themselves to would-be students of this subject, and he therefore devotes the first chapter to a careful consideration of elementary principles. Appended is a brief discussion of logarithmic and ribbed oblique arches. Numerous cuts illustrate the principles explained.
The Making of Pictures. Twelve Short Talks with Young People. By Sarah W. Whitman. Chicago: The Interstate Publishing Company. Pp. 131. Price, 60 cents.
In this book the writer has undertaken to treat of the principles underlying the various processes of making pictures—oil and water-color painting, etching, wood and line engraving, photography, and the various reproductive processes.
First, the author, herself an artist, seeks to help her young friends to an understanding of what art is, and assist them to recognize that subtile "something" which marks the difference between a mere picture—no matter how well done—and a true work of art.
In this connection she speaks of the great laws that exist in art as well as in morals—which laws must be thoroughly understood and comprehended even by those who would merely look at pictures, and speak intelligently of them. Then she tells of the fundamental principles that underlie the different ways of making pictures. No attempt is made to teach how to paint in oil, or how to execute an etching, but the implements necessary are enumerated, and the modes of procedure in each process are sketched in clear, bold outlines.
Lectures and Essays by the late William Kingdon Clifford, F. R. S. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock. With an Introduction by F. Pollock. Second edition. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp.443. Price, $2.50.
Professor Clifford was a thinker and philosopher—he can hardly be called a writer except in a subsidiary sense—of the rarest qualities of mind, and some of them unique. He seemed to have the power, to a degree which is seldom exhibited, of grasping comprehensively the most abstruse subjects, seeing into them clearly and deeply, and of expressing himself lucidly and vigorously upon them. No better conception can be gained of the character of the work which he produced, including the pieces which are embodied in this volume, than by taking a few views of the representations of the various sides of his nature as they are given by his friend Mr. Pollock, in the biographical introduction. The picture, as a whole, is a charming study of a man who differed much—in excellences—from others of his kind. Clifford began to attract attention not long after he had entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a young man of extraordinary mathematical powers, and eccentric in appearance, habits, and opinions, and withal an ardent High Churchman. Mr. Pollock, his fellow-student, was early struck with the "daring versatility of his talk. Even then there was no subject on which he was not ready with something in point, generally of an unexpected kind; and his unsurpassed power of mathematical expression was already longing to find exercise." Being asked for aid in solving some elaborate geometrical theorem, he spoke, appearing "not to be working out a question, but simply telling what he saw. Without any diagram or symbolic aid, he described the geometrical conditions on which the solution depended, and they seemed to stand out visibly in space. There were no longer consequences to be deduced, but real and evident facts, which only required to be seen." This incident illustrates Clifford's theory of what teaching ought to be, and his constant way of carrying it out. He showed great taste for gymnastics, in which his accomplishments "were the only ones in which he ever manifested pride," and when he took his degree he had the distinction of being pointed out in "Bell's Life" as an example of a superior scholar who was also a superior athlete. While pre-eminently mathematical, he was at various times and in various ways marked out for honorable mention in classics, modern history, and English literature. He was fond of historical reading, but took a poetical or dramatical rather than a scientific view of the subject, and saw events "in a series of vivid pictures, which had the force of present realities, as each came in turn before the mind's eye." He did not care
