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LIFE, LETTERS, AND THE ARTS

POLO IN SCULPTURE

AN American sculptor, Mr. Herbert Heseltine, has discovered a new field for sculpture, almost entirely unencumbered with traditions. He has devoted himself to immortalizing polo players and their ponies in bronze, and his work so far includes some highly original and very spirited pieces. Polo is the statue which has attracted most attention at the exhibition of his work held in London. It represents two players dashing at the ball, which lies on the ground at the very edge of the group; their horses at full speed, their bodies bent far forward, and their mallets flung far above them, ready for the downward sweep of their blows. It is the long slender lines of these mallets which produce the sense of breathlessness that the group gives. The rush of the horses, the virility and vigor of the riders, and the extraordinary life of the whole composition require only this final touch. Incidentally, it may be remarked that the mallets occupy almost half of the total height of the composition.

Another polo statue is called Riding Off. In this the thrust of the man and the horse against the striker is perfectly realized, and the silhouette of the whirling legs of the horses is resolved into a pattern which gives all the fury of the actual encounter and yet maintains a rhythm.

The exhibition naturally includes many statues of horses, and several portraits in bronze of famous steeds. King Edward's charger, Kildare, Queen Alexandra's barouche horse, Splendor, and a number of famous polo ponies are among his subjects. One of the best is a superbly modeled small bronze, An International Polo Pony.

Mr. Heseltine has created a piece of terrible realism in a group of war horses, which he calls Les Revenants. It consists of a long cavalcade of worn-out cavalry and artillery horses, driven along by two soldiers, one riding ahead and one in the rear. The composition approximates the rhythm of classic sculpture. Its subject leads an English critic to remark: 'Looking at this group one wonders if Mr. Heseltine will some day design a group of the new horror in Mesopotamia, where thousands of horses, who had served our men in the war there, are to be killed because it costs too much to bring them home. Surely that is a subject for symbolic sculpture!'

Mr. Heseltine has studied in Paris. He was a student of Morot, and a good deal of his work has been done in Spain. Practically all of his statues are of horses, although the present exhibition includes one figure of a bull, in which he again approaches the classics, this time in simplicity of outline.

MR. BERNARD SHAW AND THE

BULGARIANS

A PLAY by Mr. Bernard Shaw entitled Heroes evidently Arms and the Man has given profound offense to Bulgarian students who witnessed a performance at the Schönbrunn Castle Theatre in Vienna. The manager, who had been informed in advance of the hostile intentions of the Bulgarian members of the audience, made a speech before the play began, explaining that neither the author nor the theatre intended to offend the Bulgarians, and suggesting that the audience might regard Bulgaria in the play as

thirty works in Spanish and French have appeared on the subject.

The present exhibition is the result and culmination of this interest. The figures have, in most cases, been admirably reproduced. They include what seem to be Iberian letters, those, for instance, of Fuencaliente,-spirited fishes, and suns (which seem to have been the favorite subjects of art at Las Batuecas); horseshoes, women wearing short modern skirts, pictures of the chase and of the dance, tiny and most artistic stags from the Eastern regions of the Peninsula, and the magnificent, nearly life-size wild boars and bisons of Altamira, in the Northwest. The coloring of many of these figures is often extremely interesting. An interval of thousands of years divides some of the drawings from others; but all are very

remote.

ANDREYEV'S LATEST PLAY

M. LEONID ANDREYEV lives up to his reputation for wild, savage power in the most recently published of his plays, To the Stars, one of the 'Plays for a People's Theatre,' which has just been translated by Mr. Maurice Magnus. An astronomer is the central figure of the new play, and the scene is in the remote, snow-bound observatory where he lives, remote from the struggles and passions of mankind, a philosopher and a poet, with a logic all his own. Since M. Andreyev has created this astronomer, even the cold mathematics of his science necessarily becomes a little mad.

Into the chill scientific atmosphere of the observatory come crowding suddenly the refugees from a revolution which has been crushed on the earth far below. The refugees are members of the astronomer's family, or their associates, who feel contempt for this mere

stargazer, who is lifted so far above the human struggle; for to him 'death, injustice, misfortune-all the black shadows of the earth are vain cares.'

-

They oppose him. Friction and hatred grow in the observatory. The astronomer's trusted assistant, incensed by the wickedness of the world of humanity, rebels against the stars which he has studied; and persecution and cruelty force his son to madness. For an instant he himself trembles on the verge of the breaking-point, but he recovers. The play closes with a salutation to creative force which is one of the finest things in the play. The essential dramatic opposition is maintained throughout, between the sufferings of earth and a faith in the distant and unknown.

THE GHOSTLY IMMIGRANT

THE London Morning Post prints the following extraordinary narrative, which no good American can fail to enjoy:

An American visitor was giving the other day some examples of the extraordinary speed and completeness with which the pro

cess of Americanization is carried out, even in the case of extreme alien types. Perhaps the most extraordinary instances occurred in the newly erected mansion, built in the style of an E-shaped Elizabethan manor, of a Chicago multi-millionaire. He decided to import a ghost to heighten the illusion of antiquity, and, after a prolonged search and the expenditure of a considerable sum of money, a satisfactory specimen was picked up in Devonshire and shipped to Chicago in cold storage. It walked by daylight and had every appearance, both as regards garb and figure, of having just missed the sailing of the Mayflower. The millionaire and his friends, some of the best people in Chicago, were delighted with its old-world looks and solemn deportment. On the third day, unfortunately, it was seen eating a doughnut.

lifted the veil of the love ofthe son of the Khan,

And the maid who wedded the Archer Prince whose love kissed the buds of fire that scented the clear breeze that lifted the veil of the love of the son of the Khan.

PROLONGING INSECT LIFE

A FRENCH biologist, M. Louis Destouches, has been conducting some interesting experiments in the control of the duration of life in the caterpillars and adults of a European butterfly, Galleria mellonella. They are described as follows in the June number of the Bibliothèque Universelle:

Can one prolong the life of man? In any event, the problem has suggested some interesting biological investigations - for example, those of M. Louis Destouches on the prolongation of life in Galleria mellonella. The duration of the whole life-cycle of the caterpillar of this species is about fourteen days at an optimum temperature of 37 degrees Centigrade. If one chills the surroundings, evolution goes on more slowly. Fifteen days are required at 34 degrees Centigrade; twenty-five days at 27 degrees. Below 17 degrees the transformation into the butterfly stage is rare; but the caterpillar lives two or three months. Between 10 and 4 degrees, the caterpillar ceases to move and to eat, dying in a month. From 4 to 2 degrees the process of oxygenation. has been so reduced that, in six months, it loses a few milligrammes; but brought back to the proper temperature, it takes up again the course of its existence.

M. Destouches submitted the caterpillar to the action of two alternating temperatures of one degree and 37 degrees Centigrade, twenty-four hours for each at a time. The life-cycle then required twenty-five days. But it will be observed that this had no influence on the duration of life and the activity of the butterfly. One can slow up by cold the life-processes of the caterpillar, without affecting the vitality of the butterfly. On the other hand if one submits the butterfly to this experiment of alternating temperatures, it appears that life is very much prolonged; they live 30 or 35 days in

stead of 6 or 8, and lay from 25 to 35 eggs instead of 10 to 15. The alternating of temperatures assures a quintuple duration of life and double the production of young. To sum up in order to prolong the duration of life of the caterpillar, low temperature is most efficacious, and to prolong that of the butterfly one must use alternating temperatures.

These experiments are in some respects a continuation of those begun by the eminent American entomologist, W. H. Edwards, who for many years made an exhaustive investigation of the effect of temperature upon the American butterfly, Papilio ajax, a form peculiar to the Southern part of the United States. His studies, which were mainly devoted to the changes produced in color by alterations of the temperatures of chrysalides, were later used by August Weismann, the leader of the German Neo-Darwinians, in his Studies in the Theory of Descent.

PREHISTORIC ART IN MADRID

THE world's first exhibition of prehistoric art unless our primeval ancestors were more up-to-date than we think is now in progress in Madrid. The exhibits consist of reproductions of the paintings in the caves of Altamira, about two miles from Santillana del Mar in the province of Santander. The reproductions are made by the Society of the Friends of Art, under the direction of Don Elias Tormo, a wellknown Spanish archeologist.

The Altamira paintings were first discovered, accidentally, by the little daughter of the archæologist Sautuola. The remarkable skill of this prehistoric art at once attracted world-wide attention, and interest in these and other specimens discovered in various parts of the country, encouraged by the Prince of Monaco and others, has steadily. grown; so that in the last ten years alone

thirty works in Spanish and French have appeared on the subject.

The present exhibition is the result and culmination of this interest. The figures have, in most cases, been admirably reproduced. They include what seem to be Iberian letters, - those, for instance, of Fuencaliente,-spirited fishes, and suns (which seem to have been the favorite subjects of art at Las Batuecas); horseshoes, women wearing short modern skirts, pictures of the chase and of the dance, tiny and most artistic stags from the Eastern regions of the Peninsula, and the magnificent, nearly life-size wild boars and bisons of Altamira, in the Northwest. The coloring of many of these figures is often extremely interesting. An interval of thousands of years divides some of the drawings from others; but all are very

remote.

ANDREYEV'S LATEST PLAY

M. LEONID ANDREYEV lives up to his reputation for wild, savage power in the most recently published of his plays, To the Stars, one of the 'Plays for a People's Theatre,' which has just been translated by Mr. Maurice Magnus. An astronomer is the central figure of the new play, and the scene is in the remote, snow-bound observatory where he lives, remote from the struggles and passions of mankind, a philosopher and a poet, with a logic all his own. Since M. Andreyev has created this astronomer, even the cold mathematics of his science necessarily becomes a little mad.

Into the chill scientific atmosphere of the observatory come crowding suddenly the refugees from a revolution which has been crushed on the earth far below. The refugees are members of the astronomer's family, or their associates, who feel contempt for this mere

stargazer, who is lifted so far above the human struggle; for to him 'death, injustice, misfortune-all the black shadows of the earth are vain cares.'

They oppose him. Friction and hatred grow in the observatory. The astronomer's trusted assistant, incensed by the wickedness of the world of humanity, rebels against the stars which he has studied; and persecution and cruelty force his son to madness. For an instant he himself trembles on the verge of the breaking-point, but he recovers. The play closes with a salutation to creative force which is one of the finest things in the play. The essential dramatic opposition is maintained throughout, between the sufferings of earth and a faith in the distant and unknown.

THE GHOSTLY IMMIGRANT

THE London Morning Post prints the following extraordinary narrative, which no good American can fail to enjoy:

An American visitor was giving the other day some examples of the extraordinary speed and completeness with which the process of Americanization is carried out, even in the case of extreme alien types. Perhaps the most extraordinary instances occurred in the newly erected mansion, built in the style of an E-shaped Elizabethan manor, of a Chicago multi-millionaire. He decided to import a ghost to heighten the illusion of antiquity, and, after a prolonged search and the expenditure of a considerable sum of money, a satisfactory specimen was picked up in Devonshire and shipped to Chicago in cold storage. It walked by daylight and had every appearance, both as regards garb and figure, of having just missed the sailing of the Mayflower. The millionaire and his friends, some of the best people in Chicago, were delighted with its old-world looks and solemn deportment. On the third day, unfortunately, it was seen eating a doughnut.

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