remark of the delightful philosopher Chesterton: "Most of us have suffered from a certain sort of ladies who by their perverse unselfishness give more trouble than the selfish; who almost clamor for the unpopular dish and scramble for the worst seat . . . in a seething fuss of self-effacement." Perhaps you know, as I do, a few of the people who conscientiously refrain from ever saying anything but good about others. Oh, how much fun they miss! I do not believe in being censorious, but I count that a very narrow nature which is not willing, as Falstaff said he was, to be "not only witty in myself but the cause that wit is in other men." To say nothing of the inevitable degeneration in character which comes from being a mere mush of good nature, it is really hardly fair to those with whom we converse to deny them the intellectual fillip which comes from a bit of clever characterization or comment, even when this is not complimentary.

I might cite, too, the conscience overdeveloped on the subject of accuracy as one confined to no special locality. There are undoubtedly things about which it is worth while to be accurate and things about which a more general and picturesque style of speaking is not only allowable but a heavensent relief from the dull prose of ordinary talk. We don't intend to deceive when we put things picturesquely but merely to give our own and our friends' minds a chance to cut a little caper, to give a touch of color and individuality by telling the thing as it appeared to us as the impressionists do.

men

Have you ever heard the husband of a too conscientious woman try to tell a story? I have and it went something like this: "Well, we started off at noon-" "No, Thomas, it wanted fifteen minutes to twelve." "All right. We started at quarter to twelve. We had a jolly crowd of a dozen "No, Thomas, there were only eleven. There were Mr. Harrison, Mr. Brown, Mr. Prendergast-" "Oh, well, eleven, then!" Slight annoyance on the part of Thomas. "And, by the way, Prendergast was telling such a good story. It seems there is a little town in New Jersey and there is a good deal of discussion about the right pronunciation of its name. Prendergast was on a train when the conductor stuck his head in at one end of the car and called, Euraly-ah!' and the brakeman

stuck his head in at the other end and yelled 'Eureel-yah!'" "Thomas, I don't find any such town on the map of New Jersey." "Oh, come off, Cornelia, you would upset any system of theology!"

Charles Lamb said he came to his office a little late in the morning, but he made up for it by going home a little early in the evening. I admire his philosophy, though I am myself a slave to promptness and waste a large part of my life waiting for the people who come a little late. My conscience, though only a jog-trot, every-day sort of affair on most points, is alert on this one, but even there it does occasionally take a rest and remark to me in a loud, clear, convincing tone: "Let us not be at our desk on time to write editorials this opal spring morning; let us dawdle awhile in the park, see the delicate mist of young green coming out on the trees, hear the birds call and the children laugh."

Widely scattered, too, is the too conscientious hostess whose oppressive hospitality one on occasions gratefully but protestingly endures, who watches your downsitting and your uprising and meddles with your every plan. She grieves over your not eating enough of the nutritious but perhaps uninteresting food she provides, or laments that you will eat butter and mayonnaise though you are already too fat and, like Joe, "swelling wisibly." She makes intricate plans, involving endless trouble on her part, to entertain you implacably and unrelentingly during every waking minute, till you long, as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, for a little wholesome neglect.

From Maine to Florida I have sympathized with children who had to undergo too conscientious mothers, even with mothers who had too conscientious children; with church-members who were too conscientiously pastored, with patients who were too conscientiously doctored.

Oh, yes, there are lots of women whose aggressive consciences put pebbles instead of boiled pease into the shoes in which they tread life's thorny paths. There is no doubt that many of them live in Vermont and Massachusetts. Equally there is no doubt that the sisterhood has representatives in Idaho and California, in Indiana and Kentucky, even in Mississippi and Texas.

terial that has always been costly, too rare, as a rule, to be subjected to poor or mediocre workmanship, they may well be considered as typical of the artistic development of the time in which they were produced. They represent the art, moreover, not of one people or one period, but, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, of all peoples and all periods. From prehistoric ages down through the civilizations of Egypt and Assyria and of classic Greece and Rome have come priceless examples of sculptured ivories. The Dark Ages of Europe, so meagre in artistic treasures, have bequeathed us an unbroken chain of ivory-carvings. Much of the most interesting of such work must be accredited to the centuries of the Gothic Revival, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth. The Renaissance and the centuries succeeding have yielded a wealth of carved ivories of

great richness and beauty. From India, China, and Japan come ivories of deep historic interest and, especially in the work of Japan, of genuine artistic achievement.

Periods of exceptional turbulence, such as the Fall of Constantinople, the Reformation in England, and the French Revolution,

have caused the destruction of incomparable treasures. That so much has survived seems cause for wonder. The explanation lies in the very nature of the carvings. They were not a subject for the meltingpot, their value was not sufficient to attract looters, and their small size saved them largely from the vandalism attracted to more conspicuous objects.

The Heinz collection contains representative carvings, mediæval and modern, from all the leading European nations, from India, China, and Japan, and also curious and interesting ivories carved by African natives and the Eskimos. The ivories of European workmanship previous to the nineteenth century form a large and exceptionally fine group. It will be possible to mention individually only a few of the most remarkable of these, or those typical of a large or important class of carvings.

Many of the early ivory carvings are articles of devotional use: statuettes of the Virgin, small portable shrines for individual devotion, diptychs, triptychs, and single plaques, illustrated with scriptural scenes

and widely used for religious instruction in an age when reading was not an accomplishment of the masses. This important class

The artist's dream.

A Japanese carving by Okawa Somin.

of carvings is well represented in the Heinz group. An extremely old Italian plaque, unusual in its realistic treatment of the Crucifixion, and a late-seventeenth-century French shrine-a fine specimen of the use of color in worked ivory-are among the most interesting.

Ivory was by no means confined to religious usages. Because of its intrinsic beauty, its adaptability, and its exclusive costliness, it has been used for a great variety of useful objects wherever a high standard of luxury has demanded that these should be of rich and sumptuous appearance. Jewel-caskets, mirror-frames, fans, snuff-boxes, platters, tankards, huntinghorns, powder-flasks, and many other such things are found in quantities in the Heinz collection.

An exceedingly fine casket of fifteenthcentury English workmanship, given by Mr. Heinz to the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, is worthy of more than passing comment. English ivories of early date are unfortunately very rare. In large measure the property of the church, or placed in monasteries for safe-keeping, they suffered from the terrible destruction of religious property during the Reformation and especially during the latter half of the sixteenth century. The specimens that have survived are distinguished, as is this casket, by purity of design and general excellence of treatment.

An old German figure of Charlemagne, constructed in triptych form with high re

lief carvings in the interior, a thirteenthcentury Venetian figure of Marino Falieri, Doge of Venice, and an old English figure of Lady Jane Grey, are statuettes of unusual interest.

Tankards and tall cups, usually decorated with a broad band of rich carving, are among the most beautiful of the numberless objects carved in ivory. A seventeenthcentury Dutch tankard and a marriage cup of unusual construction from the Black Forest are possibly the most interesting in the Heinz collection.

In comparatively recent times there has been a revival of interest in ivory sculpture that bids fair to raise it to its former proud position among the arts. At the acquisition by the Belgians of the Congo State, large quantities of ivory poured into the markets of Antwerp. At the instance of the King, and to encourage a revival of the neglected art, some of the finest tusks were placed at the disposition of leading sculptors. The results went far to stimulate the use of ivory for sculpture of merit, as well as for utilitarian objects of genuine artistic value.

An interesting feature of modern European ivory-carving is the revival of the ancient chryselephantine work, the combination of ivory with other materials-bronze, silver, gold, and jewels. A spirited German carving of "St. George and the Dragon" is an excellent example of this type of work. The armor of St. George and the trappings of the horse are of silver studded with jewels. Mounted on a base of ebony inlaid with ivory. and silver, it is more than two feet high and almost as long. The "Snake Charmer," a statuette of ivory and wood, carved by Glenz, is a charming piece of work, full of grace and beauty. Many other pieces in the collection

Chinese puzzleball. Composed of fourteen concentric spheres, each completely detached and delkately carved.

Very early in the Japanese working of ivory small and irregular pieces of the precious material began to be utilized for netsukés-pronounced "netskee"-the large button from which was suspended, by a cord passed under the girdle, the pouch worn by all Japanese gentlemen of the period. Netsukés had previously been made chiefly of wood, but the adaptability of ivory for this purpose was soon recognized. The demand for these trinkets was practically unlimited, and the making of them grew to an importance hard for us to realize. Anything from buttons the size of a walnut to a statuette of six or seven inches could be used as a net

Under

the key-note of some such story. A carving made by Masa Nobu in 1725 and one by Tomo Toshi in 1780 are good examples. Mutsuhito, the late Emperor of Japan, was a great lover of carved ivories. his patronage the famous Okawa Somin, perhaps the greatest Japanese carver of ivory, established the school that bears his name and has contributed greatly to the development of ivory-carving in Japan.

Mr. Heinz has secured a dozen or more examples of Okawa's rare and much-soughtfor treasures. One of these, "The Artist's Dream," of which an illustration is given, is typical of the Japanese idea that every

suké, provided merely that it had holes through which a cord could be passed. There seems to be nothing in the range of Japanese plastic imagination that has not contributed to one of these tiny masterpieces. Religious ideas are explained, old fairy-tales are told, practical jokes are played so deftly, with such never-failing fertility of imagination, that a group of these little netsukés may well be a veritable collection of short stories.

Many of those in the Heinz collection are of eighteenth-century origin, most prized by connoisseurs. During this period the carving of them was a highly esteemed profession, counting in its ranks some of the master sculptors of Japan. Later netsukes were made in enormous quantities, many of them of little artistic value. With the revolution of 1868 a radical change in dress took place. Loose, flowing robes and girdles were exchanged for the modern jacket and trousers, and netsukes became a curiosity of the past.

The greatest Japanese ivory-carvers have always held that every piece of work must be packed with meaning, that it must tell a story or illustrate some religious precept. Old legends were a rich source of inspiration, and many of the best carvings in the Heinz collection show a bit of action that is

work of art must tell a story. In it an artist, engaged in painting the seven Japanese gods on a screen, falls asleep, and, as he sleeps, one by one the deities come to life and step gayly out of the screen.

The genius of the Japanese carvers of ivory was not long in winning world-wide recognition. Demand for their work grew and reached tremendous proportions. And with it came an inevitable change in the work itself a change in the character of its subject-matter. In much of it subjects that appeal to all humanity are now substituted for the ancient legends of mythology only fully comprehensible to the Japanese themselves. Rollicking babies, cheery old men with wrinkled faces and twinkling eyes, lovely young girls, birds, animals, and flowers, this is a subjectmatter of much of the present-day ivory. These subjects are grouped and blended according to an endless variety of themes, through which, more often than not, ripples an irrepressible sense of fun.

Full of human interest, worked out with marvellous skill and patience without end, it is small wonder that Mr. Heinz has given the preference to the work of the Japanese in making his collection.

MYRA M. SAWHILL.