In and out of Florence; a new introduction to a well-known city . ory. I dont know anything about pictures, respondsour friend from the Middle West to Ruskin, but Iknow what I like, and I dont like this. He has said that about music too, when he hashad to sit through Parsifal at Bayreuth or aBach fugue at the Berlin Philharmonic. He addedhis voice loudly to that overpowering chorus thatmade Breaking Home Ties the greatest pic-ture at the Chicago Exposition; and when Sousasband rose as one man and waved the American flagin the Trip to Coney Island, he said: There,thats something like music. But
In and out of Florence; a new introduction to a well-known city . ory. I dont know anything about pictures, respondsour friend from the Middle West to Ruskin, but Iknow what I like, and I dont like this. He has said that about music too, when he hashad to sit through Parsifal at Bayreuth or aBach fugue at the Berlin Philharmonic. He addedhis voice loudly to that overpowering chorus thatmade Breaking Home Ties the greatest pic-ture at the Chicago Exposition; and when Sousasband rose as one man and waved the American flagin the Trip to Coney Island, he said: There,thats something like music. But his wife, whonever is a Philistine but always a Phil-Ruskin, drawsin her breath before a one-star picture and lets it outagain in an ecstatic sigh before a two-star one. Sherevels in ready-made admirations and recommendedaversions. Where, Indeed, shall we stand between not knowingabout pictures but knowing what we like, and notknowing anything at all but taking somebodys shil-ling short-cut to knowing everything? The presumption is not mine to say. Indeed, one. The Uffizi 115 must find oneself; and my own troubles are sufficientto me for my days. But honesty and independencecoupled with due respect to authority that justifiesitself, recognition of what is unattainable but astrong hope and desire to attain what is possible,some little information about the times and life of theartist, some little also about the subject of the pic-ture; these, with our own glad eyes, an open mind,and a hungering soul must be an equipment ablesomeway to find us a better standpoint than the pride-ful honesty of blatant ignorance, or the silly hypocrisythat conceals an equal ignorance neither from othersnor ourselves. All the guide-books I ever read ask the travelerto see too much, says Hutton in some book of Is going to be the exception; In fact, It will nottell of seeing enough, and hence it will not be suffi-cient to most as a guide-book. But where, as in theFlorence galleries, the pict
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidinoutofflore, bookyear1910
