Слике страница
PDF
ePub
[subsumed][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic][merged small]

Spanish, 1746-1828. Reproduced by special permission from the original painting in the collection of Henry Clay Frick, Esquire.

The vital and fecund Goya may be rightly termed the last of the old masters and the first of moderns, for he outlived eighteenthcentury traditions and was the immediate precursor of Delacroix and the French romantic school. This picture, which represents the interior of a Spanish smithy, was painted about 1818, and at one time belonged in the Galerie Espagnole of Louis-Philippe. -"The Field of Art," page 513.

[blocks in formation]

The man who was also a werewolf sat in his arbor, drinking excellent beer. He was not an ill-looking man. His fondness for an out-of-door life had given him a ruddy color. He was tall and blond. His eyes were gray. But there was a shifty look in them, now dreamy, now fierce. At times they contracted to mere slits. His chin sloped away to nothing. His legs were long and thin, his movements springy and uncertain.

The philosopher who came to pay his respects to the man who was also a werewolf (whom we shall henceforth call MWAW for short) was named Professor Schmuck. He was a globular man, with protruding china-blue eyes, much magnified by immense spectacles. The fame of his book on "Eschatological Problems among the Hivites and Hittites" was world-wide. But his real specialty was universal knowledge.

Yet on entering the arbor where MWAW was sitting, this world-renowned Learned One made three deep obeisances, as if he were approaching an idol, and stammered in a husky voice: "Highly Exalted!-dare I——?”

"Ah, our good Schmuck!" said MWAW, turning in his chair and recrossing his legs. "Come in. Take place. Take beer. Take breath. Speak out."

The professor, thus graciously reassured, set forth his errand.

"I have come to you, Highly Exalted, to inquire your exalted views on the subject of Lycanthropy. Your Exaltedness knows

[ocr errors]

"Yes, yes," broke in MWAW, "old Teutonic legend. Men become wolves. Strongest and fiercest breed. Eat people up. Frighten everybody. Ravage countryside. Beautiful myth! Teaches power is greatest thing. Might gives right. Force over all!"

"Certainly, Highly Exalted," said Schmuck humbly, "it is a wonder-beautiful myth, full of true idealism. But what if it lost its purely mythical quality and became historical, actual, contemporaneous? Would it not change its aspect? Would not people object to it? Might not the werewolf get himself disliked?"

"Perhaps," answered MWAW, smiling till his eyes almost disappeared. "But what difference? Ignorant people, weak people, no account. Werewolf is stronger race, therefore superior. Objections silly.

[ocr errors]

"True, Exaltedness," said Schmuck. "It is the first duty of every ideal to realCopyright, 1917, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved.

Printed in New York.

« ПретходнаНастави »