The Sulphite has the true Gothic spirit; the Bromide, the impulse of the classic. One wonders, relishing the impossible, manifesting himself in characteristic, spontaneous ways; the other delights in rule and rhythm, in ordered sequences, in authority and precedent, following the law. One carves the gargoyle and ogrillion, working in paths untrod, the other limits himself to harmonic ratios, balanced compositions, and to predestined fenestration. One has a grim, _naif_, virile humor, the other a dead, even beauty. One is hot, the other cold. The Dark Ages were sulphitic--there were wild deeds then; men exploded. The Renaissance was essentially bromidic; Art danced in fetters, men looked back at the Past for inspiration and chewed the cud of Greek thought. For the Sulphite, fancy; for the Bromide, imagination. * * * * * From the fifteenth century on, however, the wave of Sulphitism rose steadily, gradually dropping at times into little depressions of Euphuistic manners and intervals of “sensibility” but climbing, with the advance of science and the emancipation of thought to an ideal--the personal, original interpretation of life. The nineteenth century showed curiously erratic variations of the curve. From its beginning till 1815, Sulphitism was upon the increase, while from that year till 1870 there was a sickening drop to the veriest depths of bromidic thought. Then the Bromide infested the earth. With his black-walnut furniture, his jig-saw and turning-lathe methods of decoration, his lincrusta-walton and pressed terracotta, his chromos, wax flowers, hoop skirts, chokers, side whiskers and pantalettes, went a horrific revival of mock modesty inspired by the dying efforts of the old formulated religious thought. And then---- when steam had had its day, impressing its materialism upon the world; making what should be hard, easy, and what should be easy, hard--came electricity--a new science almost approaching a spiritual force, and, with a rush, the telephone that made the commonplace bristle with romance! The curve of sulphitism arose. A wave of Oriental thought lifted many to a curious idealism--and, as so many other centuries had done before, there came to the nineteenth a _fin de siecle_ glow that lifted up the curve still higher. The Renaissance of thought came--came the cult of simplicity and Mission furniture--corsets were abandoned--the automobile freed us from the earth--the Yellow Book began, Mrs. Eddy appeared, radium was discovered and appendicitis flourished. * * * * *