I have spoken of La Farge’s writings being a commentary upon his artistic acts. Often it is in a man’s lighter moments that he makes clear to us the workings of his mind, and La Farge has done so in the journal which he wrote during a vacation in the South Sea Islands. It is the spontaneous utterance of a scholar, at once a dreamer and an analyst; of an artist, also, who sees pictures everywhere; and its word-painting and many-faceted allusiveness to all kinds of memories, derived from art and life and literature, render these impressions of new scenes, which still retain some flavour of the antique world, unique in their exquisite beauty and suggestiveness. Let me quote one passage: “From the intricate tangle of green we saw the amethyst sea and the white line of sounding surf, cutting through the sloping pillars of the cocoanuts that made a mall along the shore; and over on the other side of the narrow harbour the great high green wall of the mountain, warm in the sun, its fringe of cocoanut groves and the few huts hidden within it softened below by the haze blown up from the breakers. All made a picture not too large to be taken in at a glance.” Nor yet too distant. The harbour, observe, is narrow and bounded by a high green wall of mountain. The picture was not shaping itself to him as it might have done to the eyes of a pure landscapist, but in a comparatively flat pattern, as of a wall or window decoration. He sees it with the instinct of a decorator and with his own personal predilections; for he dwells upon the combination of green and blue, which any student of his work may feel to have particular fascination for him. He notes in one part the tangle of green, its suggestive subtlety of pattern and tone; in another, where the huts are half hidden, the welcome spot of density; again, [Illustration: Copyright by John La Farge. THE ANGEL OF THE SUN. Decoration in the Church of the Paulist Fathers, New York. BY JOHN LA FARGE.] the value of mystery in the haze; and finally he correlates the beauties of contrasted forms and spaces and the varying brilliance and softness of the coloured light. As I said, it is a decorator’s vision, and the same in their different degrees of sketchiness is revealed in the water-colour drawings made at the same time. They are so many notes and records of a mind perpetually intent on decorative problems.