of joy. Again and again were the heavens rent with the inspiring sound. Nor did it cease; for the loud strain was carried from city to city and from State to State, till not a tongue was silent throughout this wide Republic from the lisping infant to the tremulous old man. All were united in one wild shout of gratulation. The voices of more than ten million freemen gushed up towards the sky and broke the stillness of its silent depths. But one note and one tone went to form this acclamation. Up in those pure regions clearly and sweetly did it sound: "Honor to Lafayette!" "Welcome to the Nation's Guest!" It was Lafayette, the war-worn veteran, whose arrival on our shores had caused this widespread, this universal joy. He came among us to behold the independence and the freedom which his young arm had so well assisted in achieving; and never before did eye behold or heart of man conceive, such homage paid to virtue. Every day's march was an ovation. The United States became for months one great festive hall. People forgot the usual occupations of life and crowded to behold the benefactor of mankind. The iron-hearted, gray-haired veterans of the Revolution thronged around him to touch his hand, to behold his face, and to call down Heaven's benisons upon their old companion-in-arms. Lisping infancy and garrulous old age, beauty, talents, wealth, and power, all, for a while forsook their usual pursuits and united to pay a tribute of gratitude and welcome to the nation's guest. The name of Lafayette was upon every lip, and wherever his name was, there, too, was an invocation for blessings upon his head. What were the triumphs of the classic ages, compared with this unbought love and homage of a mighty people? Take them in Rome's best days, when the invincible generals of the Eternal City returned from their foreign conquests, with captive kings bound to their chariot wheels and the spoils of nations in their train; followed by their stern and bearded warriors and surrounded by the endless multitudes of the seven-hilled city, shouting a fierce welcome home; what was such a triumph compared with Lafayette's? Not a single city, but a whole nation riding as one man and greeting him with an affectionate embrace! One single day of such spontaneous homage were worth

whole years of courtly adulation; one hour might well reward a man for a whole life of danger and of toil. Then, too, the joy with which he must have viewed the prosperity of the people for whom he had so heroically struggled! To behold the nation which he had left a little child, now grown up in the full proportions of lusty manhood! To see the tender sapling, which he had left with hardly shade enough to cover its own roots, now waxing into the sturdy and unwedgeable oak, beneath whose grateful umbrage the oppressed of all nations find shelter and protection! That oak still grows on in its majestic strength, and wider and wider still extends its mighty branches. But the hand that watered and nourished it while yet a tender plant is now cold; the heart that watched with strong affection its early growth has ceased to beat.

Virtue forms no shield to ward off the arrows of death. Could it have availed even when joined with the prayers of a whole civilized world, then, indeed, this mournful occasion would never have occurred and the life of Lafayette would have been as immortal as his fame. Yet, though he has passed from among us; though that countenance will no more be seen that used to lighten up the van of Freedom's battles as he led her eaglets to their feast; still has he left behind his better part: the legacy of his bright example, the memory of his deeds. The lisping infant will learn to speak his venerated name. The youth of every country will be taught to look upon his career and to follow in his footsteps. When hereafter a gallant people are fighting for freedom against the oppressor and their cause begins to wane before the mercenary bands of tyranny, then will the name of Lafayette become a watchword that will strike with terror on the tyrant's ear and nerve with redoubled vigor the freeman's arm. At that name many a heart before unmoved will wake in the glorious cause; and many a sword, rusting ingloriously in its scabbard, will leap forth to battle. But even amid the mourning with which our souls are shrouded, is there not some room for gratulation? Our departed friend and benefactor has gone down to the grave peacefully and quietly at a good old age. He had performed his appointed work. His virtues were ripe.

He had done nothing to sully his fair fame. No blot or soil of envy or calumny can now affect him. His character will stand upon the pages of history, pure and unsullied as the lilied emblem on his country's banner. He has departed from among us; but he has become again the companion of Washington. He has but left the friends of his old age to associate with the friends of his youth. Peace be to his ashes! Calm and quiet may they rest upon some vine-clad hill of his own beloved land! And it shall be called the Mount Vernon of France. And let no cunning sculpture, no monumental marble, deface with its mock dignity the patriot's grave; but rather let the unpruned vine, the wild flower and the free song of the uncaged bird, all that speaks of freedom and of peace be gathered round it. Lafayette needs no mausoleum. His fame is mingled with the nation's history. His epitaph is engraved upon the hearts of men.

JEAN FRANÇOIS RAFFAELLI

THE UNIVERSALITY OF ART

[Address by Jean François Raffaelli, painter, sculptor, and critic, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor (born in Paris, April 20, 1850; -), delivered at the fourth celebration of Founder's Day, at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pa., November 2, 1899. President W. N. Frew occupied the chair.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND FRIENDS:-I would have laughed much if I had been told, some twenty years ago, that I would consent to cross the ocean and come to America in order to act as a member of a jury in Pittsburg, and I would have hastened to consult the map about the situation of this city. For in France our geographical knowledge does not extend beyond Switzerland and Belgium, East and North, and Italy and Spain on the South. And, besides, twenty years ago, if I am to believe the most authoritative ci your fellow citizens, Pittsburg did not. exist for us; we, the artists, scarcely existed for Pittsburg. This fact was to be regretted both by the people of Pittsburg and by the artists. To speak the truth, if I have agreed to come among you, it was because your city really represents not only that genius of construction and invention which is peculiar to this nation, but because, thanks to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, it represents by the establishment of this Carnegie Institute an idea, a truly great idea.

If France has deserved some consideration in the history of nations, it is because she has, for a long time,―has ever struggled more for ideas than for material interests. Indeed, when Lafayette came to place himself on your side a hundred years ago, it was because you then represented in the human society, an idea, beautiful above all

ideas, the idea of the liberty of the people. And if artists of some renown have come, and will come,-—and submit to be more or less sick on a rough sea for fifteen long daysit is because Pittsburg, outside of her great industrial interests, which excell those of the largest industrial cities of the two worlds, represents to-day in the world of arts an idea. This idea is not only the idea of national but of international, universal art.

And allow me to claim here the priority of this idea for a small group of artists to whom I had the honor to belong in my youth. I refer to that group who were called Impressionists. Twenty years ago, in Paris, the Academy des Beaux Arts was all-powerful, just as in London is the Royal Academy. Now, at that time a dozen of artists united together, to use a Biblical expression. These artists, most of them poor, had a mutual admiration for each other, which is rather rare among artists. [Laughter.] They aimed to be the painters of their time, of their epoch, at a moment when Greek or Roman subjects alone were admired and rewarded. They grouped themselves, exhibited their works together, and the public, who did not understand them at that time, with laughter and mockery, called them "The Impressionists." None of us at first accepted this name, because we did not know, no more than we do to-day, what it meant. But it remained attached to us, and we had to keep it and to drag it along, just as dogs drag a saucepan which has been fastened to their tails. Thus we became what people called the Impressionists.

Now, do you know of whom this group was composed, each of whom was of a temperament totally different from that of his neighbor, just as the artists who were called the artists of the School of 1830-Corot, Eugene Delacroix, and Millet-differed? This little group was made up of Degas, whose mother was an Italian; of Claude Monet, a Frenchman; of Mary Cassatt, an American, whose family's cradle was in Pittsburg; of Sissley, whose mother was English; of Pissarro, from Holland; of Reneir, a Frenchman; and of your servant, whose grandfather was a Florentine. These were the members of the little group that has since agitated the world of arts. We represented—yes, we represented, without thinking of it,