COMMENT
We take great pleasure in presenting to our readers this month the first installment of a serial story by the famous Spanish novelist, D. Ramon Ortega y Frias. The translation is the work of Mr. L. Solyom, of Washington, whose ability as a linguist is well known and of a very high order. “Elena’s Daughters,” a romance full of the charm of movement and color, depicts, with unusual skill, the life of the Spanish people in the early part of the Seventeenth Century, when Philip IV was king, and when love was won by the sword and honor was held to be a priceless thing. The manners and customs, the superstitions and ignorance, the desperate bravery and cunning of the times are made to contribute to the absorbing interest of the story, an interest that is fully maintained to the concluding sentence of the last chapter.
D. Ramon Ortega y Frias was born in 1825. Long sickness and family misfortunes compelled him to give up studies and to devote his life to literary pursuits. He is one of the most popular Spanish novelists—in fact, he may be considered the father of the Spanish novel, being the first to replace the numerous French translations which were almost exclusively read before he wrote his original compositions. His subjects are drawn from Spanish history and give true pictures of the manners and customs of the country. He has also translated some works from the French, and has written poetry and numerous critical literary articles.
Through the courtesy of Mr. Hugh Nicholson, the well-known English miniaturist, we are enabled to reproduce one of his most important miniatures. It is called “An Eighteenth Century Beauty,” and was given the place of honor in the inaugural exhibition of the London Society of Miniature Painters, held in 1896. Mr. Nicholson has been engaged in painting little portraits of prominent Baltimoreans for the past two seasons, and his recent return to Baltimore from abroad proves the continuance of his well-merited popularity. His work is distinguished by exquisitely delicate coloring and technique, and never lacks the strength necessary to the successful portrayal of character.
A most important event in the artistic life of the South, and one whose ultimate results are likely to be of such a far-reaching nature that is impossible to even roughly estimate their valve at the present time, occurred on January 18th., 1899. On that day a group of representative and influential gentlemen met at theresidence of Mr. Theodore Marburg and founded what is known as The Municipal Art Association of the City of Baltimore. Although the idea of such an organization is not a new one,—such associations already exist and are in a flourishing condition in New York, Boston and other Northern Cities,—no such society can be found elsewhere in the South. Baltimore can therefore for once be justly congratulated on having shown a spirit of real enterprise and civic pride, which, sooner or later, is sure to be followed by all her Southern sisters.
The main object of this new municipal art association is to receive and collect funds for the beautifying of the public squares and buildings of the City. It will also use its utmost endeavors—through experts and disinterested, broad-minded laymen—to have such funds judiciously expended. It is proposed to enlarge the membership, which is somewhat limited at present, as much as possible and at the same time, to form a woman’s auxiliary branch that will work in harmony with the main organization, composed exclusively of men. It is estimated that a body of at least two thousand public-spirited men and women can thus be found and eventually welded into a powerful association devoted to the very best artistic interests of the people of Baltimore. If this calculation is correct, a considerable amount of money will accumulate annually in the treasury of the society, solely from the collection of the yearly dues, which have been wisely fixed at the small sum of $5.00. In order to increase the association’s resources much more rapidly than is otherwise practicable, it has been resolved that life membership may be procured by those who are willing to pay the sum of $100.00, and that the title of “Patron” will be bestowed on all those who are liberal enough to donate the sum of $1000, or more. The money so collected from dues and voluntary contributions is to be carefully husbanded until the amount becomes sufficiently large to justify the directors in opening a worthy competition for the decoration of some public building, the erection of a statue, or the building of a monument of real and lasting artistic merit. It may not be possible to procure enough money to purchase such a work of art annually, but it will be a question of only a few years at most before the results of this much needed society will become evident to the least observant. It is with feelings of the greatest pleasure that we commend this highly laudable and intelligent movement to the people of Baltimore, and we hope they will give it their unswerving and enthusiastic support.
At the first meeting of the organizers of The Municipal Art Association of the City of Baltimore, it was stated that the articles and by-laws governing this new society had been taken almost bodily from those of the New York organization. It was argued that as they had been thoroughly tested and proved to be of great working value in New York, therefore they must of necessity be suited to the needs of Baltimore. In a certain measure this is true, but the reasoning is rather fallacious and misleading. The artistic conditions that prevail at the present time in the two cities are by no means the same: New York has a Metropolitan Museum, filled with the finest specimens of ancient and modern art, which is alwaysopen to the public, besides an Academy of Design, a Society of American Artists, an Architectural League and any number of galleries that are constantly instructing the people in what is being done by native and foreign contemporaneous artists—whether they be painters, sculptors, or architects. In Baltimore we have only the Walters’ Gallery,—a wonderfully fine collection of paintings, ceramics, and bronzes, to be sure, but one that is practically unchanging and that is open to the public for only a comparatively few days of the year,—and such small exhibitions of pictures as can be collected from time to time through the efforts and enterprise of Mr. David Bendann and the Charcoal Club—an organization that is far from being supported as it should be by those interested in the artistic development of the City.
General Felix Agnus forcibly voiced the feeling of a great many of the gentlemen who founded the new society when he suggested that the scope of The Municipal Art Association of the City of Baltimore be enlarged by such changes in the articles of incorporation as would eventually empower it to erect a public Museum, and to receive bequests in the shape of paintings and other works of art. We would go farther than General Agnus and suggest to the board of Directors that the New Art Association be not only empowered to collect funds to build a Museum, but a fire-proof, well-lighted gallery also, constructed especially for, and devoted solely to a yearly exhibition of works by modern artists. Until this is done Baltimore must of necessity remain more or less ignorant and provincial in all artistic matters. Galleries for such yearly exhibitions exist in every other large city of the United States, and that one has not been built here long ago is due, we are sure, not to a dearth of funds or taste, but solely to a curious lack of co-operation among those who have the power and the inclination to stimulate the rational development of a love for things of beauty.
We therefore hope that The Municipal Art Association of the City of Baltimore will not imitate too closely the objects and the by-laws of the New York Society, but will add these other two extremely necessary projects to an already praiseworthy program, and thereby render our citizens more appreciative of the artistic attractions they propose to offer them in the near future.
There is no spectacular display, either in the old world or in the new, to compare with the New Orleans Mardi Gras. But there has been too little care paid to the development of the floats and of the costumes of the mummers,—those which are directly under the control of the committee which is usually placed in charge.
We are always interested in art, and in the artist, and would suggest that our New Orleans friends might add greatly to the excellence of their entertainment by consulting men more of an artistic than of a business temperament in arranging their annual and unique displays.
The movements in the local security markets have shown a somewhat halting tendency of late. This is not unnatural, following the sustained upward movementand the broad and active buying which has marked the operations in stocks and bonds for several months. Operators and dealers are not disturbed that the market should rest for awhile, and confidence is easy where it is felt that the rising trend to values will again occur as soon as investors have been able to scan the field anew and to digest the conditions which affect the values of securities.
There has been no decline here, as this is essentially an investment and not a speculative market. Prices are not stimulated or advanced by stock jobbing operations and false rumors which so seriously affect values in speculative centres, but rest solely on the merits of the property which the security represents. There has been a slight shading of values in a few instances in issues which had been rapidly advanced by the strong public demand. This was notably the case in the shares of some of the new trust companies. The Continental Trust stock had an abnormal rise to $285 a share, representing a premium of $85 a share, as $200 a share will be paid in by the stockholders. Since the Stock Exchange permitted trading in the receipts of this company the premium has declined 25 points, as at the close of last week it was reported that the stock had been offered 110, with 100 the best bid. Citizens’ Trust shares have also fallen off from 57 to 49½, with declines less marked in the shares of the older institutions, and with many of them showing gains.
The announcement of the entrance into the local trust field of a new company with large capital and influential backing probably had some unfavorable effect on the stocks of the companies recently started. This new concern will be a strong bidder for business, and while it is expected to work in a field of development, it is not unlikely to receive some business which would have gone to the other companies.
This field of trust seems to be a favorable and a profitable one, however, for large combinations of capital.
We spoke in our last issue of the opportunity that was about to be given to erect a fine and lasting monument to the memory of the Confederate and Federal soldiers who lost their lives on the battle-field of Antietam. This opportunity presented itself early in January to the judges in charge of the competition for a commemorative monument, or statue, for the erection of which ample funds were voted by the Maryland Legislature. We had some misgivings as to the artistic merits of the sketch that would be chosen,—owing to the fact that such awards are usually left to the taste of artistically incompetent persons, instead of to men whose training and experience guarantee that the work shall be, if not great, of at least a fair average quality,—but we had no idea that even judges selected at random (as these evidently were) would be willing to put themselves on record as approving a design that, while not out of place for a summer-house or a soda-water fountain, is altogether so in a memorial erected to the glory of our dead heroes.
If these gentlemen paid for the monument out of their own pockets and offered it to the State as a gift, it still ought to be refused as utterly unworthy the subject, or of public acceptance, but it is nothing less than outrageous to force the taxpayersof Maryland to accept and to furnish money for such a travesty on good taste. To make matters even worse, and that, strange to say, the judges found was entirely possible, the award was given to a New England contractor, so that we are not only to have a most inappropriate monument, but an inappropriate one made in another State for which an important sum of money must be paid by the people of Maryland. We are not narrow-minded in these matters, and believe that, to fittingly honor our brave dead, we should have the best sculptor or architect that can be procured, no matter whence he comes, but it can hardly be claimed in this case that it was necessary to go outside the State.
In fact, it seems to us, it would hardly have been possible to find anything more trivial or unsuitable, even had a prize been especially offered for that purpose. That such things are accepted with so little complaint by the press and public almost justifies one in abandoning hope that we shall ever see any real improvement in our muddled way of looking at questions of this sort.
No military organization in the United States is better and more favorably known than the Fifth Maryland, distinctively a Southern regiment.
For over thirty years it has stood the equal of any militia regiment in the country. In latter years the only organization, in the popular mind, that challenged its supremacy was the Seventh New York, and when the famed Seventh declined to go to the Spanish war and the Fifth, in a body, volunteered for government service, to go anywhere they were ordered to go and do anything they were asked to do, there could be no further doubt that the Fifth Maryland, which has always clung to its gray uniform, emblematic of other days, was the “real thing,” as far as the militia of the country was concerned.
It seems a shame that not only the people of Baltimore and of Maryland, but the people of the South generally, should not take vigorous offence that at this time, after the regiment has served its country for over three months, and has returned to its armory in Baltimore, for what are, apparently, political reasons and reasons of personal gratification, this splendid body of men should be threatened with dissolution.
In this condition which confronts the command several things enter.
In the first place, there never was any discord, never any disagreement among the officers until a certain element appeared. This element has gone now, but other troubles have arisen. Its old commanding officer, whom all the men loved, was prevented from going to the Spanish war with his command—questionably prevented,—as subsequent events have shown. With him, “physically disqualified,” were other officers, quite as well beloved and respected by the men, and all of these gentlemen still hold their commissions from the State of Maryland.
The order retiring them was one from the Adjutant-General of the State, which order, by the way, has very recently been revoked,—and now a board has been appointed to examine these officers physically and otherwise. Before theAdjutant-General recalled his retirement order, they had asked to be returned to the offices to which their commissions lawfully entitled them.
The make-up of the board appointed to treat the cases of these officers has been questioned, not only upon the ground that it is partisan, but because some of its members are not qualified to serve upon it. Before this number of “Dixie” goes to press the board will have met. Possibly it will have reached its decision. It is probable, if it disqualifies these men, that numbers of Southerners will consider it a case of hanging them first and trying them afterwards.
The people like the Fifth Maryland. Its officers like it. And if the “retired” officers are not allowed to go back to their command,—these officers whom their men love,—there will be no more Fifth Regiment. Its other officers will resign, its faithful enlisted men will vanish like smoke, and in the place of the Fifth of fame there will be a hybrid combination, sustained by that sort of political power that commands no respect from honest-thinking men.
There is yet time for the “powers that be” to pause. The Fifth Regiment is not a thing to be ruthlessly slaughtered. Parties come and parties go, but there are elections yet to come, and the men of Maryland and of the South will not forget those who killed their cherished Fifth Maryland.