Doubleday and McClure, and later of the Messrs. Harper. With the latter house he remained until the time of his death. Mr. MacArthur's enthusiasm, his keen interest in contemporary literature, his instinctive understanding of the public taste, and his wide acquaintance among the men and women who write, both in the United States and England, made him a well-known figure in publishing circles. At Harpers, in addition to acting the capacity of a literary adviser, he had much to do with Harper's Bazar and Harper's Weekly. Of recent years he devoted much of his bouyant activity to the writing of plays. His first venture was a successful dramatisation of Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. In collaboration with Max Pemberton he produced The Mask of the White Rose and Kronstadt; and with Rex Beach made the dramatisation of The Spoilers. It was his stage version of The Pilgrim's Progress in which Miss Henrietta Crossman appeared two years ago. Writing for the theatre was the field which he liked best, and he threw himself into it with characteristic ardour. His friends used laughingly to say that he had made a scenario of every popular novel of the last ten years, and hinted at the existence of a James MacArthur dramatisation of Webster's Dictionary. FLED ARE THE SNOWS Fled are the snows and again comes the greenness of Spring to the meadows, Changed is the face of the earth, and the rivers flow onward serenely, Flooding no longer their banks. Freed from the trammels of Winter, the Nymphs with their sisters, the Graces, Airily join in the dance. Hope not for endless delights. Each swift-flying hour that passes Lessens thy vanishing store. Winter is softened by Spring, who succumbs to the heat-laden Summer, Lavishly scatt'ring her fruits, still resplendent, bright Autumn is vanquished, Ah, but the loss of the year is repaired by the on-coming spring-time! Whither went father Æneas, and whither rich Tullus, and Ancus, Who can be sure that, the gods, in the councils of Heaven, are adding On to the sum of to-day? All you have cheris'end loved will descend to an heir, all the treasures Once you are dead and have heard at the awful tribunal of Minos Judgment pronounced on your deeds, Not the renown of your birth, nor your learning, Torquatus, nor goodness, Life, with its joys, can restore. Back from the shades not Diana could summon Hippolytus, falsely Slain by a treacherous lie; Nor could the valour of Theseus avail for Pirithoüs cherished, Death's dreaded fetters to break. Elizabeth H. du Bois HEN the first Napoleon embarked on his disastrous Russian campaign there was in his army a young but already distinguished officer named Poiré. This officer was not one of the few who reached France with the Emperor after the terrible retreat, nor was he one of the many who left their bones to whiten in the Russian snows. Poiré had the fortune to be wounded and captured at the battle of Moskowa. He fell into the hands of some humane Russian officers, was nursed back to strength and health, and was for some years a prisoner in a Russian fortress. There he met and fell in love with the Russian woman whom he eventually married. By this time Elba, the Hundred Days, and Waterloo had become history. The Little Corporal was at St. Helena, and there was nothing to call an officer of the Grande Armée back to France. So Poiré yielded to his wife's wishes, settled in Moscow, and founded a fencing school which became famous, and where l'escrime Française was introduced, for the first time, into the Russian army. In Moscow, in 1858. was born his grandson, Emmanuel Poiré, afterward to become known to the world as Caran d'Ache. Despite their Muscovite birth and environment, the old Napoleonic soldier never allowed his children to forget that they were French, and that their expatriation as a family was only temporary. From his earliest years the dominant idea of the boy Emmanuel was to reconquer his French nationality. When he was seventeen years of age his father died, and despite the advice and protests of his friends, he went to the French Embassy to find out what steps he should take to fulfil his obligation to la Patrie by serving his time in the French army. Having obtained this information, he set out for France with very little money in his pocket, but with splendid hopes and enthusiasms. Already Emmanuel Poiré cherished the ambition of becoming a military painter. Once some one had made him a present of a book of French engravings, and among its contents was a description of Edouard Detaille together with some examples of his work. So, with the temerity of youth, Poiré no reached Paris than he presented himself at M. Detaille's door with a portfolio of sketches under his arm. The great mili THE RETREAT FROM RUSSIA tary painter was generous in his reception and quick to recognise an embryonic talent. He urged the boy to persevere, and never lost sight of him during the time that he was serving as a private in the One Hundred and Thirteenth Regiment of the Line. He advised Poiré to study from life in preference to becoming a student in an art school. Finally it was to a great extent through his influence that the young soldier, who had been promoted to corporal, was assigned to work at the War Office among those whose duty it was to prepare drawings of the army uniforms. His period of military service at an end, Emmanuel Poiré became one of the Montmartre Bohemians who frequented the famous Cabaret du Chat Noir in the Rue Victor Masse, and began to contribute to the illustrated papers under the name of Caran d'Ache, which is Russian for lead pencil. These years of his début have a curious and original interest. Producing little, but that little of high quality, it was possible for him to command a high price for his work. Even at times of the most extreme poverty he would not allow his necessities to hurry him. Finally came the great stroke of fortune, the production that was to change him from an obscure struggler to a conspicuous personage-"l'Epopée," the series of silhouettes dealing with the Napoleonic drama. It originated in this manner. A friend asked him to design a cover for a comic song. To carry out his idea he turned to the old-fashioned silhouette, and realised at once its infinite possibilities. The result was "l'Epopée," which told the story of the wars of Napoleon in thirty tableaux, introducing four thousand figures and horses. These tableaux showed armies marching and counter-marching, furious cannonades, and splendid charges of cavalry. "These charges were so vividly achieved," M. Arsène Alexandre once said, "that one actually heard the galloping of horses." Staged at the Chat Noir, where the action took place across a comparatively small white screen, "l'Epopée" had an immediate and astonishing success. To witness this extraordinary novelty artists came from all parts of Europe. Among the celebrities who visited Montmartre to find the Chat Noir were Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, President Grévy, and General Boulanget. THE HAUNTED HOUSE. L-"WHAT DO I SEE? MY TROUSERS DANCING?" THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 11.-GUN AND BARRICADE. THE HAUNTED HOUSE, III.-THE GHOSTS APPEAR. bred to the broken-down beast of the Parisian cabman. Animals he always held to be as interesting as human beings. No one, he believed, could be a better sitter than a dog when he had a mind that way. Whenever he could spare the time he would spend a morning in the Jardin d'Acclimation. But horses always remained his favourites. He had begun his study of them when very young, as a child in Russia. On several occasions he had placed himself, during military manœuvres, before the cavalry in full charge, saving himself in the nick of time by dodging behind a tree when the horses were but a few feet distant. As a strictly political cartoonist Caran d'Ache soon wielded a wide influence not only in France but throughout Europe. His pencil played an important part in bringing about the alliance between France and Russia, his Russian birth naturally inclining him to a favourable attitude toward the Czar and his Empire. On the other hand, no caricaturist of his . time so cruelly and successfully hit off the foibles and indiscretions of "Lui"Wilhelm the Second of Germany. One of his cartoons after the dismissal of Bismarck shows the Kaiser in a trainer's cage surrounded by a pack of mutinous, snapping beasts representing various members of the German Empire. The Iron Chancellor, who is watching the scene, says: "I left him a circus; he has turned it into a menagerie." During the Panama exposures, which cost so many reputations, and in which President Grévy and his son-in-law, Wilson, were implicated, Caran d'Ache summed up the E scandal in his Carnet de Cheques, a col Drawings of "l'Epopée" were sent "by request" to the then Czar of Russia, who remained to the end of his life one of Caran d'Ache's most constant patrons. For some time after the production of "l'Epopée," Caran d'Ache confined himself mainly to silhouettes. Several other series of his tableaux were produced at the Chat Noir, among them one depicting a procession in the Bois de Boulogne of celebrated Parisian women, perfectly easy of recognition, with a great variety of horses, from the high-strung thorough lection of biting comments which greatly enhanced his reputation and popularity. Then there was the exceedingly characteristic series of pictures entitled the "Jewish Question." Two men are arguing; one contending that the Jews as a race worship only money; the other maintaining that when it comes to money Jews and Christians are exactly the same. They agree to decide the dispute by a practical test. Two men, one a Christian and the other a Jew, approach from opposite directions. A twenty franc piece is thrown into the gutter. With equal greediness each of the newcomers dives |