t, so copious,
so universal--so "all there," as we say nowadays, and indeed so all
everywhere. There is only too much to see, too much to do, and his
process is the one that comes nearest to minimizing the quantity. He can
touch so many things, he can go from one scene to another, he can sound
a whole concert of notes while the painter is setting up his easel. The
painter is majestic, dignified, academic, important, superior, anything
you will; but he is, in the very nature of the case, only occasional.
He is "serious," but he is comparatively clumsy: he is a terrible time
getting under way, and he has to sacrifice so many subjects while he is
doing one. The illustrator makes one immense sacrifice, of course--that
of color; but with it he purchases a freedom which enables him to attack
ever so many ideas. It is by variety and numerosity that he commends
himself to his age, and it is for these qualities that his age commends
him to the next. The twentieth century, the latter half of it, will, no
doubt, have its troubles, but it will have a great compensatory luxury,
that of seeing the life of a hundred years before much more vividly than
we--even happy we--see the life of a hundred years ago. But for this
our illustrators must do their best, appreciate the endless capacity
of their form. It is to the big picture what the short story is to the
novel.

It is doubtless too much, I hasten to add, to ask Mr. Reinhart, for
instance, to work to please the twentieth century. The end will not
matter if he pursues his present very prosperous course of activity,
for it is assuredly the fruitful vein, the one I express the hope to
see predominant, the portrayal of the manners, types and aspects that
surround us. Mr. Reinhart has reached that happy period of life when
a worker is in full possession of his means, when he has done for his
chosen instrument everything he can do in the way of forming it and
rendering it complete and flexible, and has the fore only to apply
it with freedom, confidence and success. These, to our sense, are the
golden hours of an artist's life; happier even than the younger time
when the future seemed infinite in the light of the first rays of
glory, the first palpable hits. The very sense that the future is
_not_ unlimited and that opportunity is at its high-water-mark gives
an intensity to the enjoyment of maturity. Then the acquired habit
of "knowing how" must simplify the problem of execution and leave