Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Kingsley's answers for comparison. It is like listening to a brilliant conversation carried on through a telephone-you only get half of it. Though he was a strenuous opponent to the great dogmas of Christianity-yet that is hardly a fair statement, for his position was not so much one of opposition as of interrogation-he longed for evidence that should convince him. Miracles were not antecedently incredible to him, it was only a question of evidence. The immortality of the soul was reasonable, still he wanted

evidence. His clear thinking and brilliantly logical way of putting things really provide the Christian controversialist with some splendid weapons for his armory, and I think Huxley meant to do that very thing. For instance, there is a thought in one of his letters about the possibility of prayer which is so striking and brilliant that it alone seems to establish the efficacy of prayer-postulating the existence of God, of course.

His achievements as a scientist were remarkable. Beginning with a new dis

covery in physiology while still a child, he was found in the forefront of every movement for the advance of human knowledge in the scientific field during his long life.

While it may be questioned whether he belongs in the front rank of the great creative scientists like Darwin, yet no man did more to establish the theory of evolution than Huxley. "I am Darwin's

sword," he used to say, and it is not too much to affirm that the battle for scientific truth which has been won in the last half of the century was fought on Darwin's creed by Huxley's sword.

It seems to me that the man went through life with Pontius Pilate's question upon his lips, "What is truth ?" And he found so much that was true on his own account and helped others see so much that was true in the work of men who were greater in mind but less in personality than himself, that we may confidently hope, in spite of his failure to see other truths-though he seems to have sought diligently for them-that he has his reward; and that, though aforetime he could not even see through the glass darkly, he now sees face to face.

To turn from the man to the book, if any criticism is to be made it may be said there is too much of it. Many letters are given which are of little importance and which merely cumber the pages and add

to the size of the volume. For the rest the brief comments of the author and compiler are lucid and helpful, and his own personality does not obtrude itself in the pages. It is Thomas Henry Huxley from beginning to end, and Thomas Henry Huxley is a good man to study and to know.

In addition to the brilliant and vivid self-revelation of Huxley contained in his son's compilation, Mr. P. Chalmers Mitchell has made an important contribution to the literature of the subject. His book is not so much a life as it is a clear and consecutive statement from an impartial and outside standpoint of what Huxley actually accomplished, a critical comment upon his views, words and work. It supplements the larger volumes in a natural and pleasing way. For instance, in reading the son's biography, you sometimes find it difficult not to lose sight of the work in the man and the impression you get is not so much what Huxley did but what Huxley was. In the later book, it is what Huxley did that engages the attention, rather than what he was. From the two you derive a complete and comprehensive idea of the man, his work and his time. I know few eminent people who have been so well served by those who sought to draw them for the future. Mr. Mitchell has done his work impartially, lucidly and well.

Cyrus Townsend Brady.

[blocks in formation]

-From "On Life's Stairway," by Frederic Laurence Knowles. By permission of Messrs. L. C. Page & Co.

J

THE CRAFT OF THE WEAVER

"The soft wool-woofed carpets."-KEATS.

UST when the art of weaving-one of the most useful and beautiful of the arts had its genesis, is involved in the mists of uncertainty. The precise date. of its origin will probably never be definitely ascertained, unless some historical tablet hitherto hidden from modern vision, like the great polished granite slab at South Kensington, which in clearly incised and gilded hieroglyphics records the mystic lore of Egypt, is resurrected from a corner of the remote East. Or, wrapped in odorous winding sheets, perchance some mummy who sleeps his long and dreamless sleep in a forgotten tomb, may yield the secret from his withered hand, or disclose it graven upon his signet-ring.

The period representing the full florescence of the art may be placed far more definitely, if not with almost absolute certainty. Archæologians by general consent ascribe the discovery of carpetweaving to the ancient Babylonians or Egyptians. The Babylonian women excelled in needlework, in gorgeous golden and silver embroideries. Equally, the ancient Medes and Persians, the Phoenicians and other Oriental peoples, were celebrated for their tissues of rich designs and brilliant colorings that were prized by ancient Greece and Rome, as to-day the Occident sets store upon the handiwork of the Oriental craftsman in wool. The matting of plaited rushes, so commonly employed in the Levant, may have been the initial form from which the perfected Persian carpet sprang. Unquestionably, the spider, whose loom is universal, was the first weaver; and from him

ORIENTAL RUGS. By John Kimberley Mumford. With 32 full-page illustrations, 16 in colors. Charles Scribner's Sons, large 8vo, $7.50 net.

the Eastern mind perhaps may have received its tutelage in the cunning of warp and woof.

It is an art peculiar to itself, differing from those of alien peoples-an art full of symbolism, radiant with color, replete with fancy-embodying in its weird and infinite designs the mysticism of Islam, and shedding the warm sunshine of the tropics from its innumerable strangely blended hues. The mosque, minaret and kiosk, the tramp of the caravan, the lotus and cypress, the misleading mirage, the glare of desert sands, the faithful bowed in prayer, the dervish and dancing-girl, blended with the odors of sandal wood and attar of rose-all are summoned to the mind; and seem reflected from its silken sheen on contemplating a glorious antique Oriental rug. Perchance the wondrous skill of the carpet-weaver, who plays with color as a juggler disports with his balls, is most felicitously expressed in a tradition of the Prophet before whom a weaver once appeared and said:

"O Prophet! I passed through a wood and heard the voices of the young of birds, and I took and put them into my carpet, and their mother came fluttering round my head."

It is only within a comparatively short period that the beauty and advantages of Oriental rugs and carpets have come to be so widely appreciated with us. Twenty years ago, before the great demand for them arose, fine specimens were readily obtainable. To-day, perfect antique pieces are more and more difficult to procure, their value having risen annually in proportion to their growing scarcity and the public demand. Indeed, many antique weaves, like the matchless Ghiordes,

which rival in beauty a painting by a great master, as well as the old Kulahs, Koniehs and other splendid old prayerrugs are well-nigh extinct.

And yet more rare than the gems of Turkey and Persia has been the information concerning them-including a classification of their numerous families and sub-families, and an accurate résumé of their variform designs, colorings, qualities, weaves, peculiarities, symbols, etc. Many have long desired a comprehensive monograph on this useful and fascinating subject, beyond the works of Vincent Robinson, various German and French technical treatises, and the unwieldy and very expensive, though beautiful,"limited" illustrated elephantine folio, "Oriental Carpets," published by the Imperial and Royal Austrian Museum in 1892.

So great are the burdens such a task would impose, however, that few would care to incur them-the varying nomenclature of the various products of the loom in itself presenting a serious obstacle to any authoritative classification. Moreover, the Oriental rug with its medley of patterns and tints-each individual example differing from every other example of its special class, and utterly at variance with those of other districts, often even in its chosen sizes-is most difficult to describe intelligently; as difficult indeed as the moods and tenses of the Arabic are trying to translate. No one but the student of Oriental textiles can appreciate the labor of sorting the multitudinous weaves from the network of names by which they figure in commerce and also among connoisseurs in different countries, inclusive of the land of their origin. To treat understandingly of the subject, calls besides for a protracted sojourn in the countries themselves; or, as it has been observed, "To understand the carpets of the East, you must live with them, and live with them long."

The virtuoso, the average buyer, and the general reader, therefore, will hail with pleasure the discovery of one who has accomplished this task in an eminently satisfactory manner-even to visiting the weaver while employed with his shuttle at his home. Nor can the booklover fail to be impressed with the highly artistic and sumptuous manner in which the publishers have presented the information that so many will be grateful to obtain. And while it cannot be said that the author has entirely solved the vexed question of nomenclature; for from the very nature of things this were virtually impossible-yet it must be acknowledged he has done much in unravelling its tangled skein. But the author does not profess to be infallible in this and many other phases of his deeply perplexing subject. "The latitude for error is boundless, even to the best judges," he truly observes, "since manufacture for market has become the rule instead of the exception, and European and American designs have been sent to the Oriental weaver for working. There is perhaps no art in which opinions as to the origin of products differ so widely, and with reason upon the side of all. Hence no writer, no authority, so called, no dealer in rugs may lay claim to infallibility." The colored plates in this large quarto of 278 pages, said to be done by a new and secret process, are superb; while the numerous artotypes and photo-engravings render the volume unusually attractive. In addition to a full index, there are maps of the rug-producing countries, and a valuable "Textile Table," descriptive of the diverse knots, warps, woofs, piles, etc., employed in the different districts. The contents of the monograph include: History, The Rugweaving Peoples, Materials, Dyers and Dyes, Design, Weaving, Classification, Caucasian, Turkish, Persian, Turkoman, Khilims, Indian.

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »