the figure at all. Atalanta appears glued to the spot,
and my only wonder is that she does not indignantly chase her
unfortunate creators from the studio. On looking at these pictures the
spectator would say that he never saw anything so absolutely
unsuggestive of the breathless vigour and energy of a healthy young girl
engaged in a rapid race as is indicated by the pitiful weariness of that
poor strapped-up creature in front of them. Would it not be far better
that these students should go out into the street, after the method of
the Japs, and watch some girl as she runs and jumps in the bright
sunshine, with a soft wind blowing her hair about her head and her gown
about her limbs, and then come back, and, with a memory of the beautiful
inspiriting scene still fresh in their minds, commit their impressions
"hot and hot" upon the canvas before them?

[Illustration: ON THE GREAT CANAL, OSAKA]

Still, England has not always been so hopelessly inartistic. None would
think of denying the perfect taste of the architects who designed such
buildings as the Winchester and Durham Cathedrals, and Arundel Castle;
but those are buildings wrought in dead days by men a long time dead,
and England's days of artistic appreciation are, I fear, as dead as they
are. Commerce and so-called civilisation have ruined us, I fear, for
ever. Japan is as artistic to-day as we were five hundred years ago, and
I rejoice to think that at present there appears to be little fear of so
ghastly a fate as has overtaken us. As a nation the Japanese remain
faithful to art in all its details, and as individuals they are still a
nation of artists. Where else but in Japan would an aged gentleman
dream of rising ere the day has well begun, merely that he might bring
into harmony with all its surroundings, and present in the best light
possible, a little flower placed in a pot--bending it this way and that
way, that its attitude might conform with the cabinet in one corner of
the room, or a screen in the other? Who but a Japanese chamber-boy would
be so impressed with the artistic value of contrast merely that he would
feel constrained thereby to place the can of hot water in a different
attitude every time he brought it into the room, and thoughtfully step
aside to regard it