The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, January 1904, No. 157Various
General
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, January 1904, No. 157
Various
English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
All our readers probably are familiar with the magic name of
Poole--tailor by appointment to a score of Royalties. Poole is to men's
attire what Worth is to women's. It would be strange if the artists of
Savile Row did not have a good-natured grievance against their
fellow-artists of the adjacent Burlington House.
"I shouldn't be surprised," stated the head of the firm, not without
diffidence--for it is one of the traditional principles of Poole since
Beau Brummel's time to evince a becoming reticence toward the public
aspect of his craft, "if the uninitiated person who contemplates our
public statues is forced to conclude that to wear shocking bad trousers
is one of the first essentials to political distinction. Why, many of
the statues which I have seen in London and the provinces are a standing
reproach to us. I dare say, on the other hand, the sculptor who
reconstructs our creations is convinced that he is improving upon us,
but I think there can be but one mind between the sculptor and ourselves
as to how a pair of trousers should hang in real life. And if real life,
why not in sculpture?
"I may also observe that the classical fall of the sculptured trouser
over the boot is absolutely the contrivance of the artist, and is
impossible from the tailor's standpoint. Again, although many gentlemen
in real life follow the fashion so far as to wear trousers which just
touch the upper portion of the boot, the trouser of sculpture is always
of superlative length, in spite of the multifarious folds and creases
which one would think, according to common physical laws, would tend to
diminish that length."
"An artist," writes Mr. E. F. Benson, in one of his novels,
"Limitations," "must represent men and women as he sees them, and he
doesn't see them nowadays either in the Greek style or the Dresden
style.... To look at a well-made man going out shooting gives one a
sense of satisfaction. What I want to do is to make statues like them,
which will give you the same satisfaction.... I want to make trousers
beautiful, and women's evening dress beautiful, and shirt-sleeves
beautiful. I don't mean that I shall ever make them beautiful in the
same way as the robes of the goddesses in the Parthenon pediments are
beautiful, but I shall make them admirable somehow."
And that is the great problem for the sculptors of the twentieth
century.
The Coils of Fate.
BY L. J. BEESTON.
[Illustration]
I.
"If you ever kill a man, my friends--ah! but you may--take care to
dispossess the mind of haunting fancies. Murder is a wrong against
society, certainly. So is borrowing a sovereign which you do not intend
to return. Both may be forgotten."
Vassilitch spoke across the dinner-table. His unconventional philosophy
was meant for every ear there, though he addressed himself to his
host--George Etheridge, of Hollowfield Court.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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